Shopbot heaven

Well, since yesterdays rant I've been given three two pounds coins in my change - maybe someone was listening, or reading this blog. All will be going straight into the tin when I get home.

Thought I'd cover shopbots today, which can be a very good way of saving a few quid, especially if you combine their use with cashback sites. In short, shopbots are search engines which will search through a number of stores and find you the cheapest price. Some are general, and there are more specialised ones for things such as CDs and DVDs. I think the secret is to use a shopbot first, and then, once you have found where the cheapest price can be found, to check through cashback sites to see where you earn the most cashback for that retailer. No point buying from someone more expensive just cause they offer cashback!

Some big shopbots which have sections for pretty much everything under the sun are Kelkoo and Pricerunner. For DVDs and CDs I particularly like find-dvd and find-cd as I find that these usually give better prices than the major shopbots. For example, yesterday I did a search for the OC season 3 boxset (I know, I know, it's hardly intelligent drama but I like it!) on find-dvd. Release on 4 September it's RRP is £61.99 - a bit much for a DVD box set in my opinion. I'd seen it in Virgin for £42.99 which I thought was pretty good - £19 cheaper, but thought I'd have a look online just in case. According to find-dvd CD-wow are selling it for £32.99, and what's more, if I shop trhough Greasy Palm I get a further 2% cashback - total saving of nearly £30 and all for taking 5 minutes to look online.

If you're really broke, most of the cashack sites will also pay you a few pence for every search you do on a listed Shopbot. It literally is a couple of pennies, and the amount of searches you can do per day are limited, but use every cashback site every day and you'll probably make about an extra £20 a month - if you can be bothered...

Current £2 total - £10