The Cheapskate

Keep BetterDeal on hand at the grocery store to figure out which size offers the best deal.

As I often tell people, it's not the price of the iPhone that bothers me--it's the monthly fees! (Grumble, grumble, AT&T, grumble.)

Alas, while there's no way to get around that $70/month minimum, at least I can use my iPhone to save money on other things: gas, groceries, books, DVDs, and even energy. Let's take a look at five killer apps that can help you pocket extra cash.

• BetterDeal Next time you find yourself standing in a supermarket trying to figure out which size box of corn flakes provides the best bang for the buck, fire up BetterDeal. This 99-cent app lets you compare prices for up to four packages to see which is, well, the better deal.
• Gas Buddy Saving a nickel or dime per gallon of gas may not seem like much, but it adds up over time. Gas Buddy ($2.99) shows you which nearby stations have the lowest prices (and provides maps if you don't know the area), so you can pocket that extra change every time you fill up. (Obviously this app works best for those who live in densely populated areas--and drive a lot.)
• MeterRead You know the mantra: Save electricity, save money, save the planet. But does turning off lights when you leave a room really make an impact? MeterRead helps you find out by keeping tabs on meter readings (which you record periodically) and projecting your energy usage. It's strictly an informational tool (one with a mediocre interface), but if you're serious about saving energy, this 99-cent app should help.
• pic2shop So you're at Target, about to plunk down your cash on Firefly: The Complete Series on DVD (good call), but then you wonder: Is this the best price? Find out fast with pic2shop, which scans product barcodes and quickly pulls up the prices from "thousands of online retailers" (according to the developer). The live (i.e. real-time) barcode scanning is seriously cool, and the app itself costs nothing. Win-win!
• Yowza Mobile Coupons In an ideal world, your iPhone will serve up proximity-based coupons, like "get $1 off now!" when you drive by a Jamba Juice. For now, Yowza (free) is the closest thing. It finds deals in your area, though only from merchants that have partnered with the service. That may limit its viability for some users (get more partners, Yowza!), but I found about half a dozen coupons within 15 miles--including one for Finish Line, and I'm in the market for new running shoes. Score!

I know a lot of people are partial to AAA Discounts, which serves up deals near your location. Great app, but only if you're a triple-A member.

I'm also a fan of the suggestion over at Wise Bread to use Pandora instead of buying music, though why limit yourself to one music-streaming app? Grab Last.fm and Slacker while you're at it.

OK, you've got my picks. Now tell me what apps you've used to save money--and how much you've saved!

Save 50 percent on the Bike or Die-inspired Moto X Mayhem.

Nothing beats a good iPhone game when you've got five minutes to kill (or pummel, as it were).

Much as I love freebies, sometimes you have to pony up to get the games you want. Fortunately, even the top titles occasionally go on sale, as with these five gems:

• Fist of Fury Boxing: Normally $4.99, this Nintendo 64-style slugfest is on sale for just 99 cents.
• Galaga Remix: Includes both the original arcade classic and the amped-up "remix" version, which features power-ups, boss fights, and the like. It's on sale for $2.99, normally $5.99. Same goes for Dig Dug Remix.
• Metal Gear Solid Touch: Marked down to $2.99 from $7.99, the console classic is widely regarded as one of the top iPhone shooters.
• Moto X Mayhem: This motocross-inspired take on the classic Bike or Die relies heavily on accelerometer controls and features an online leaderboard. It's now 99 cents (down a buck).
• NFL 2010: Save three bucks on this Madden-style football sim, currently on sale for $4.99.

Have you found any good sales lately? Civilization for $4.99 was hard to beat, but it's back up to $9.99 (rats). Share your favorite game deals in the comments.

Stanza: download 10 free e-books from Random House and thousands more from other sources.

I love reading books on my iPhone, but I don't love e-book prices. I mean, digital content requires no printing, binding, shipping, storage, or heavy lifting--so why does Amazon charge the same price for the Kindle edition of "The Kite Runner" as for the paperback?

That's a debate for another day (though let me go on record saying I'd buy a lot more e-books if they were priced in the $1 to $4 range). For now, let's look at ways you can read on the cheap--or, at least, the cheaper--on your iPhone.

