Trolling the Aisles of Your Super Market

Maybe coupon shopping just isn't your bag.  Maybe you hate even the idea of paging through the newspaper ads and cutting out coupons, or worse yet, printing out coupons online and using your valuable paper and ink!  If this is you, here is an easy way to still pick up some great deals at your grocery store without the scissors or newsprint stained fingers.

Each week during your weekly shopping trip, take an extra 10 minutes and slowly walk down a couple of aisles looking for those lovely $1.00 sale tags -- or 2/$1.00 is even better!  My personal favorites to comb on a regular basis are the personal hygiene and cleaning supplies aisles. You'll be amazed at often your favorite deodorant, toothpaste or window cleaning spray are on sale for only $1.00 (which is typically much less than half the regular price).

If I didn't walk down these aisle WHEN I DON'T NEED these items, I would end up paying full price just a few weeks later -- when I'm desperate.   We've all been there before!

My second little piece of advice is to buy 12 of these items when they are on sale for $1.00.  Instantly you have a year's supply of this product.  Easy Peasy.

Remember, the most expensive item is the one you HAVE to buy right now.  I think it's a cosmic law that nothing is ever on sale at that moment.

The Thirty Day Rule (Merrick)

I hate to admit it, but I have a pretty short attention span. And I have a tendency to get really really excited about things. These two traits combined means that when I get an idea in my head, I NEED to do it right then. I plan the whole thing out in my head and I spend all day thinking and dreaming about it. And if I act on these impulse ideas, which usually require spending money, I suddenly don't care about them anymore. The lust is gone, and suddenly I've spent money on something that I didn't need and now don't even want.

Thus I have instigated the thirty day rule in my life.

This is sort of a standard tip for saving money, but it really works. When I get the idea, I write it down (usually in my google docs so I can organize it and re-access it easily), and then I wait. Despite the temptation to act on it immediately and buy up the entire local home depot, I continue to wait.

And then a few weeks later I browse back through my Google Docs and am able to weed through the ideas. Miraculously, I don't care about 99% of them anymore. If I am still as excited about an idea as I was originally, I know that it's something that is worth my time and money. And if I'm not, it gets trashed.

This rule has saved me tons of money and time over the years because I'm not just spending and projecting willy nilly. I take time to think through the projects that I want to undertake and try to only do the necessary and important ones. Emphasis on try...

Balancing Your Life (Merrick)

With the start of the new year, I'm sure you all have many new years resolutions. This year, I decided to tone down my usual new years resolutions craziness and focus on the essentials. My main goals are to simplify and balance my life. I never want to be one of those women who is doing the laundry or cleaning every day of the week, or going to the grocery store every other day to pick up a few things. I want each day to feel individual and special, and be able to have time to do the important things, like playing cars with my little boy.

So let me tell you about a few things I'm doing this year, although not all of them specifically deal with saving money (but I'm saving my sanity here, and that is worth something!!):

I make bread every Tuesday -- I bake it, cut it up, put it in a bread bag, and it's ready for sandwiches and toast all week.

I clean the house every Thursday -- this includes cleaning both bathrooms, dusting, mopping, sanitizing doorknobs and countertops, and any small organizing jobs that need to be done.

I do the laundry every Friday -- this includes sorting, washing, drying, folding, ironing, and putting away ($$ saved by not running the washer/dryer every day!)

I go grocery shopping every Saturday -- this includes planning my weekly menu, clipping coupons, and then going to my regular grocery store (Smiths), Sam's Club for bulk items, Rite Aid for toiletry items, and Sunflower Market for specialty items. ($$ saved by not running to the store every day!)

In the interest of full disclosure, I babysit my neighbor and have art class on Monday's and Wednesdays, which keeps me busy all day. So I keep those days free of house duties.

Also, we do many small household chores on a daily basis -- take out the garbage, run the dishwasher, clean the counter tops, pick up toys, etc.

By dividing up my week in this way, my life is suddenly more balanced than it ever has been. My laundry basket is full, but I'm not stressed about it because I know it will all be washed and put away today. We are running out of milk, but tomorrow is shopping day so why waste my time by running to the store today (especially when I'll probably come home with $20 worth of groceries!) -- we'll just have toast for breakfast. And each of these daily duties only takes me an hour or two of hands on time, so I have plenty of time for other things during the day.

When you have specific days dedicated to your various duties, you can better commit to each of them and perform better at each of them. You're probably not going to save much more money if you spend hours clipping coupons every day -- you're just going to hate couponing.

So do yourself a favor and bring a little balance into your life this year. Everyone, including your wallet, will be thanking you.

Decorating For The Holidays On A Budget (Merrick)

I love decorating for Christmas, but every year I struggle with our small space, the additional cost on top of gifts, and good ideas that aren't tacky.

