If you’re routinely putting up with unwanted daily deal emails in your inbox from websites you’ve long ago forgotten about, there’s a new service that will help you quickly and cleanly cut the cord. Read on to learn how to do away with unwanted emails once and for all.

Email overload

When daily deal websites first hit the Internet a few years ago, most people could not get enough daily deal news. Users subscribed to any and every daily deal website online, often also signing up for daily deal newsletters by default. Fast forward a few months and the online daily deal shoppers were said to be suffering from daily deal fatigue. In other words, shoppers were being bombarded with email after email from websites they’d long since left behind.

These days, many shoppers have moved away from traditional daily deal shopping and are now perusing the best of the best deals with daily deal aggregators. Even if you’re one of those who have moved on, you probably know from experience that that doesn’t mean those email subscriptions you signed up for eons ago are going to magically disappear. Sure, you can spend all day in your inbox and manually unsubscribe from every daily deal newsletter, but who has time for that?

UnsubscribeDeals.com

A new service called UnsubscribeDeals.com simplifies the process of unsubscribing from multiple daily deal emails and newsletters by doing the heavy lifting for you. The free web application connects with your Gmail account, and then gives you the option to unsubscribe automatically from the following daily deal websites:

• Living Social
• Groupon
• Woot!
• DailyCandy
• Lifebooker
• Google Offers
• Amazon Local
• Yipit
• Bloomspot
• Gilt City
• KGB Deals
• Ever Save

The UnsuscribeDeals.com service is 100% free and requires no additional action on your part.

Daily deal vouchers help us to stretch our dollars, making our money go further, and that’s a good thing. In the Internet shopping age, though, where spending money is as simple as clicking a button, it’s easy to cross the line from smart shopper to thrill seeking, out of control consumer. Exercising self-control is necessary, of course, but it doesn’t always work. Let’s face it, sometimes it’s just too hard to pass up a good buy.

We spoke this week to financial experts, professional shoppers and daily deal regulars to learn how they police themselves. Here’s what they had to say.

Budget first, shop second

Gary Morris owned a realtor business in Chicago and retired at the age of 35. How’d he do it? “I always knew how much money I had, how much I wanted to save that month and where to get the most for my money,” claimed Morris. “If you don’t know what’s in your wallet, it’s easy to spend more than you really have.”

Does Morris recommend daily deal shopping? “Absolutely,” he says. “Part of being able to save money is knowing where and how to get the most out of it. “

Treat daily deal websites like actual stores

You go to the grocery store for food, the pharmacy for medication and to your mechanic to get your car oil changed. Likewise, says Minneapolis-based professional shopper Ken Howard, you should turn to daily deal websites for specific bargains too.

“Daily deal websites are the only places I shop these days for cheap vacation packages, gym memberships and local restaurant deals for my clients,” boasted Howard. “Target gives me a good deal on toiletries and daily deals give me the most for my money on trips to Cancun. It’s just common sense.”

Limit your shopping time with daily deal aggregators

Clara Hargrove has been a daily deal shopper for three years. The Miami resident thinks that maximizing your time also means maximizing your dollar.

“I started using daily deal aggregators this year because they show me all the best deals in one place,” says Hargrove. “I used to spend hours shopping online and I can see now that was a waste of time. I do all my bargain hunting in about five minutes a day now.”

Keep a running list of needs

Chicago financial advisor Keven Smith says that watching your bottom line is all about filling your needs and putting your wants on hold. “You go to the grocery store armed with a list, don’t you?” asked Smith. “When you don’t, you spend extravagantly. To keep yourself in check when online shopping you also should keep a current list of needs and put every other good buy you see on a wants list. You address the wants only after you’ve met your savings goals.”

Occasional spending splurges happen and most of the time such goofs don’t really have a long term impact on your budget. Making a habit of overspending, though, can turn even daily deal shopping into problematic behavior.

The popularity of daily deals continues to rise. Russia’s daily deal market is at the peak of popularity, one in six U.S. shoppers buys a daily deal voucher and the Canadian daily deal market has been boasting growth for over one year. While daily deals are still relatively new in the United Kingdom, it’s estimated that 65% of residents in the U.K. buy into daily deals on a regular basis.

Ready for some more good news? The Global Daily Deal Association (GDDA) has just finished first quarter research and come up with an infographic that illustrates the size of the U.K. daily deal industry.

Stavros Prodromou, the director of the GDDA, had this to say: “The daily deal industry may be relatively new, but it has proved to be hugely lucrative for those businesses that get it right. Our challenge now is to make it sustainable, and we can do that by ensuring the model works for both consumers and merchants.”

The new GDDA research shows that in the first quarter of this year, the U.K.'s top deal sites sold a total of 3.8 million vouchers and coupons and took in approximately $288 million. Consumers are also estimated to have saved $131 million by actively shopping daily deals.

Times are tough. Just ask Eleanor Beasley, a retired Chicago school teacher who lost everything she owned in a fire and has had to use her retirement to start from scratch again. “I’m 76 years old,” says Beasley, “and I’m still working part-time tutoring children because I have to.”

Beasley also relies on good deals to get by. “Daily deals for food and travel have made it possible for me to put food on the table and visit my children and grandchildren,” Beasley told us. “If it weren’t for that, I don’t know how I could make it all work.”

And Ms. Beasley isn’t alone. A growing number of our nation’s most valuable members, senior citizens, are turning to daily deal vouchers to make ends meet. What are they investing in?

Food

When Richard Smith retired from a Michigan factory job at the age of 67, he thought he was set to enjoy a few years of the good life. “When I retired, my wife and I bought a little condo by the beach and were ready to relax and live out the American Dream.”

For the Smith family, that dream turned into a nightmare the day Mrs. Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer. “It took a cancer diagnosis to wipe out our savings,” said Smith. “A neighbor told us about buying daily deal vouchers and, thanks to those and senior citizen discounts, we’re buying groceries at a discount and even going out to eat a few times a year.”

Health

“A daily deal voucher saved my life,” claims Edwin Baldwin, retired school principal in San Francisco. “I tell everyone this story and they can’t believe it.”

Baldwin, who lives alone in an assisted living apartment, began experiencing mild abdominal pains in July of last year. Baldwin’s children, distraught over their father’s condition and refusal to go to the doctor, bought him a daily deal voucher for a reduced fee x-ray. “That x-ray confirmed colon cancer,” says Baldwin. “I had surgery and today I’m 100% healthy. Now I buy daily deals for visits to the dentist and doctor myself.”

Travel

“I love to visit the grandchildren,” says 82 year old Salt Lake City resident Bessie Arnold, “but my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.” Instead of driving the 500 miles to her daughter’s home, Arnold takes a bus or a plane, and does so with a daily deal voucher. “I didn’t even have a computer when I heard about daily deals,” boasts Arnold. “After buying the first few bus tickets on a local daily deal website from a library computer, I had to get a computer so I wouldn’t miss any of the good deals to come.”

This is just a small sampling of how senior citizens are using daily deals to get more from their money. While daily deal vouchers were originally marketed as luxury goods (cruises, spa treatments, salon visits, etc.), it’s clear to see that many are using vouchers to better their circumstances.