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Top 20 Web 2.0 sites for frugal living




January 20th, 2008 at 8:00 am

Here is a definitive list of the top ‘Web 2.0‘ sites that relate to frugal living (whew, this took a while!). Please Stumble It and let us know your favorites!

Consumer Info

Zillow

house.jpgThis is one of the neatest Web 2.0 sites of 2007. You can list your home for sale, browse homes in your area, and see comparisons of real estate estimates. It’s a great tool to get a sense of the local real estate market.

Fixya and ExpertVillage

Do-it-yourself resources in which users provide each other with advice. Fixya has product-specific Q&A’s for troubleshooting your appliances and gadgets, while ExpertVillage has user-submitted videos that provide a variety of expert tutorials.

Epinions

View consumer opinions for pratically everything. Sort through products top-down to see the best that you can buy. Note that if you submit reviews, you can make $10 for every 10 products.

Cooking/Restaurants

food.jpgTastespotting

This website looks delicious! If you have posted a recipe onto your blog (for Menu Plan Monday, as an example), you can post a high- quality picture to this web site with a link back to your page. Users then browse pictures posted throughout the blogosphere.

Example: top 100 pictures roundup at NotCot.com

Group Recipes

An extensive social network of people sharing their favorite recipes with each other. Make friends and browse a large assortment of foods. There is an exceptionally frugal feature that allows you to search for recipes based on what is in your pantry.

Yelp!

A web site with consumer reviews of restaurants (as well as shopping). Note that this integrates into Google Earth so that you can view the locations of restaurants alongside reviews.

Shopping

Kayak

a-kayak-big-orange.gifA popular tool that aggregates flight, hotel, and vehicle rental information to help you find the best deals on your travels. It compares results against sites such as Expedia, Hotwire, Priceline and more to give you a complete internet-wide search.

Like

A great way to shop online. You click through photos of clothing and see a variety of other items that are similar in design. While browsing, you can even view clothes by their shape and color.

Etsy

Buy and sell hand crafted items. A fun way to earn extra cash. To get started, you might ask tips from Mrs. Micah, who has her own Etsy store (90% donated to charity!).

Budgeting Tools

Kacie wrote about the next three sites recently, but they are worth a second mention. Mint

Mint has become my favorite money management tool. I was not satisfied until they recently added features to allow you to see month-to-month spending in all budget categories. Next, I hope they allow customizing categories; there are just too many, so it is hard to setup your expenses accurately.

Wasabe

The money management on Wasabe is not up to par, but the social network allows you to see many great money-saving tips from other users.

PearBudget

Although we prefer Mint, many people have security concerns, and other issues, about some online money management websites. Pear Budget is an alternative that may work best for certain users. Note: It’s free for now, but expect them to charge in the future.

Frugal Blogosphere tools

StumbleUpon

Many of you may be familiar with StumbleUpon, a popular website and Firefox toolbar to view random webpages recommended by others. There are categories such as "Bargains/Coupons" to allow you to browse the internet’s best frugal web pages.

Instacalc

Frugal Bloggers can embed this tool to design a simple calculator into their webpages. This is what I used to design our Recipe Cost Calculator. Also browse through others’ calculators, too - Trent at TheSimpleDollar created a great example of how income taxes are calculated.

Free Online Alternatives

Songza/Pandora - Search for songs and play them instantly over the internet.
SplashUp
- Free online tool similar to Photoshop.
Joost - Free TV shows via downloadable software.
Skype - Free phone calls to other computers.

This post will be included in the Frugal Tools section of Sense to Save. I hope you liked it! 

Note: Written as a guest post by Kacie’s husband. Please comment to add your own favorite websites!

Related posts
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25 Comments »

2008-01-19 22:47:30

Thanks–this was a wonderful list with many sites new-to-me.

wonders how in the world I can get my husband to help out with my job, er, hobby…

 
Comment by Jana
2008-01-20 13:27:46

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Thank you! I’m so excited to have read this blog today! i have enjoyed these hidden sites with such good recomendation.

 
Comment by Adrian Keys
2008-01-20 14:29:11

Just goes to show…I am on the web 24/7 and it’s the first I am seeing a few of these.

Tell hubby it was well worth the time.

 
Comment by Julie
2008-01-20 14:34:42

Great post Kacie’s hubby!

Now…to get my hubby to be a guest blogger…why, that would be a miracle!

