Saving via group deals...

Probably many of you are familiar with the very popular group buying website - Groupon. The concept here is a company offers a great deal (anywhere from 30 to 80% off) which you can buy. There is a minimum amount of these deals that must be bought by others for the deal to be activated (if the minimum is not met, your credit card is not charged) - thus the "group" part of the name. In most cases the deal is so good and interests enough people that the stated minimum is bought within a few hours of its posting (most deals are offered for 24 hours).

Now, there are many more sites out there that offer a similar concept. Some don’t even require the minimum number and some will give you the deal free if you share the deal with a few of your friends and they buy it. The offers can be on anything from restaurants or salon services, to car care, house cleaning, photographers, golf packages, various merchandise… just about anything and everything you can imagine.

Redeeming your deal: for most of the sites, once you purchase the deal (and the minimum has been purchased within the selling period), you will get an email notifying you that your deal is ready. Typically you will receive the email the morning after the day of the sale. The email will instruct you where to go to get your deal, for Groupon and LivingSocial it is the "My Deals" area on their sites. In the "My Deals" it will list whatever deals you have bought. You print your deal from there and take it to the store to use as cash. Just that easy!

Since we all like (or need) to save money, we thought we would share some of the sites we know about with offerings for Columbus with all of you just in case you weren’t aware of some.

GroupOn – The original group buying site.

ColumbusDailyDeal – This site’s deals are all local businesses.

LivingSocial – An additional perk to this site is the great incentive where if you share this deal with your friends and three of them buy the deal, you get the deal for free.

EverSave – Many of the items, but not all, are natural and organic products. This site also gives you $5 off your first purchase.

Some of the deals through these sites are just amazing. Not all the deals, or maybe even most, will meet a need or want that you have. However it’s worth to subscribe to each just in case that one great deal comes up. Like today for me, I need bike helmets for my recently turned three year old twins and it just so happens that through Living Socially, Roll has $60 worth of product for only $30. I love their helmets, but they are pricey. With this deal, I can get two for the price of one! Even if I don’t find another deal that appeals to a need I have this year, I’ll still be really happy about this one great deal I got today.

Do you know of other sites like this? Please share! Also, please share your experiences with these types of sites with all of us, by commenting below.