Budget Better: Price Adjustments

I have a lot of different tips and tricks for how you can save money online, but I don’t think I’ve talked a lot about one of my favorite secrets.

Price Adjustments.

Never heard of it? Or need a little refresher?

Okay, let’s say the top you’ve been staring at at J.Crew finally goes on sale. You bite the bullet and buy it. A week later, it goes on sale and is even less expensive. Now, some people would go to the store, return the old one and buy the new one. But you’re a savvy shopper and you know that’s a waste of time. So you instead call J.Crew, give them your order number and ask for a price adjustment on your recent order.

Boom. Money goes back in your bank account.

Now, I love asking for price adjustments and as my mom can tell you, I’ll sit on the phone until the customer service agent gives me my price adjustment. However, when you’re in the business of only shopping online, I can get kind of exhausted checking in on all of the price adjustments. Especially these days with prices going up and down all of the time.

Since my time is a little more precious, I have two different tools I use to track price adjustments for me.

The first is Shoptagr. I’ve talked about it before as a tool you can use when you’re waiting to buy an item. But I’ll also keep the tracker on once I’ve purchased it so I can know if the price has dropped even more. They’ll just send me an email alert once the price drops again, I pick up the phone, and done! More money.

The second tool is Paribus. Paribus is the tool for those who really don’t have the time or patience to make calls (I’ve been in this camp lately). With Paribus, you just give it access to your email account. It then scans your receipt emails, makes a note of what you’ve purchased, and then track the price. If Paribus sees that the price has dropped and it’s still within the correct time frame, IT SENDS AN EMAIL TO CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR YOU. And then you get a beautiful little email from that store’s customer service letting you know that they’re making a price adjustment for you.

I know that the idea of giving something access to your email account is hard, but trust me, it’s been so worth it. In February, they found almost $70 in price adjustments for me. Win win. And it’s not just for clothes. They’ll check all of your online receipts, so you can get cash back on furniture, Amazon orders, Target, etc.

So yes, part of my being better about my money this year is spending less money (aka less shopping). But if you’re still going to end up buying things, why not make sure you’re covered in case the price goes now?