Budget Hack: Using Pinterest to Save Money

Pinterest has a powerful little feature that has transformed the way I shop for furniture and home decor. Here, I walk you through my secret weapon for finding affordable lookalikes OR the exact same products for a lot less.

Disclosure: Sometimes I use affiliate links which could earn me a  commission if you buy something after clicking one – all of which I will spend on making sure I’m my dog’s favorite human. (Sorry, Brad.)

Did you know? Pinterest has a powerful little tool that can help you find affordable home furnishings.

Let’s set up a scenario for you: you find this beautiful dining chair at Restoration Hardware.

But let’s assume that price tag is just not your style at the moment.

Here’s what you do:

1 | Pin the Restoration Hardware store to your Pinterest board

2 | Click the little square icon at the bottom right of your pin

3 | Watch as similar-looking chairs magically appear!

Pinterest Visual Search finds similar items for you which is a beautiful tool if you’re in the market for less expensive lookalikes.

After scrolling through my results, I found a set of chairs at Overstock that looked almost identical to the more expensive Restoration Hardware version.

All in all, I saved a total of over $600 on two chairs.

// Dining Chairs // Similar here with brass nailheads // Similar here without nail heads //

BUT it’s not just great for finding lookalikes. Often times, you can find the same exact item being sold for less somewhere else.

Let’s try it again, this time with a rug I’m considering from everyone’s favorite, McGee and Co.

They call it the Belfast and the 5×8 size I’m looking at is priced at $402.00 plus a $39 shipping fee for a total cost of $441.00.

(And here’s where I should add in a disclaimer that sometimes – when it’s feasible and realistic – it makes sense to support small companies and brands that I love, even if they have to mark things up more than a big-box store.)

I know that McGee and Co. mostly resells from wholesalers so I have a hunch I can find this rug elsewhere.

If you have the Pinterest browser extension installed, there’s actually a shortcut that doesn’t require you to pin anything to your boards. With the button installed, you can hover over any image on a webpage and your Pin and Visual Search buttons should show up.

So I hover over the rug image on McGee and Co, click the visual search button and get a long list of similar images on Pinterest. Already in the first few results I see that the same rug is being sold at Home Depot and World Market.

Let’s check out the Home Depot option.

Woah! It’s selling for less than half of the price! Plus, it ships free.

And if you use any cash-back apps like Honey or eBates, you may save even more.

So, let’s assume I get my 5% Honey cash back (or roughly $9.38), my total cost for the rug would be $178.31. In 30 seconds of searching, I saved myself $263.

Pretty cool, right?

Need help sourcing an item? I’d love to help! Leave a comment or come say hi on Pinterest and Instagram!