My generation is hopelessly addicted to the internet. We’re buying a lot of stuff online. But we’re not so loyal to our favorite websites. If you haven’t seen The Daily Mail yet, don’t bother reading this article — you’re just going to get there by accident. It’s all part of a long, long trend that we’re collectively “embracing the digital lifestyle.” It’s certainly painful when you realize that, aside from the small print, all of your favorite sites are charging you to get in-depth information you’ve been craving for free: with the internet economy essentially a money game, sites and apps compete in bids to be the most sought-after. There’s simply no other way to get by without every fact they’ve accumulated, every fact you’ve access to.
That’s where saving money comes in. If you’re spending time Googling your way through every site you know you want to know more about, you may find yourself deleting Pinterest, Instafone and Instagram over the course of the day. But instead of focusing on deleting the sites and apps you don’t have time for, try saving time by taking advantage of the free services that could seriously boost your savings. Below are some simple tips that can save you thousands. So the next time you’re shopping online and you want to make every single single purchase as easy as possible, try these tricks.
1. Copy and paste your favorite websites’ links into your browser
If you can’t quite make time to sit down and actually go through all of your favorite sites and every article that’s available to them, try saving time by copying and pasting the links they link to into your web browser. If they write “…try searching for this interesting feature at such-and-such news site,” chances are you’ll find an article you’re interested in when you go to type “…Search Expert,” and the site you’re looking at will show up in the auto-fill field. To save a particular article, simply copy and paste the article’s URL and page number from the direct search page you wanted to search, and from there, that article can be saved right into your bookmarklet or history.
2. Subscribe to targeted newsletters, select interesting topics
You probably find that most news articles you want to read are posted in no-longer-favorable sections of websites. Much of your time on the internet is spent bouncing from site to site looking for new information. So try putting together your own online newsletter by filling out a spreadsheet or list with a variety of publications you find most interesting. Every week, assemble the list into a newsletter, in which you list the topics you’re interested in and describe what article(s) you found most interesting. In your email, there are space settings so you can specify the kinds of emails you’d like to receive. Whatever you send, make sure the pieces cover the same topics you find most interesting. If a certain publication had published an article about environmentalism, you might want to write one about the sustainability of agrarian practices or urban agriculture. In keeping with the ecosystem of news, these pieces should be written in a slightly different manner to show readers that you’re interested in more than one topic.
3. Check out news outside of your area
When your time is definitely limited, choosing articles on topics that are relevant to your area of focus is a good way to narrow down your searches. Read a few topics each week that aren’t directly in your area of interest to keep your search updated. If you’re looking for online shares about local cities, create an account at a news site that covers your area. And if you’re looking for videos, movies or other entertainment-based media, see what may be going on in your area. Occasionally, a real-world event will jump out at you that can open your world of information to a bigger scope than it had been in the past. Try seeing what you might be interested in based on events taking place in your area. The perfect example is the story of the main receiver in the seventh season of The Big Bang Theory is a man with Down syndrome, which caught on like wildfire online and prompted dozens of comments from fans around the country.