I’ll be sure to check out some of these sites as I’ve not heard of several of them :)

 
Comment by Shinade
2008-01-20 17:13:25

Wonderful share…thank you so much Kacie. And send that thanks along to your hubby!!:)

 
Comment by garry
2008-01-20 19:12:39

… I ‘m always looking for ways to save!

 
Comment by Slim
2008-01-21 00:39:38

VERY useful post. I’m Blinking it.

Thanks, Kacie’s hubby!

 
Comment by 1stopmom
2008-01-21 01:24:05

Thanks so much. I am with Adrian Keys. I am online all the time and some of these sites are new to me.

 
Comment by Miss Thrifty
2008-01-21 17:01:43

Thanks for the great list of links. Lots of great sites to add to my ‘required reading’ collection. I’d also recommend bargain sites like stealdeals.net and bensbargains.net

Comment by Dave
2008-08-13 20:00:41

Hi guys,

I notices someone mentioned StealDeals.net in the comments. As of 1 week ago, StealDeals.net was rebranded to DealStop.com. . It is still the same ownership, just a new look and feel. I was hoping you could update your StealDeals.net links to reflect the new website: DealStop.com!
Thanks so much!
Dave.

 
 
2008-01-21 19:50:59

This is really a great list.

 
Comment by BuzzillionsEmma
2008-01-22 15:10:16

Product reviews are a lot more credible on http://www.buzzillions.com rather than Epinions.com, because on Buzzillions people are verified whether they have actually purchased the products or not, whereas people on Epinions are paid to write reviews.

On Buzillions you can also compare prices with a number of different vendors to find the best deal, unlike other review sites.

 
2008-01-26 12:01:52

[...] Top 20 Web 2.0 Sites for Frugal Living at Sense to Save [...]

 
2008-02-11 07:12:19

[...] Popular Posts Top 20 Web 2.0 sites for frugal livingA few budgeting tools to considerThe Better Budget 2008 Challenge!Must you buy Brand-X? Or are you [...]

 
Comment by Bogdan
2008-03-17 13:00:46

Not so helpful for me, but giving the link to friend of mine :)

 
Comment by SpilltoJill
2008-03-23 16:02:10

nice links!

 
2008-03-28 00:12:33

Have you checked out Upromise, a shopping site for saving for college? As posted on my blog (Roxiticus Desperate Housewives) I have saved thousands of dollars with them. Unfortunately for me, they’re not paying me to blog about it, but Upromise is a great way to save if you have college-bound kids (and the earlier the better).

Comment by Kacie
2008-03-28 12:44:05

I have set up an account with Upromise, but for some reason, I’m not making much money with them. I’m up to uh…five cents, I think, lol. Maybe I’m not shopping at the right stores.

2008-03-28 23:37:38

Well, I did refinance two mortgages with Upromise…and you also have to get grocery store loyalty cards and register them online in order to get the pennies each time you go to the supermarket. Of course, then it feels more like little old lady coupon clipping than it does hip online savings!
Roxiticus Desperate Housewives

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by Ju
2008-04-02 07:38:34

Great top ! thanks ! :)

 
2008-06-06 17:51:58

[...] 20 Web 2.0 Tools for the Frugal Minded – Web 2.0 is about more than just YouTube and Facebook. These 20 web 2.0 tools are cooler than LOLcats (oh, wait…) [...]

 
Comment by Mag
2008-06-20 22:51:39

Excellent links!!
I am not sure if these web 2.0 or not but following is a must visit site for bargain hunters or frugal minded folks.
http://www.dealsofamerica.com -
updated every hour - Post over 200 deals in a day. I have saved a lot from them.
I guess you can check deals @ dealsofamerica.com and buy via upromise to get cashback on already discounted deals.

 
Comment by Rachel
2008-07-01 11:47:41

Wow, this list was really helpful! I particularly like http://www.viewpoints.com. Not only does it have really good reviews that are actually helpful, it also has a really great sense of community. I feel like I can get to know the people whose reviews I’m reading. I have the ability to read reviews from people who are like me.

 
Comment by Jerry Dill
2008-07-21 16:07:26

I love Kayak. It is easy to use and always seems to pick up more and better flights at cheaper prices than I can get anywhere else.

 
Comment by Allen
2008-10-02 14:39:10

Good list!

Recently I found a site http://www.dealzin.com.
They provide many good deals or free coupons for apparel, digital cameras, LCD HDTV, computers, flash drives, etc everything. You can buy many discounted items from this site.

 
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