I remember my mother driving to first one store and then another to check and compare prices on items when I was a child. That was great if the second store had the lower price. If not, it meant getting dragged back to the first store.

Comparing prices online is a lot easier and this year it saved me $19 plus shipping on just one gift.

I don’t want to say what it was, because some of my family and friends do read these posts.

I first saw the item, with a price of $35, in a catalog I received in the mail. It was the same price on the catalog’s website and I planned to order it online. But before I put it in my shopping cart, I did a quick online search for the name of the item and found the exact same thing on another site for $16. I was already planning to order several gifts from the second site and the total of my order qualified me for free shipping.