Drugstores and grocery stores aren’t the only places to find a good deal. Great deals can be found online to help you compute for less:

Dig for Deals

First off, dig for deals. I think this recession has taught us you don’t have to walk into a retail store and pay full price. Bricks-and-mortar retailers are offering great sales and enticing coupons to get you in the store. But don’t let that be the extent of your comparison shopping. Let your fingers do the walking with many great computer price comparison sites.

Unless its a so-called doorbuster deal (like $200 LCDs at Target), online retailers generally offer better prices. The catch? Shipping. Just do the math when comparing prices. Where to start? www.shopper.com is a highly reputable, well-organized site that has a trusted merchant certification program. It’s affiliated with CNet, which is a fantastic hub of technology articles, reviews and resources.

Google Product Search, also known as Google Shopping, is another great price comparison site. It works just like Google’s search engine, and delivers thousands of results–which then can be sorted by Seller Ratings. High Seller Ratings usually mean a reputable site.

One site I was underwhelmed with, www.techbargains.com. Didn’t care for the organization of it, and ease of use for the average online shopper.

Free productivity software

If you’re not looking to save money on your hardware, save some dough on your software. Free productivity software such as Google Docs and Openoffice.org are gaining popularity and according to tech experts, the way of the future.

Google Docs is my personal favorite. All you need is a Google account, which is free and easy to sign-up for. There you’ll find software similar to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But since its online, there’s nothing to download. You can save and retrieve all the documents you create in Google Docs from any computer–that means no more  emailing yourself documents from work to home. And better yet, you can share them with other collaborators, who can make edits to the same document. Great use potential for school, group projects or even “honey do” lists.

Openoffice.org is a suite of free downloadable software that works just like the Microsoft brand name, but better than cheap, its free! Its easy to use because Openoffice works just like the Microsoft Word or Excel you’re used to. They lack the fancy features of the name brand, which for the most part are not used by the average user. I’m a writer by profession, who works in Microsoft word all day long.. and I don’t know even know or use all its features. And finally, because there’s no licenses, they’re great for small business owners because you can install them on as many computers as you want, make copies and install them multiple times.

Don’t buy more than you need.

Whether its hardware or software you’re looking for, just follow one rule of thumb. Don’t buy more than you need.  Why spend $1500 on a laptop with all the bells and whistles, when you only use it to surf the Internet. Instead, try this $300 Acer Netbook. Its small and compact–great for traveling–but doesn’t cost a fortune like other mini notebooks. While the computing capacity of these so-called netbooks are less than what you’d find in a full-sized laptop, it’s still all I need. And all I need is a web browser–email, online banking, my office’s remote desktop and my favorite websites are all online.