Amazon.com aggressively varies their prices constantly based on a variety of factors, including matching lower prices from competitors. In addition, they often run limited-time deals like their current Lightning Deals page. But how special are those deals? For example, it may be advertised as “50% off list price”, but what if the regular price is 40% off list price?

Here’s a quick tip already known to many deal hunters – CamelCamelCamel.com tracks the historical prices for nearly every product in the huge Amazon catalog. You can also get free price alerts when a product hits a target price. A similar and less-cluttered, but also less-accurate website is Tracktor.com. All you need to do is either copy and paste the entire URL, or scroll down to find the product’s ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) under “Product Details”. Browser plugins/extensions are also available.

For example, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Canon PowerShot SX260 now at $199 which is a relatively small camera with a hefty 20X optical zoom and 1080p HD video. By going to CamelCamelCamel, I can see a history of the price drops on this rapidly-depreciating, memory-keeping gadget:

Here’s the same chart from Tracktor.com. Note that it doesn’t have the correct, current price of $199.

This camera only came out in February 2012, and is already down to $199 from $349. However, I can see the last price drop was relatively recent and perhaps not permanent. With this knowledge, it may be a good time to upgrade our last small camera which came out in January 2008 and only takes grainy video.

Holiday shopping season is upon us… According to a Black Friday survey, and the average shopper spent $423 this long weekend. Another National Retail Federation survey reported the average spending per person in 2011 was about $704. (They also spent $130 on themselves.)

Although I still avoid crowded malls like the plague, I’m not one of those Scrooges that say that you should say “sorry, I’ve gotten myself into some debt, so this year I won’t be giving any gifts”. There’s no need to spend lavishly, but even if things are tight, gift-giving should be something that you planned for ahead of time. Otherwise, unless you live like a miser, what you’re basically saying is “I prioritize giving stuff to myself higher than giving to others.”

In reality, my main problem with gift-giving is dealing with all the extra entropy generated. You get all this stuff, a certain percentage of which is useful and the rest that isn’t. Therefore, in addition to saving money, my “battle plan” includes trying to reduce the chaos and clutter inherent in the gift-giving process.

Use up all your gift cards. Every holiday season, we are lucky to receive a number of gift cards. A year later, a chunk of those gift cards still sit unused. Since I already had an entire year to use them on myself and didn’t, the new mission is to use up all those gift cards to buy other people gifts before the next wave comes in. If all else fails, I try to force myself to sell them for cash at a gift card vendor. Run your own gift card price comparison like I did, or use a site like GiftCardGranny.com.

Get 5% back on all online purchases up to $1,500 from Discover. I do all my shopping online anyway. See here for details.

Buy discounted gift cards first. For large purchases, consider buying a discounted gift card to the store where you’re shopping (with a rewards credit card of course), and then use that gift card immediately to buy the final gift. You can even buy them while in the store from your smartphone. Don’t do this unless you are sure you’re going to shop at that store.

Redeem all those points you’ve been meaning to use. If you read this site, then it’s quite likely you have a stash of points somewhere. Earn ’em and burn ’em! Citi ThankYou points, Chase Ultimate Rewards points, American Express Membership Rewards points, Discover Cash Back or other balances that you need to request, and so on. The best redemption rates are usually for either a gift card or cash.

Sell your stuff. Really, actually sell it, not just think about selling it! Use your gift-giving urge as motivation to sell your old stuff. I know, it’s hard. Try selling electronics and popular items with an Amazon Seller account, you’ll get a better price than selling to a business, but it’s a little less crazy than eBay. Use the proceeds to pay for gifts or donate to charity. If you want zero hassle, run a sellback price comparison like I did for an old iPod Touch.

Cash Back portals. Cashback portals have become very popular, and most are having promotions right now which vary day-to-day. Sites that I have regularly use and cross-compare are eBates ($10 new user bonus after any purchase of $25+), Mr. Rebates ($5 new user bonus – minimum cash-out balance is $10), BigCrumbs (no bonus, but often offers the best payouts), FatCash, and Chase Ultimate Rewards mall (need appropriate Chase card). You can even earn cash back from Amazon and eBay now in certain categories. If you use these places, don’t forget to request a payment!

Credit card bonuses. Around the holidays, the banks usually have some new offers to grab us customers. Remember, use these loss leaders for your own benefit by never carrying a balance! I usually go through another wave of applications near the end of the year, all on the same day with different browser windows. Recently there are some new offers that I may jump on – 40,000 Thankyou points = $400 from Amazon from Citi, 50,000 American miles from Citi (100k if you do the business version too), $800 in Southwest Airlines airfare from Chase, and 50,000 points = $500 in gift cards from American Express.

All together, I’m sure I could scrounge up $704 with these tactics, counteracting both the cost and clutter of gift-giving. I’ll certainly be happy when I am done with shopping, though. Got some other ways that you help offset the hit from the holidays? Share in the comments below.

