By request, here’s a list of my favorite “deal” sites.

Before You Dive In: Please keep in mind that these are only tools. You’ll still need to exercise some common sense. Some deals are scams. Some “sales” are at no discount. Some coupons expire early. Some coupons were photoshopped. Some items arrive differently than described. You may “go broke saving money.” Comparison shopping is key.

Okay, here are the sites that served me well.

Slickdeals Forums: This site helped me on so many deals, it deserves its own entry. Users post deals in an open forum, and the threads can be rated (the more thumbs, the better). They’ve got a Hot Deals section for specific deals, and a subforum for coupons too. I use Deal Alerts to automatically e-mail me new deals that match my interests (example: keywords of “amazon | wii | gamecube” and 3.5 thumbs or higher). You’re going to encounter whole new abbreviations, though (example: “$10 off + F/S at TRU (YMMV)”). When that happens, look’em up here first. In case you’re wondering how Slickdeals gets their money, I have a feeling it has to do with getting referral $$ when you buy stuff through their links.

Coupon sites: Retailmenot doles out online coupon codes; I got a great hotel rate this way, but a lot of the codes are stale. You may have to try a few of them before finding one that works. Slickdeals’ Coupon forums are a great source of online codes and printable coupons for retail stores. Dealcoupon used to be a favorite of mine, but I don’t use it so much anymore.

Deal Aggregation: Clipfire aggregates a number of deal sites. If you’re looking for something specific, try searching for it here. It might be on sale… and if it’s not, at least you know what price it might come down to again later. Just keep in mind that some of the sites they aggregate might post non-deals, to boost their referral revenues. So use common sense. Looking for DVDs? Start with DVDPriceSearch. It’s tons faster than searching Amazon/Best Buy/etc individually, plus they track some of the coupon codes for you too.

Video Games: Cheapassgamer can spot a video game deal like nobody’s business. Some deals are on their homepage, but the real meat is in their forums. You have to register to see those deals, but it’s non-intrusive and well worth it. If you’re looking to trade games, don’t mind sending them through the mail, and you’re interested in titles that are 1+ years old, Goozex is the best place to go.

Amazon: Amazon.com is great, but their prices fluctuate a lot. Probably even moreso now that they’ve eliminated their price protection policy. So I use tools like Apnoti to e-mail me when a certain item’s price drops. Or you can view how Amazon’s price for an item has changed over time. I use Frozenwarrior’s bookmark to check history on the fly.

Hope that helps!