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We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover. How We Make Money
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Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. The decline of the almighty dollar
One hundred years ago, a dollar would’ve bought you a pound of bacon, coffee and a gallon of milk. These days, it’s not out of the question you would have to dish out a five-spot for any one of those items. It’s true: A dollar isn’t what it used to be. Today’s buck has the same buying power as 4 cents in 1915. But that doesn’t mean it’s useless, either. There are plenty of items that still cost $1 or less today. In fact, some of these items might surprise you. Jewelry
Don’t expect the Hope Diamond, but if you’re looking for inexpensive jewelry, look online. There are plenty of wholesale retailers — like Norcross, Georgia-based WineOnion — that sell costume jewelry, from earrings to wedding bands, for under a buck. Or, search Amazon for jewelry, then use its filters to set the price at $1 and only show items that offer free shipping. Photos
Everything is digital now, but if you want to fill your photo albums or picture frames, you can get printed photos for cheap. Sites like Shutterfly offer prints starting at 15 cents, but you’ll have to pay for shipping. Good news, though — many retailers with in-store photo centers will let you order inexpensive digital prints online, and you can pick them up for free. At CVS, for example, you can get five 4-by-6 inch photos for just a buck. A road trip
Road trips are a great budget vacation option, but gas prices can add up. To make your road trip incredibly cheap, consider taking a bus. Megabus offers one-way bus trips between cities in the U.S., Canada and Europe, and seats start at a dollar. You have to be flexible and plan in advance, but it’s hard to beat a buck for travel. Stock
You can buy stocks for pennies on the dollar — literally. Appropriately named “,” these are stocks that trade at less than a dollar. But keep in mind, you get what you pay for. They’re risky, time-consuming to research and there are many scams associated with them. Proceed with caution. Designer perfume
A good designer perfume might smell heavenly, but the cost probably stinks. If you’re willing to settle on just a hint of indulgence, you can get a designer fragrance for under a dollar. EBay is full of perfume samples for less than a buck, plus free shipping. Sites like FragranceNet.com also sell dollar perfume samples and occasionally offer free shipping promos. Amazon goods
You can find just about anything on Amazon, and it’s pretty easy to turn it into your own personalized dollar store. Just browse any category, filter by price at no more than $1 and see what you can find. Similarly, Amazon’s “filler item finder” website will let you more or less do the same thing. Just type in “$1” in the search tool, and the site will pull up a long list of various Amazon items that cost a dollar. Pregnancy tests
Pregnancy tests can be expensive. If you’re a hopeful mom-to-be, you might find yourself paying a pretty penny for these tests. But you can find them for a buck at your local dollar store. Skeptical of their reliability? Don’t be; they’re just as accurate as their name-brand counterparts. WEWS-TV in Cleveland had a family medicine doctor review the research from Dollar Tree’s test kit. Her conclusion? While the tests may be a bit more cumbersome, she found them just as reliable as brand-name pregnancy tests. Subscription box service
From Birchbox to BarkBox, subscription box services have become incredibly popular. And the Dollar Shave Club offers subscriptions starting at, yes, a dollar. Each month, you’ll get a brand-spanking-new razor shipped to you with five cartridges. The only drawback? You also pay $2 for shipping and handling. SHARE: Kristin Wong Related Articles