• Look for freebies Stanza, one of my favorite e-book viewers (just acquired by Amazon, incidentally), connects you with thousands of freebies. For example, check out the Random House Free Library, which currently stocks 10 mainstream e-books. (Best bet: Charlie Huston's superb crime-noir series, which starts with "Caught Stealing.") Meanwhile, there's Google Book Search, a browser-based solution that connects you to a whopping 1.5 million public-domain books. Point Safari to http://books.google.com/m.
• Look for deals E-bookseller Fictionwise already discounts its e-books, but you can stretch your dollar even further by setting up a "Micropay" account (i.e., a debit account). Most books come with a Micropay rebate, meaning you get 10 percent to 15 percent of the purchase price added back to your account. But sometimes Fictionwise runs rebate specials, as it's doing right now with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series: Buy any/all of the books and you get back 100 percent. You can read Fictionwise e-books using eReader or Stanza. (Just make sure to choose titles that are available in the Secure eReader format.)
• Try before you buy Amazon's Kindle app lets you read free of charge the entire first chapter of any book in the Kindle Store. That's a great way to see if you like a book before plunking down your $10. However, you can't browse the store from within the app: You have to queue up your sample chapters from your browser. Not so with Shortcovers, an e-book viewer with a built-in bookstore that offers sample chapters for many titles (but only forewords for others).
... Read more

(Credit: Rick Broida)

There I was, about to order something from Buy.com for Mrs. Cheapskate (am I way ahead on holiday shopping? Yes I am!), when I noticed the ever-popular Promotion Code box.

Rats, I thought--I don't have a promotion code. But then, a light bulb: maybe the Web does.

A quick Google search later ("Buy.com promotion code"), I'd snagged a 5-percent-off coupon. Total savings: $7.50. Not a fortune by any stretch, but a pretty good return on my 30-second Google effort.

There's also a site called DealLocker that collects coupons under one roof for easier searching and browsing.

I've done this a few times before. While at the checkout page for an online store, I'll pop open a new browser tab and search for coupon codes. Sometimes the results are fruitful, like today, but not always. Sometimes the codes are expired or invalid. But, hey, it never hurts to try. The moral of the story: a few minutes of searching can often save you a few bucks--and maybe even more than a few. Give it a try the next time you buy.

(Credit: Rick Broida)

Stand back! My cheapskate senses are tingling! A new site called Daily Dollar Deals catalogs soon-to-end eBay auctions that have prices below $1. Just pick a category--anything from Antiques to Video Games--and you'll see a list of all under-a-buck auctions, sorted by time remaining. (You can also drill down into sub-categories to get more targeted listings, and there's a search option as well.)

Talk about a great way to scoop up bargains! Admittedly, sometimes the stuff that's selling for a buck isn't worth much more than that, but there are exceptions. For instance, I found four tickets for tonight's Pistons vs. Cavaliers game. Cheap seats, sure, but if I can take my whole family to see LeBron for 99 cents? Oh, yeah, I'm there. (But make no mistake: I'll be rooting for the Pistons.)

Daily Dollar Deals also offers a categorical list of Amazon products based on discount, from 10-90 percent. However, those numbers usually take into account used items as well as new--just something to keep in mind.

For anyone who loves the thrill of scoring dirt-cheap deals, I highly recommend bookmarking Daily Dollar Deals. My only concern is how much time I'll end up wasting there.

[via AppScout]

(Credit: Free Shipping On)

There's a new Web site in town that has Cheapskate written all over it: Free Shipping On. Terrible name, great service: It enables you to search Amazon and eBay for only those items that have free shipping. It also corrals free-shipping deals from over 500 other stores, from Apple to Home Depot to WebUndies.com.

I particularly like the eBay search tool, as it drives me nuts when I find a seemingly great deal on something and then discover a ridiculously inflated shipping charge. Both the Amazon and eBay tools can be added to your browser's list of search engines, meaning you can use them without having to visit Free Shipping On proper.

While you're at it, stop by Deal Locker, a discount-coupon site from the same developers.

via AppScout