Despite my past failed attempts, I was determined to come up with something good. So this year I turned to my new best friend, the dollar store. The store closest to me is The Dollar Tree, and they have an excellent selection of Christmas items -- all for only one dollar! So after a little inspiration from blogs, I made my way to the store and picked up a few fun things. Let me show you what I ended up with:

[three ornament packs, two Dollar Tree vases, one vase I already owned, ribbon from Christmas last year, serving platter I already owned]


[half a pack of ornaments, vase I already owned, candle I already owned, ribbon from last year]




[2 Dollar Tree vases, 1/2 a pack of DT ornaments, 2 packs of DT candy canes, ribbon from last year]

[old picture frame, free printable art from a blog]


[vase I already owned, berry branches from my front yard spray painted white and sprinkled with glitter]


I'm really happy with how these decorations turned out. They're classy and pretty, and best of all I spent less than $10 on everything. It is possible to decorating for the holidays without blowing your budget!

How are you saving on your holiday decorations this year?

More Holiday Savings (Merrick)

Every Christmas since I’ve been married, I’ve wanted to send out holiday cards. I love receiving them, seeing updated photos, and reading the letters about the family during the past year. But my husband felt weird about sending them out when it was just the two of us.

This year we added a little boy to our family, so I convinced my husband it was finally time to send out cards. But once I sat down and made a list of people to send them to, calculated in the cost of cards (which ranged from $0.30-1.50 per card), envelopes, and postage (on top of all the other Christmas expenses), it was suddenly getting a little pricey.

So, of course, I went looking for a deal.

After a quick search, I discovered that Winkflash.com was giving away 50 free 4x6 prints (with $0.99 shipping) when you sign up. Then while purchasing ink cartridges at Office Max, I found 50 envelopes for 4x6 cards on sale for $5. I asked my friend if she would take a few family shots of us (which she did for free!), and then I put a little holiday pattern and note on the photo in Photoshop. And for a whopping $5.99 (plus postage), I have holiday cards!


This is not the one we're sending out -- I just whipped this one up as an example. Adding a festive border and some verbiage does not matter when ordering your free 50 prints as long as it's 4x6 and saved as one file, able to be uploaded to Winkflash's site just like a normal photo.

So even if you're cutting back this year, you can still send out holiday cards and not have to worry that it's a big expense.

Homemade Clorox Wipes (Merrick)

Because several of you asked so nicely, I went on the hunt to find a way to make homemade clorox wipes. Turns out it's pretty darn easy, and surprisingly similar to making homemade baby wipes. I found probably five different recipes for it, and here is the common theme:

Homemade Clorox Wipes

1/2 roll extra strong paper towels (I've heard Bounty is good..)
2 and 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup bleach

Cut your roll of paper towels in half and place in your tupperware (just like with the baby wipes). Boil water, add bleach, pour over paper towels. Remove wet cardboard tube. To use, pull out wipes one at a time from center.



Also, here's another recipe if you want something a little more natural (aka. no bleach)

Natural Disinfectant Wipes

1 cup witch hazel
1/2 teaspoon tea tree oil or peppermint oil (natural disinfectant)
1/2 cup water

Prepare your paper towels in the tupperware. Mix the three ingredients together and pour over your paper towels. Remove tube.

Free on Your Birthday (Janssen)

Last week was my birthday. And so, in honor of my big day, we did what I like most - got things for free.

I was inspired by my friend Erin's post about the free birthday food tour of Ann Arbor. The fact that I do not live anywhere near Ann Arbor did not deter me - I would find free food in my city.

And oh, did I ever.

On my birthday, I stopped at Schlotzsky's for my free small sandwich, then drove through Sonic for my free creamslush (delicious). I picked up Bart from work and we went to Firehouse Subs where you can get a free medium sandwich on your birthday if you have ID that verifies that it is indeed your birthday. We split the two sandwiches and the slush and went on our merry, none-the-poorer way. Happy birthday indeed (also, neither of us had ever been to Firehouse before and WOW, it was delicious).

After Bart was done at work, we went to Benihana for dinner because they send a free entree/$30 gift certificate for your birthday. We got the largest sushi combo on the menu that was under $30 and it fed us both - no cost except a nice tip.

I still have my coupons (that are good for another week or so) for a free cone at Maggie Moo's, a free Blizzard at Dairy Queen, free ice cream from Baskin Robbins, a free entree at Kona Grill, a free burger at Fuddruckers, and a free burger at Red Robin.

I also got a coupon for a free ice cream at Cold Stone but tragically all the Cold Stones in the Austin area have closed. The nearest one is some 80 miles away and even I am not dumb enough to drive that far for a free ice cream cone.

