Maybe you’re looking for some Secret Santa gift ideas. Gift cards are a pretty hot item as well. You can spend a lot of time on these “deals for today” type sites (woot.com and the like), but you run the risk of not finding the right present for family members on your list.

In this economy, too, people are looking for Christmas gift deals all over the place. I had forgotten about this one spot I use often and felt like I should share it with you. In fact, I just bought some books for Christmas and got 8% cash back on it.

Online sales have gone up this year, and were even almost 30% higher than Black Friday. People are looking for deals online, and I’ve got just the place for you.

(If you’re already sold on it and don’t want to read more, just head on over with this link and sign up!)

Get paid for the shopping you were going to do anyway

It’s called Ebates, and quite simply you get cash back for making purchases you’d make anyway.

It almost sounds like a scam, but it’s not. If you use the website I’ll tell you about as your starting point, you can find great deals at over 1000 stores you already shop at. Then you click the link with a savings code and you’re sent to the site you would have gone to anyway.

For example, let’s take the books I picked up. I go to ebates.com and look for my Barnes and Noble store. When I click on the name, I get redirected to www.bn.com. That’s where I would have gone anyway to buy these books, only know they know I came from ebates (because of a cookie on your computer, nothing troublesome – every site in the world uses them). Whatever I buy from Barnes and Noble, I get 8% cash back.

It’s really a simple explanation

Here’s how I think this works. A lot of online retailers give people affiliate commissions for sales. Amazon, for example, gives me a small commission when you buy something via a link from my site. It’s the same exact thing.

The guys who started ebates had a great idea. They decided to partner up with online retailers to get affiliate commissions when people go to their sites via ebates. The folks at ebates give some of that affiliate commission to you, the consumer, as a way to keep you using the site. You get money, ebates gets money, and the retailers get the sales. It’s just mutually beneficial marketing.

You can save a lot of money by getting it back AND get some free stuff in the process

To save extra money, I also had a coupon for Barnes and Noble. So I bought my stuff and got the 8% cash back, but I also was still able to use the 20%-off coupon I had gotten in the mail. Sure, using the coupon makes me get less money, but all of the discounts together work really well together.

Plus when you sign up for ebates, you get free stuff right away. If you sign up for ebates, you’ll get a free $10 gift card as a bonus. You can get one for Barnes & Noble, Target, Home Depot, and more. Just for signing up for your free account.

I don’t want to sound more spammy than I already do, but I need to mention again that ebates is FREE.

Why I’m encouraging you to sign up

I try not to support stuff on my blog that I don’t think is worthwhile, and I’m definitely not in it for the money.

There are two reasons I’m encouraging you:

1. There’s no real reason not to use ebates. It’s exactly what it says it is: you get money for buying stuff you’d buy anyway. It works, and you save money (in the sense that they give it back). I’m all about saving money. If you’re using a cash back credit card, you’d get even more back (but most of the stores on ebates give you way more cash back than your credit card would if you just went to the actual store)
2. I do actually get credit if you sign up using my link and end up buying $25 worth of stuff eventually. I don’t get money every time you buy, so it’s not one of those pyramid schemes. I’d just get a small ($5 I think) commission if you sign up to use ebates and make a purchase.

I want to be clear, though, that I like it so much I wouldn’t even be offended if you didn’t use my link to sign up. Obviously I’d love it if you used my referrer link, but if you don’t want me to get credit, just go to www.ebates.com and sign up.

So there you have it! You can finish your shopping from the comforts of your own couch and get some money back for your trouble!

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Merry Christmas, everyone. Yes, this is my house. Steven bought the tree and we decorated it last night. It looks purty. Hopefully this weekend I’ll get the lights put up outside.

-santa j

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