Follow These Savvy Tips When Shopping Online
Major sales events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up very soon, and you’re gearing up to do a ton of online shopping. Before you start filling up your digital shopping carts with stuff, you should read these savvy tips about online shopping.
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Use Your Credit Card
Whenever you’re shopping online, you should use your credit card to make your purchases. Not only is it easier to use your credit card, but it’s also smart. Your credit card can provide you with certain benefits that your bank card just can’t, like extended warranties for electronics and price protection. If your credit card offers these benefits, you will want to take advantage of them while you’re online shopping.
Disputing Transactions
Credit cards also provide more consumer protections than bank cards. Say that you need to dispute a transaction that you made online. Disputing a transaction with a credit card is much easier than with a bank card since the transaction can be easily canceled. All you have to do is contact your credit card company and let them know about the issue. The company should be able to cancel the transaction, giving you your money back. With a debit card, you will have to contact the seller yourself and try to ask for a refund — and there is a risk that the seller won’t respond or give you your money back.
Fraud Protection
More importantly, your credit card offers more protections in cases of financial fraud. If you happen to insert your credit card information into a sketchy website, you might realize a few days later that your credit card statement has purchases that you didn’t remember making. The good news is that many credit cards have 0% liability for unauthorized transactions, meaning that you will not be responsible for covering any fraudulent charges on your credit card. You will not have to pay a single dollar for the problem. Just call your credit card company when you notice the transactions and it will work to rectify the problem.
For debit cards, you will be liable for up to $50 in unauthorized purchases — and that is only if you report the fraud soon after it happens. If you wait too long to discover and report the issue, you will be liable for more.
Make a Spending Limit
If you love shopping online, it’s easy to go overboard with your spending (especially when you’re charging the purchases to your credit card). To keep yourself restrained and your credit card balance at a reasonable level, you should create a personal budget that includes a spending limit for your shopping needs.
Why Make a Spending Limit?
Without a spending limit, you could get yourself into some hot water. You could give yourself far too high of a credit card balance to pay down through your card’s regular billing cycle. You could put your checking account into overdraft and get charged a slew of different bank fees. At the very least, you could leave yourself without enough available funds to cover an emergency expense before your next paycheck comes in.
If you’re ever in a situation where you can’t handle an emergency expense, you could apply for a personal loan for help. With an approved loan, you could handle an emergency expense in a short amount of time. Find out the other ways you might benefit from a direct deposit loan or another borrowing solution in a crisis. This information could come in handy in the future.
Follow the 48-Hour Rule
If you have a bad habit of impulse shopping, leave your items in the digital shopping cart for 24-48 hours before you complete the purchase. Once that time is up, go back to the shopping cart and see whether you still want to go through with the transaction. You might find that after the moment has passed, you don’t actually want to buy it that badly and then delete it from your cart.This could save you a lot of money.
Get More Savings
Always check to see whether there’s a way to get a better deal. It doesn’t take very long when you’re online shopping.
Use website extensions like Honey and The Camelizer to find the best deals. Browse newsletters and social media posts from your favorite retailers to find the latest promo codes and discounts. Go to couponing websites to see whether you can use any digital coupons to reduce your final bill and pocket a bunch of savings.
Do your online shopping the right way. Make sure that you’re following these savvy tips while you browse the digital aisles!