If that isn't ENOUGH free stuff for you, here's even more comprehensive lists of places that offer a birthday treat of some sort: Birthday Freebies, Hey It's Free!, and Happy Birthday Deals.

I can't wait for Bart's birthday in the spring. . .

Price Matching (Janssen)

Every week my mailbox is full of fliers from the various grocery stores and drugstores in my area, each proclaiming multiple items on huge sale (these are loss leaders, intended to lure you into the store where, hopefully, you will then buy a lot of non-sale items).

You could spend a lot of time driving around to each different store or you can ask one store to price match. If your store does price match, you can simply show them the mailer or ad and they'll give you the same product for the sale price.

All your shopping, with the best sales, in one store. Hard to argue with that.

Wal-Mart is particularly well known for price matching. I must admit that I cannot deal with shopping at Wal-Mart (invariably, I end up wishing to tear out my hair when there is only a single cashier for an entire Super Wal-Mart or I cannot find the products I want or the parking is horrendous), but it almost certainly would be the very cheapest way for me to do my grocery shopping as they would price match the sales from all three of the other local grocery stores in my area.

Other big chains that price match include Target, Staples, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Circuit City, Lowe's, Sears, and Office Max. It's particularly handy if specials are going on at stores that are not particularly close to you - you can save yourself money AND gas.  

And this isn't just for groceries or school supplies. When we bought our mattress a few weeks ago, the store price matched a mattress from a competitor, which brought the price down $150. Not to mention free delivery. 

Oh, I love price matching.

Evites (Merrick)

I recently received an email invitation for a friend's bridal shower. A few weeks before this, I received an email baby announcement from my cousin. And a few months previous to that, I had two baby showers where the invitations were sent via email.

Although the email wedding announcement that I recently received seemed to be a little strange, I see nothing wrong with using email for bridal and baby showers, baby announcements, birthday cards, or party invitations. In fact, I think it's genius.

For my baby shower, we designed our own invitation and reminder in Photoshop, then inserted the image in an email. We sent out the invitation a week before the shower, and the reminder the day before the shower, and people could directly RSVP by replying to the email. So simple!

However, if you don't have Photoshop, or don't want to design your own invitation, there are lots of good websites that let you make and send your evites for free, including evite.com, Purpletrail.com, Mypunchbowl.com, and Pingg.com. These do the work for you, sending out all the invitations, sending a reminder, and allowing the guests to RSVP and see other guests who have RSVP'd.

Email is such a good communication resource, and best of all, it's free! So next time your gearing up to buy invitations, envelopes, and several rolls of stamps, think about sending an evite.

Automate Your Savings (Carole)

You've probably heard the oft-repeated phrase, "Pay Yourself First."  These just might be the most important words in the English language when it comes to your financial health.  If it's all you can do to pay the mortgage, utilities, groceries, car payment and insurance and you are not putting money aside in some kind of savings vehicle on a very regular basis, then you will never get ahead financially.

The only way to long term financial stability is to put money away somewhere for the future.  You can call this savings account whatever you want:  Emergency Fund, Rainy Day Money, Retirement. . .  Guaranteed the day will come when you will be glad it's there waiting.

If a personal savings plan (in addition to a 401k or IRA) is not part of your current budget and seems absolutely impossible, take heart.  Everyone feels this way!  It almost doesn't matter how much money you earn, you can easily spend it all.  We've all learned that if you make more money, then your bills automatically go up by at least that same amount.  I think it's one of Murphy's Laws.

To stem this tide, you need to set your personal savings plan like any other BILL THAT MUST BE PAID.  Pay yourself -- every month, or every paycheck.  My husband often tells of our first experience with this.  We decided (after being married for many years) to have $100 electronically removed from our checking account every month and put into a money market account.  We both almost hyperventilated after setting it up!  Could we really afford this???  Would we have to transfer it right back within seconds of having it taken out?  Maybe you feel those same fears.

But guess what?  The $100 came out the next month and we still paid all of our bills.  Whew.  And it happened again the next month and the next month.  It was magical.  And easy.  Unbelievably, we didn't really miss it.  Most budgets (even tight ones) have more wiggle room than you think.

After a few months, we sucked in our breath again and increased the amount to $200.  Same thing.  We didn't miss it.  But we did love watching that money market account grow bit by bit each month.  That gave us some serious endorphins to keep going.

After a year, we decided to really ramp things up and increased our auto-withdrawal amount to $1000!  Surely this would kill us.  But it didn't.  We survived and paid all our bills.

Start small.  But start.  I'm not saying you need to do the same amounts we did, but try something.  Call your bank or get online and set yourself up for an automatic withdrawal to some kind of safe savings vehicle (CD, money market, savings account. . .) and watch your stress level go down as your personal savings goes up.

