Yahoo Finance 5 New Money-Saving Websites You Haven't Heard Of
When was the last time you wrote a paper check or searched for someone through the Yellow Pages? My guess is that it's been quite a while. Fifty years ago, it would have been unimaginable to transfer money with a click of a button on mobile devices. But now, new apps, websites, and other technologies are helping us save money and become more and more efficient.
Here are five new sites to help you save money.
Priceonomics. Have you ever tried to sell something on Craigslist but didn't really have an idea on how much to ask for it? Or have you tried to buy something online but weren't sure if you were getting the best deal? This is where Priceonomics comes in.
Priceonomics is the price guide for everything. It takes the guesswork out of the process and tells you exactly how much you should be paying for any used item. When you search for an item, you can see how the site's team came up with the price and view the data they used. If you're searching for an out-of-the-ordinary item, always double-check the data to make sure they are comparing prices from the actual product you're looking for.
Aisle50. Daily deal sites have taken the Web by storm. These sites potentially create impulse-buying decisions, but Aisle50 (www.aisle50.com) provides deals on things that people need every day--groceries. Consumers can save 30 to 60 percent on brand-name items such as Kelloggs, Country Crock, Marie Callender's, and Kleenex. After a consumer purchases an item from Aisle50, a coupon gets loaded straight onto their loyalty card. Simply pick up the item at your grocery store, scan your loyalty card, and the item comes out free.
Dealupa. I started to unsubscribe to a lot of daily deal sites because many of the deals were irrelevant to me. Why should a guy like me be receiving daily deals for manicures and pedicures? Dealupa aims to solve this problem by aggregating all the daily deals out there and presenting the ones that match your interest.
But Delupa doesn't just aggregate deals; it also ranks them. If there are multiple deals for "spas" on any given day, Dealupa will present you the highest-quality deals. It will look at Yelp ratings, check to see how many people are sharing and "liking" the deals via social networks, and check the quality and reputation of the daily deal site. This way, you'll be sure you're getting the best deals straight to your inbox.
Carsabi. Car shopping can be quite stressful. I've been there--it takes a lot of work to figure out a used car's fair market value. Carsabi is the ultimate tool for used-car research. It's different than other sites because it ranks the search results based on the best value. Other sites get paid by dealerships to have their listings more prominent. Plus, the number of cars the site has listed is huge. Carsabi crawls the Web nightly for great deals to create a bigger inventory than its competitors.
SpringCoin. SpringCoin (www.springcoin.com) is an automated debt-relief coach. In minutes, SpringCoin can analyze your financial information and give you a customized "debt-free roadmap" that tells you who to pay, how much to pay, and when to pay. Similar to Mint.com, SpringCoin will track and monitor your budget and provide personalized spending insights on how you can save money every month.
You can link bills such as your utilities, cable/Internet, and student loans, so you can be reminded of upcoming payments that are due. SpringCoin provides weekly goals and challenges that are designed to make small incremental changes in your spending behavior to accelerate your way out of debt. (Full disclosure: I'm one of the founders of SpringCoin.)
Technology has created innovative solutions to tackle today's problems. The more time we save, the more money we save. Which one of these sites could you see yourself using?
Kevin Yu is a Huffington Post contributor and a member of Y Combinator--the startup incubator that nurtured companies such as Reddit, Disqus, Justin.tv, and Scribd.
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