fashion

The genius money saving trick we had no idea about.

Get out the laptop and break out the wine — online shopping is about to get a whole lot cheaper.

Imagine your favourite online shop holding a sale every day. That’s essentially the premise of Honey, a genius toolbar add-on that purely exists to save you serious money.

It takes two seconds to install, requires no extra work on your part, and ensures you’re always privy to deals and discounts without having to flick through hundreds of junk emails, catalogues or coupons.

Yep, shopping heaven does exist.

Listen: Financial planner Canna Campbell shares her best money-saving tricks. Post continues after audio.

After clicking to install, Honey uses its magic internet-searching skills to find all the current coupon codes available for whichever site you’re on and automatically applies any valid and applicable ones to your order when you check out.

Say, for example, you’re doing your daily peruse on ASOS. As soon as you click on the site, the Honey bar will pop up with a number indicating how many coupons it has found. Clicking it will reveal a list, indicating whether the coupons are still valid and if they’ve been working for other Honey users.

Watch: The items we’re currently loving in the Mamamia office. (Post continues after video.)

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When you get to checkout, simply click the “Find Savings” button in the browser extension and the best coupon will be applied for you. Shopping wizardry.

Essentially, this means you’re free to ‘add to cart’ to your heart’s desire, knowing that by shopping you’re actually saving yourself money. (That’s how it works, right?)

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Image: Supplied/Honey

 

 

The add-on is currently available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera, and the list of stores Honey has coupons available for is increasing with each update.

The button will also only appear if it's found deals that will save you money, so you don't have to deal with annoying pop-ups all the time.

Downloading and creating a log in took me two minutes (all that's required is an email address, although you can log in via Facebook) and considering I'll be saving money every time I shop, it's a small price to pay. (Post continues after gallery.)

But prepare yourself, people — it gets better. There's also a feature called Honey Gold which rewards you with, you guessed it, money for shopping.

Honey gets a commission from shops when you purchase one of their items item using the app, and in certain shops you will be given back a percentage of that commission as HoneyGold, which when accumulated and can be redeemed as cash or gift cards later on.

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Run (to download), don't walk. Image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

 

And, unlike things that sound too good to be true, the almost 10,000 five star reviews from Chrome users has us pretty well convinced.

Now excuse me, I have some discounts (and free money) to chase.

Image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Have you tried it before? Got any other online shopping tips?