With the economy the way it is, you're right to pull out every play in the book when it comes to saving money on anything you buy. Why, just this weekend, I spent nearly an hour comparison shopping to find the best deal on a birthday present for my son.

Wish I'd had some of these tools before I embarked on that experience. Today the Shopping Journal offers a collection of 15 plug-ins and toolbars designed for the Mozilla Firefox web browser, all with the goal of getting you better deals on what you shop for and helping with some of the other miscellaneous odds and ends that come along with online shopping.

I haven't tested all 15, but the ones I've used so far range from moderately to very useful. The more you shop online, the more you'll get out of any of them.

For bargain hunters, the two plug-ins you really should get are RetailMeNot and KeepCash Coupon Notifier. These simplify the task of searching online for coupons whenever you make a purchase -- a job I often forget to do until after I've already paid for the item and it's too late. They work about the same way: When you visit a retail site, a gray bar pops down and tells you if any coupons are available for the site. Unfortunately, both plug-ins seem a little buggy, so adding them both gives you the best odds of getting a deal. And with both, you don't see anything unless a coupon is available, so there's no unneeded screen clutter.

If you shop on Amazon a lot, PriceDrop is a handy way to keep an eye on when prices go up or down -- useful if you're shopping for a big-ticket item like a TV that's subject to lots of price fluctuations. And if your friends are members of Amazon's Associates program, the BuyBuddy add-on lets you share commissions on what you purchase.

Check out the full list for additional add-ons, including eBay helpers, a shopping list manager, an add-on to keep tabs on what's going on at Woot!, and more.