A New Years Resolution... Never Pay Full Price

If we can stick to this one, it will be impressive. But with all the tools out there, it is definitely possible to never pay retail. See below for some of our favorite tools for bargain shopping to help you through 2010.

1. Shopstyle Sale Alerts - Shopstyle.com is a great site to browse your favorite brands in one place. One of it's great features are "sale alerts". They allow you to keep your eye on that extra special (and pricey) item without constantly stalking every site that carries it.

2. Online Sample Sale Sites - still need to get into our favorite members only sample sale sites? Use the links below to sign up using our invite codes:

Gilt Groupe is known for its fantastic sales, super customer service, and of course that flashy gold & black design. Gilt Groupe is "members only" so you'll need an existing member to invite you. Click here for your invite.

HauteLook is another great sample sale website. My first day as a member they displayed a slew of amazing Chanel bags from Decades 2. To sign up for HauteLook click here.

RueLaLa is one that I've stumbled upon more recently. Right as I signed up, I caught the tail end of what seemed to be a great YSL sale, but all the bags were sadly sold out. Next time I'll be more prepared. It was slightly more difficult to become a member of RueLaLa, because you need to enter another member's email to sign up. To get on RueLaLa.com, go to the site, click on "not a member" and enter jj@shopsavvynyc.com in the "your friends email" field.

TheTopSecret is an offshoot of Topbutton, which is a great for listing local sample sales. TheTopSecret is their new online portion and sales last from 1-3 days and offer items up to 70% off. To get in, you need a member to invite you. Email me at jj@shopsavvynyc.com and I will send you an invite.

Ideeli.com is another members only site. In addition to having online sales, they also feature giveaways... and who doesn't love free stuff. To sign up, use this link.

Swirl by Daily Candy - Daily Candy has been bringing us those informative fashion emails for years so it's only logical that they would be the next to jump onto the online sample sale bandwagon. So far we are slightly underwhelmed due to not deep enough discounts but we continue to check in daily. Sign up on beta.swirl.com.

3. Retail Me Not - The amount of times retailmenot.com has scored me discounts is unbelievable. With the awesome firefox plugin, retailmenot will remind you when you forgot to save.

How it works:
1. Download the add-on
2. Visit your favorite websites (today mine is barneys.com) in Firefox:
3. Look for the friendly little pop ups at the top of your screen as you browse your favorite sites
4. Click for deals!

For those of you joining me in the "never pay retail" 2010 resolution, we hope these tools will help. Happy shopping in the New Year.