"Money Money Money! Aint it funny....in a rich mans world!" Thanks to my amazingly talented neices, I know this Mama Mia song well! This post is all about asking you smart money managers out there for a little help! I was reading my cousins blog tonight (thanks Kylie!) and she was talking about using coupons and being more of a smart grocery shopper. I loved reading her post and realized there are probably a lot of great ideas out there that help people save money! Keep in mind before you start shooting out too many ideas....I work 50+ hours a week and a lot of my "spare time" (ha, that's a joke!) is spent trying to be a good mom. So, sometimes I just don't have the time to clip a million coupons. But that being said I want so badly to be out of debt and to be able to be a little smarter with my money....so BRING IT ON! If you have a fantastic budget idea or a plan that helps you save money...PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!!
13 comments:
One thinig that helps us stay on a budget is meal planning. I have a really cute little Monday-Sunday calendar that I got from Kitchen Kneads that is magnetic, and I put a meal plan for each day for 2 weeks. I go grocery shopping once every 2 weeks and only buy the items on my list. It helps us stay on a budget and not spend as much money on fast food.
I never clip coupons. I don't have that kind of time or patients.. even when I do .. I forget them at home.
Money stinks doesn't it?
One thing that has TOTALLY helped Paul and I stay on budget is STRICTLY going to cash.. that means no debit cards for a back up plan.
You will be much more aware of what you are spending money on and how fast. then just swipe'n the card.And believe you me when you have to make that amount work you get creative enough to figure out how. Much more creative.
ANd remember western family, great value.. is your friend!
Another thing Paul does is he does our finance for the entire year.. when the bills are due.. what is coming up ( holiday etc.) and budgets out how much we plan on spending for it. that way we don't have as many "surprises".
That has helped us both know what the heck is going on.( I'm clueless to bills, he is clueless to fun planning.)
Good luck, let me know how it all goes~
Kylie was talking about the Grocery Smarts/Pinching Your Pennies method that I, my Mom, and Michelle are currently using. It does take time, but if you're willing to put in a few hours a week, it's well worth the rewards (this last week Albertson's had tremendous sale where I bought over 100 items, paid $50 out of pocket, and saved over $263!). To maximize your savings, you do need to do coupons, but you can still save quite a bit without. I have a pretty easy way to do coupons too, if you're worried about a ton of time spent clipping them. If you're interested, let me know and I'll email you all the details. My email is in the new family directory. There's so many ways that your use your dollar now-a-days I'm fnding that the money I'm saving is being put to better use elsewhere! My monthly grocery budget used to be around $350 a month, last month I spent somewhere around $120 and it keeps going down the more I do it!
Am, I put a post on my blog quite a while ago. Here is the link.... http://bscrandallfamily.blogspot.com/2008/10/grocery-smarts.html. Check it out. If you have questions call me. The girl who did that party just sent me an email and she will come do one for you if you want. It's free to you and you get a gift card to grocery store or something. I like the online deals at Pinching your pennies... but do not like the way they do coupons. Anyway, feel free to call me if you want any more info. Stacey
I'm loving all these fabulous ideas!!! Please everyone keep them coming!!!!
www.pinchingyourpennies.com
This site is AMAZING!!!
Joining pinching your pennies helped me a lot. I only clip the coupons I need and keep the rest in a filing cabinet. It does take a few hours a week to organize all of it, but it definately is worth it. Good luck - aren't we all trying to save and stretch our dollars these days?
so one thing that we have tried, is RETURNING our Red Box movies within at least 2 days of renting, instead of keeping them and buying them for 30$!! Hahahaha :) I just remember your HUGE collection...Love ya Ames. Good luck, I am using some of these comments from you post and I am going to check out the web sites...
Damn those Red Box movies!! We have banned ourselves from renting from Red Box! I counted yesterday and we have 32 Red Box movies that we now own! That's a lot of $$$!!
HAHAHA! I don't even know you Merillee, but I hear ya' sista! That's hilarious! I, too, have seen her redbox collection! Wish I had ideas for you Amy- let's have a coupon party! You clip, I'll file.
WOW, that's a thousand dollars almost on RedBox! :) Good thing to ban I guess! Ok, so these people say they save 200+ dollars on one shopping trip and only spend 50? How is that even possible? All coupons I have EVER seen and see on those web sites are one coupon per item, no multiple coupons, so how the heck can you get your cost down to 50 bucks? Especially cause you don't have a coupon for everything you buy, I probably clipped maybe 8 coupons off a website, and I won't even use all 8 of those every trip, most are items I only need every so often...nothing just adds up to me. So hey if you host one of these parties where someone tells you how to do it, sign me in...
The BEST person to talk to is Jerilyn, she has gotten me addicted, when I kinda had the attitude that it is too hard and takes way too much thinking.....it does make you do a little homework, but so worth the savings. I too went this last week and spent $48, and saved over $120 and came home with a ton of food. The best places to look at the good deals are Albertsons and Smiths...like last week, they were advertising 'spend $30 get $15 back in store credit' so by doing this and adding all the coupons, you save big time! Takes a lot of thinking and a lot of times to figure it all out, but I am officially a coupon cutter, and look at all the ads every Tues night! Gotta love the extra money. I was so tired of spending over $300 every 2 weeks on groceries, snacks, etc. Now, I probably spend about $250 a month doing this system! Helps out a bunch! Feel free to email me too if you need any help figuring it out or have any questions! bpdually@yahoo.com
woah.. you totally read my mind. I went to albertsons last night and it was crazy with coupon shoppers... i can away feeling like i was missing out on something... good deals and saving money.. we should get together and learn together.. maybe we could shop with coupons together, let me know if you are successfull.
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