Digital Influentials Volume 1, Issue 4: The Upside Of A Down Economy Is…

I read the news, I watch the news and I read magazines and websites concerning the news all the time and when it comes to the economy there’s one thing that everyone agrees on; that no-one has any idea what’s going to happen next but everyone is into saving money!

I firmly believe that this recession has re-educated us all; it’s resurrected our feelings of frugality. It has reawakened a general spirit of thriftiness while diminishing the state of liberal excess which we all enjoyed over the last decade, and to be honest that’s a good thing. Maybe we needed a wake-up call and we needed to be reminded that the future shouldn’t be a gamble or a wager. Your future can be saved for and planned for and it can be more solid than you think! Maybe the positive outcome of this recession is that many people are realizing their future lies in their own hands and that there are three ways to achieve success; work hard, save money and innovate when and wherever you can.

For this week’s column we dedicate our words to the companies and ideas we’ve uncovered that are accomplishing at least two of those paths to success at one time; they are innovating in a way that can save money. Whether it’s a consumer product that delivers coupons or it’s an industry idea that saves time, which translates to saving money, we salute the best and brightest ideas of the week, so let’s show them off!!

Are you looking for ways to save money on some new jeans from Gap or some flowers for your loving wife? RETAIL ME NOT (http://www.retailmenot.com/) is a search engine that uncovers coupon codes; it saves you time while saving you money! Just type in a category of product and let it pull together all the deals it can locate.

Of course, the most obvious place to look to save money is at the grocery store, so if you’re looking to find deals and apply them directly to your shopper card then look no further than AOL SHORTCUTS (http://shortcuts.com/). Shortcuts provides you a marketplace of coupons that when “clipped” are applied directly to your shopper savings card (for those of us in San Francisco, that’s mostly going to be Safeway). No more printing and clipping, just clicking and saving!

Saving money is the new black and everyone’s doing it, but one of the best places to do it is on your mobile phone, so our usual focus on applications for the iPhone becomes VERY important this week as we highlight just a few of the apps that are saving lots of people lots of money!

PRICECHECKAH is a tool that allows you to enter in a UPC or ISBN code on a product or book and it will tell you what the price is on a number of other retailers; online or off. Don’t get suckered in to buying something for too high a price when you know you can get it cheaper somewhere else! The app ain’t free, but anything that’s worth something rarely is (to quote a very wise man).

COUPON SHERPA guides you through the mountains of deals to find what you want for a price you want to pay. Just enter your location and peruse the deals that are popping up around you. It even will give you directions to the store with the best deals (if you ask it nicely).

If you have kids then you know that going out to dinner can get pricey, unless you have the KIDS EAT FREE app. Enter in your location and find out where you can go for a less expensive dinner than usual. It’s just that easy!

That’s it for this week – have fun saving time and saving money!