I've been meaning to post this for quite some time. Maybe you noticed the new list of "money saving" blogs to the right. It has become my latest obsession and passion. Saving money is awesome.
If anybody actually reads this blog, these "tips" are probably old hat but they're new to me. So a quick money saving 101...
1. Shop around. Specifically for groceries. We had been going to the same store for years and never did any price comparisons at all. Turns out Wegmans was a little cheaper. And the store is so nice! A word of caution: it is nearly impossible to ignore all the specialty items/sections and it takes all my will power NOT to buy something from their fancy bakery!
2. Brand names are just a name. We buy almost everything store brand. And so far we are very happy with the quality. I mean, really, is there any difference between brand name and store brand salt?! The only thing I've tried thus far that was ultimately just not the same was Wegmans brand Wheat Thins. Then again, I'm pretty addicted to the real deal.
3. Scope out sales AND match those sales with coupons. I've found it super easy just to buy store brand and save buckets doing only that. However, if I scan the weekly fliers and pair those sales with coupons (coupons that are typically doubled up to $1 I believe) I can find some good deals even on name brand stuff. Last week I bought 2 huge boxes of cat litter on sale at Target, used a coupon and got a $5 gift card as part of the sale/promotion. Just yesterday I went back and used that gift card to help put together little back-to-school gifts for our Sunday school girls. School supplies are SUPER cheap right now. I used a coupon to get a 10 pack of pens for free and the crayons came free with the 50 cent color pencils. The total for each kit was a tiny $1.23. Not bad!
4. Look for freebies. So far I've only ventured into using $1 off coupons on travel sized items but that's still a significant savings. I mean, free is free! All the items below were free. Plus I keep my eye on those money saving blogs and I can see when other freebies by mail pop up. I got a free cook book in the mail. I've signed up for free Ziploc containers, Pledge products, men's cologne, chap stick... you name it. All for free. And I've heard those freebies typically come with coupons! We even got free slurpees (free from 7-Eleven on 7/11) and a free flip flop sugar cookie from Cookies by Design. All we had to do was know when and where and we got free stuff.
So my new obsession is fun and economical. Oh I guess I could mention too that we're not going out to eat as much. We did have a buy one get one free coupon at Isaac's so we did that last week but mostly I'm just planning smarter and we're eating cheaper. A few more breakfasts for dinner never hurt anybody. I have to say it's sort of freeing. I can see now how much extra spending we had been doing and although we've always been frugal, it's nice to see we can take it even further. And don't worry, we're still eating well and having fun. Red Box movies are only $1.06 after all. Although I had a dream last night we had a movie and forgot to return it. Money saving nightmares!
1 comments:
As you can see, I'm catching up on your blog. I recently bought a book on coupon-ing, which I thought was really helpful (it's called Pick Another Check out Line). It also talks about stockpiling when you find those rockbottom sale prices and have coupons. So stock up on the nonperishable foods, toilet paper, shampoo, etc. Anyway, I got all excited and bought our Sunday newspaper to look at the coupon fliers and there was none in our paper! I've kind of stalled since then...
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