It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but holiday shopping is looking a little different this year. For starters, the majority of it will take place online, which means no more fighting the crowds in the wee hours of the post-Thanksgiving morning for the best deals. With Prime Day moved to October and unofficially kicking off the shopping season, major retailers are following suit and starting their holiday sales now instead of waiting for Black Friday. What are you waiting for? The best shopping season is already in full swing!
OOLA loyalists, we see you. “Okay, a holiday sale is great, but we’re still going to take on the tedious task of scouring the internet for any other bonus coupons,” you say. Well, I have good news for saving time and money while you do your holiday shopping. I stumbled upon the ultimate secret weapon for holiday shopping: Honey. This convenient shopping tool is a super easy and free service to add to your internet browser. It automatically finds and applies coupon codes at checkout and can also notify you when items drop in price. In addition to promo codes and coupons on the most popular online shopping sites, Honey also features access to daily deals in your personalized shopping feed.
If you’re still a bit wary, let the 100,000+ five-star reviews speak for themselves. Honey has helped over 17 million members shop with confidence and save time and money. They boast their tool saves shoppers an average of $126 a year on everything from pizza to furniture and shoes to travel. Over the years, Honey has found its members over $2 billion(!) in savings and has rewarded its members with more than $8 million in rewards.
Read on for my personal shopping experience with this tool and to learn about how this suite of shopping features takes all the guesswork out of buying. Go forth, Miss Santa, confident that you’re making the best decisions with your dough.
How Honey Works
First, I added the Honey tool to my internet browser. It was a super quick and safe download. Once downloaded, I set up my account by connecting the tool to my Facebook account. You can also connect your existing Google, PayPal, or Apple account, or by creating a separate login. It’s that easy and it’s completely free. Once I joined, I began noticing that each time I visited a supported store, the orange Honey icon would alert me to available savings. It also gave me the option to start saving items to my Droplist for later, which made my Christmas list creation super effortless. The Bargain Basic in me was cheering with joy!
Honey’s Money-Saving Tools
Honey’s Savings Finder
Probably the most well-known Honey feature—and my new personal favorite—is the Savings Finder. It scours the internet for promo codes and coupons and automatically applies the best one to your shopping cart. That’s right, no more endless scouring of coupon sites, pouring over emails, or keeping tabs on the active promo codes. When Honey is able to find discounts, their average savings is 18%!
I noticed the Savings Finder pop up when I selected my Macy’s cart to checkout. It notified me there were seven active coupons that my cart might be eligible for. With one click, “Apply 7 Coupons”, Honey instantly tried the Macy’s codes it compiled from all over the internet and saved me an additional 20%! Obviously, that meant it was time to keep shopping with my unexpected extra savings.
Honey’s Droplist Detects Price Drops
The next handy Honey tool I was introduced to is the Droplist tool. It quickly shows you when it’s the right time to buy at stores like Madewell, Sephora, and Lowe’s. Simply add items to your Droplist and it will give you a heads up when the price goes down. This price tracking tool is especially useful for things you don’t need right away or aren’t ready to buy just yet.
Since I got a much earlier start with my holiday shopping this year (I’ll take the adulting points, thank you), I decided to put Droplist to the test for some items I’m certain to buy eventually. For the fur children, I added a few toys and treats to my Droplist from Petco. For the human kiddos, Gamestop additions were also a must, of course. Santa’s elves haven’t lasted this long without budget-friendly shopping hacks! I’ve now gotten in the habit of checking my Droplist quickly each day for any price movement and am ready to jump on the best time to buy. Bonus: I’m no longer keeping track of my Christmas lists on my phone!
Honey’s Price History Tool
In a past professional life, I used to be a buyer, and boy would I have killed for this functionality back then. Honey’s price history tool is my other go-to in their arsenal. This pop-up displays the price fluctuations of a particular product instantly as you browse, helping to ensure you choose the right time to purchase.
For example, after writing about the Danish concept of hygge, I had my eye on a book called Pantsdrunk, which is all about the Finnish path to relaxation. I decided to test this tool there first because self-gifting shows love too! Would you believe that the price is 66.7% higher than it has been in the past month? Who knew prices could seesaw like that? Thanks to Honey’s eagle-eye, I think I’ll wait until it comes back down.
Honey Is Supported By 40,000 Popular Sites
By this point, I was completely sold on Honey for all my holiday gifting needs. I was ready to go all-in on making any Honey-supported sites my own personal Santa’s Workshop. I decided to check out their current partner list and, much to my delight, Honey automatically applies coupons on over 40,000(!) partnered sites. This extensive catalog more than covers everyone on my list, even my impossible to shop for father (thanks, Lowe’s!).
After that peace of mind, I decided to continue browsing my favorite sites and looking for my friendly orange H icon to light up with my available savings. Whenever you’re visiting a supported store—like Madewell, Dell, or Petco—your Honey helper pops up, tests every working coupon, and applies the best one to your cart. I also followed my favorite stores to be notified of current sales.
This year has been stressful enough for us all. Don’t make your holiday shopping more difficult than it has to be. Honey has quickly become my newest favorite time-saving—and more importantly, money-saving—tool. Try it for yourself now! Let Honey track how much cash it saves you this season and thank me later.
