Using the Internet to beat any recession

November 18th, 2008

With so much doom and gloom in the news about financial crisis and credit crunch, just what can you do to conserve your cash?

During times like these the internet is your friend. There are many ways you can use it to save yourself money and have some fun too.

Here’s my 5 top tips to beating any recession and save money

1) Shop online to save fuel. With fuel costs rocketing, anything you can do to reduce use of your car will save you cash. Virtually anything you may desire can be bought online – and usually at a saving to what you can find at your local retail park. If you like to see what you’re buying, then you can at least use the Net to research the best prices, saving you money and extra mileage between stores.

2) Find yourself bargains online. Use online auction sites like Ebay and classified ad sites such as Craigslist, Gumtree (and any local ones) to find bargains – regardless of whether you are buying new or secondhand. If you are more patient, search the less well known auction sites too, as they can often have good bargains.

3) Use price comparison sites. For essential charges like car & household insurance, to electricity & gas suppliers, the price comparison sites will help you get the best deal on those essential necessities. Why not make a night or two of it, reviewing all your insurance & utility commitments and see just how much money you can save yourself.

4) Find discount vouchers online. If you want an evening out – be it a restaurant , going to the cinema, bowling etc - just have a quick “Google” to see what discount vouchers can be had. Either do a Google search for restaurant discount voucher, or go to one of the many money saving tip websites - they nearly always have pages with details of what vouchers are available. (Just type “money saving tips” “money off voucher” etc into Google)

5) Stay in and have a dinner party. Instead of a big night out, why not invite friends to “bring a bottle” round for dinner. You can find some fun party games at websites like partyplan.co.uk to make you dinner party go with a bang!.

There’s my 5 top tips to use the Web to save money, have a great time and survive an economic slowdown. Can you think of any more?