Shopping is the new opium. From women of all ages to a growing number of men, shopping is just so (positively) addicting. Blame it to Paris Hilton or to any of our society's elites and celebrities, shopping has become a widely accepted and practiced norm. Shopping knows no age, gender, religion, or culture. Shopping is now on everyone's must-to-do list and to discount shopping is as trivial and shallow as a big no-no.

With consumerism on the unstoppable rise, merchandisers and manufacturers have also adapted to the growing and widening culture of shopping madness. Shopping malls, stalls, and depots are almost in every corner. Promotions, events, sales, and campaigns for loyal patronage bombard all media of communication. Shopping has also expanded and not exclusively associated with clothes and apparel anymore. Shopping for various services is now as popular as the conventional idea of shopping especially in the internet. People now shop online for travel reservations, hotel accommodations, and personal services. To heed to the trend, general managers discount hotel rates as much as about 20 or 30 percent especially during holidays. Travel agencies discount airfare almost every quarter of the year to attract more travelers and tourists to patronize their services. Local and international tourism agencies discount travel packages lower than the regular rate two or three years ago. All these are signs of the huge population hooked in shopping activities, myself included.

For online shoppers like me, finding the best site to purchase the latest Fendi and Louis Vitton bags has become a daily habit. A 24-hour existence will not be complete without checking out online shopping sites' latest list of products and services. With enough money or not, shopping is as normal as eating, breathing, and living. Broke or not, shopping (just like life) must go on. After all, shopping is not exclusive to people born with silver spoon. Discount promos have mushroomed everywhere making shopping not as costly as it was perceived by many ten years ago. The trick is to find the best online shopping sites that give the best discount rates for price-conscious shoppers like me.

I'm sure most of you love or are still dreaming of going on many travels. Having been on a cruise in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, *Southeast Asia*, and the Atlantic, I can say that the experience of going into different places is one of the best you can bring with you after life. The freedom you get in being a stranger in foreign land, being unbounded of norms, and being treated like a top celebrity (especially in Asian countries) are priceless compared to the amount of money you have to shelf out. Actually, you need not spend that much. Cruise.com, a personal favorite travel shopping site, offers a wide array of cruises to satisfy your hunger for traveling. They discount cruises at prices reasonable enough to motivate you to save up and skip the itch for the latest Max Factor liquid foundation for the next few months. Different discounts for newly weds, families, companies, peer groups, and even kids and for different occasions are available for you to choose from.

But if you're not the traveling type and would rather exhaust all your shopping energies for clothes, bags, shoes, wines, jewelries or whatever, hundreds of online shopping sites are also at your service. Consumerclub.com is a haven for one-stop online shop with lots of discounts available. Ladies from sizes 14 to 32 can log on to avenue.com for the hottest season collections at discount rates reaching to 20 percent. Sports enthusiasts and World Cup fanatics can shop for the trendiest Adidas collection in adidas.com and enjoy their special shopping promotions. Other win-win offers like Body Shop's free shipping mechanics are up for your enjoyment.

Shopping is great, shopping is fun, shopping is here to put a smile. Just be wary and cautious enough about fraudulent shopping sites, and have that eagle eye for discounts and promos and you're surely on the right shopping path. Finding the best and most practical online shopping sites is way easier than tiring yourself in going to bazaars and walking for hours just for a freebie. Shopping should serve your pleasure and spoil it. So don't go the unnecessary mile to have the most cost-saving buy, for you might just end up more broke.