The following is a guest post contributed by reader Nathan, who recently started driving a vanpool in Chicago which saved him over $350 a month in addition to making a lower environmental impact. Thanks Nathan for sharing your experiences.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, transportation costs are the second largest U.S. household expenditure after housing costs. In fact, between 2010 and 2011, an 8% rise in transportation spending was the largest percentage increase among all major components, 3.1% above even healthcare. With fuel costs rising for the personal daily driver, and even public transportation costs increasing because of fuel costs and increased demand, I sought the impossible in looking for a way to remove transportation from my budget altogether. I found my answer with vanpooling.

Vanpooling is similar to carpooling. Employees that live and work near one another and share similar schedules can form a group that conveniently gets them between home and work. With a “VANpool”, however, a municipality, university, corporation or non-profit organization provides a van for a group of people to use so that nobody in the group has to actually own and operate a personal vehicle. Each rider typically pays a low monthly fare based on distance and number of participants, which covers all costs of the vanpool including fuel, maintenance, insurance, tolls, roadside assistance, and van washes (the actual cost of purchasing the vehicle is often subsidized). And in many cases – here’s where MMB readers might get excited – the driver doesn’t pay anything!

I started a vanpool in Chicagoland about two months ago. I drive my 2012 Dodge Caravan 50 miles roundtrip each day, leaving the downtown city center where I live for the suburbs where I work. I drive five riders, who each pay $114 each month to Pace (the regional suburban transit provider) for the privilege to ride, and $20 each month to me to pay for parking (I pay a discounted rate of $99/month for parking instead of the $250/month average, a whole other story). The riders end up paying less than they would have in fuel costs alone if they were still driving, and could even consider getting rid of their vehicle altogether.

[Read more…]

In an effort to spiff up my now 2-year-old iPhone 4 so that at least it felt slimmer and newer to me, I wanted to switch to a thin and minimalist case. The official Apple-branded black bumper case at an Apple store looked nice but was priced at a shocking $29. So I jumped onto eBay and found what appeared to be the exact same case for 99 cents. Free shipping. No sales tax. Credit cards accepted via PayPal.

Just 99 cents? How was this possible? Here’s a cost breakdown:
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Here’s another potential way to cut those monthly expenses. FreedomPop is a start-up offering wireless 4G data service with a free basic plan including 500 megabytes data per month. You can earn more free data by referring your friends or doing things like product surveys or trials. No contracts, no cancellation fees, no ads. Otherwise, small overages will cost $0.02 per MB and bulk plans start from 1 GB for $10 per month. More details:

• 4G Coverage details. The service is currently based on being an MVNO of the Clearwire WiMAX 4G network which has a coverage area of about 1/3rd of the US. There are stated plans to use Sprint’s 4G LTE network plus their 3G network as a fallback in 2013.
• You’ll need a WiMAX modem, currently available as a USB modem stick or mobile WiFi hotspot “hockey puck”. The modems are “free” with a $49/$89 refundable security deposit and $5 shipping. Alternatively, you can pre-order a iPhone 4/4S or iPod Touch sleeve for $99 which won’t add much bulk.
• No per-household limit. Based on media interviews, they are okay with households getting multiple devices each with their own free 500 MB allotment.
• Fees and Upsells. They say no gotchas, but… they want $3 a month for “Speed Plus” which removes any data throttling. Usage alerts? Another $2 a month. If your account balance falls below $2 and you’re within 100 MB of your limit, it will automatically “top-up” with a $10 charge (you can turn this off in your billing settings). If you don’t use the service that month (less than 5 megabytes) they will charge you a $0.99 inactivity fee.

500 MB per month likely isn’t enough to replace your broadband internet connection, but it could definitely improve your cell phone bill. Brainstorming the various ways you could use FreedomPop to lower your monthly phone costs…

If you already pay for data, you could use this service and downgrade your current plan. If you only have a cheap basic cell phone plan for under $10 a month, now you can supplement any smartphone with free data. You could even turn an iPod Touch into a smartphone with no monthly costs at all by using Facetime, Skype, Google Voice, or other free VoIP services like the Vonage Mobile app. There are even rumors FreedomPop may start their own VoIP client. As a rough rule-of-thumb, a Skype-to-mobile/landline runs about 1 MB per minute. I’d still try and use WiFi or text messages when possible.

Looking at our billing history, I use around 1 GB a month and my wife uses only 300 MB a month. I think if I actually paid attention, I could stay under the free limits. However, I’m not sure I like the vibe of this company as their business model seems to be to advertise a completely free service but nickel-and-dime you into paying at least a few bucks per month. Once our contract is over, I don’t know if I’d rather deal with this or just switch to a Straight Talk $45 Unlimited prepaid plan with a used iPhone. But the upfront commitment is small, so I may try it out.

More: Businessweek, TechCrunch, GigaOM