You’ll want to cook your own goose if you miss this online money saver

Stores online and offline are fighting tooth and nail for your money this holiday season.  The deals are far from over, of course.

If you're planning to save yourself a whole boatload of stress and buy most (all?) of your gifts online this holiday season, then I hope that you've become well-acquainted with rebate portals like Mr. Rebates.  If not, then here's a super-quick introduction to saving money with Mr. Rebates:

1. Sign up.  Once you're in your account starts with $5.
2. From now on, instead of going directly to Target's website (for example) to buy stuff, go to Mr. Rebates and click through to Target from there.  Just one extra hop.
3. Mr. Rebates keeps track of what you buy, and you get a cut of your qualifying purchases deposited into your account.  (This is currently 4% at Target.)
4. Once you've got $10 or more in available rebates, you can request payment through PayPal or by check (in the US and Canada).  It's that easy!

I used Target as an example but there are well over 2,000 online merchants for which you can get some kind of kickback from Mr. Rebates.  What's more, Mr. Rebates is offering extra rebates on nearly a quarter of these merchants.  For example, PetSmart's rebate jumped from 5% to 12%, and this will stay in force through Christmas Eve.  One I may take a peek at is Skullcandy (from 5% up to 7%); I've got my eye one some headphones. 😉  Check out the link in the upper right of Mr. Rebates to get the link to the full list.

I've loved Mr. Rebates.  They pay on time, too.  The rebates hit my PayPal account promptly at the beginning of the month following my request.  I wish I had found them a long time ago.