The other day James and I stopped in a store and finally realized that our taxes are no longer at 8.75% — in Alameda county the sales tax is now 9.75%!
I have always been a fan of online shopping because I have the ability to compare prices, read specifications, and compare stores (and their policies). I use three rebate programs: EBates.com, FatWallet.com, and Savingswatch.com.
Here’s a list of how their rebates look on various baby and maternity related stores: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=r7JTSfNNCMGQ6dOJUwcklTg
My favorite is Ebates.com because they have the longest list of stores to choose from, but FatWallet sometimes can have better rebates for the stores that I find of interest (especially the baby stores).
In spite of the fact that I love living in California, I still love avoiding the high sales taxes when I can.
List of California cities and the sales tax rates:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=r7JTSfNNCMGQ6dOJUwcklTg
Especially considering the current the economy, I certainly also want to spare friends and family the misery of paying a nearly 10% tax on top of shipping fees. I think I will probably register with an out of state store, buy the large ticket items with online stores using rebates and coupons, but do smaller sized baby shopping of my own locally with vendors I like.