This is what's called "Getting Ahead."

Small Savings: Printer Ink Revisited (Janssen)

I don't know what it is about me that makes the cost of printing from home so distasteful to me, but for some reason it is one of the things I most dislike spending money on.

The other thing is that you're not supposed to throw your ink cartridges away because it's bad for the environment, so not only do I get to be bothered about spending MONEY to get new ink, I have to feel guilty about what to DO with that stupid empty cartridge.

At a job I had a few years ago, the supply room was filled with used cartridges (probably a dozen or more) that no one knew what to do with, and I finally discovered that you could print of free shipping labels from HP and send them in to be recycled. I felt happy about that.

Until I realized I could actually be coming out slightly ahead, rather than just breaking even with my empty printer cartridges.

Thanks to some hasty Googling at work a few months ago, I discovered that Staples (the office supply store) has an ink recycling program where not only do they take your ink cartridges off your hands, but they give you $2 in rewards back for each one you turn in (up to 10 per month).

You also get either a percentage (usually 10-20%) or a dollar amount of new ink cartridge purchases back in reward dollars, which means the overall amount you're paying for your cartridges drops a lot.

And then you get to spend free money at an office supply store which, nerdily, is my idea of heaven on earth.

Eating On a Dollar A Day (Carole & Janssen)

I'm out in Boston with Janssen and her sweet new baby.  Plus her little family is days away from a move across the country.  We're a bit busy, to say the least!  So, rather than writing a post today, we're sharing a very interesting Time Magazine article, and the accompanying  blog, about 2 people who are feeding themselves on $1 per day.  Maybe a bit extreme, but it will get you thinking about your own food budget in a whole new way!

You'll quickly notice that they eat vegan.  

Time Magazine Article
http://www.dollaradaybook.com/blog 


Hope you're having a happy, happy day!!

Small Savings: Homemade Stock (Janssen)

There are some common grocery items where the price doesn't phase me at all. Yogurt? No problem. Sugar? Got tons.

But for some reason, I find chicken broth absurdly expensive. Or filled with chemicals. Or both. When I'm making a recipe that calls for something like 7 cups of chicken broth, I am filled with horror.

You can make your own chicken stock by boiling chicken bones, but I rarely, if ever, buy chicken with bones in it, so this doesn't really solve my problem.

I do, however, buy a lot of vegetables and there are always parts of vegetables you don't really eat on their own (the tops of celery stalks, carrot peelings or tops, the ends of onions, broccoli stems, etc). And frankly, I don't really notice a difference between chicken broth and vegetable broth.

Over the course of a week or so, I put the leftover vegetables parts in a tupperware until I have a good little pile.

I toss it all in my stockpot, cover it with water, put in some bay leaves, garlic, salt and pepper, and let it simmer for a few hours. Then I cool it, strain out the vegetables, pour the broth in my ice cube molds, and put the frozen cubes in a big tupperware in the freezer.

Then, when I need it for a recipe, it costs me virtually nothing, even if the recipe requires a ludicrous amount of broth. Plus, I get to feel good about not having wasted my vegetables. Not to mention that it's not filled with weird ingredients.

Small Savings: Unloved Bread Ends (Janssen)

I don't know about you, but I often get down to the last slice or two of bread and it's looking a little stale, or too thin, or it's the end piece and I don't really want to use it. I'd rather just move on to a new, whole loaf.

But throwing that bread away seems so wasteful, and I always imagine my dad cringing. Which means that I sometimes find myself with two or three almost empty bread bags in the back of my fridge.

Instead of throwing them away, I've found two ways to use them to avoid having to buy other products:

1. I take the leftover slices of bread, toss them into the food processor and blend them until they are tiny little crumbs. I then dump the whole thing into a large ziplock back and stick it in the freezer. Whenever I have a recipe that calls for breadcrumbs, there they are, ready and waiting (and homemade!).
2. I make my own croutons. I take a slice of bread (the end works just as well as a regular slice of bread) and cut it into strips and then squares (I'd say about 25 squares per slice - 5 rows by 5 rows). I dump it into a bowl, mix in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried herbs (basil, oregano or an Italian Mix is my standard), then toss it on a baking sheet and cook them at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until they are toasty and brown. Stir them occasionally to keep from burning. These last quite well in the fridge, I've found, staying crunchy for about a week after I make them. Bonus, you save money by not having to go to the dentist to get your broken tooth fixed - am I the only one who fears for my teeth whenever I bite into a store-bought crouton?

Small Savings: Printing (Janssen)

When you're trying to live frugally, you can save on big-ticket items (a car, a house, a vacation, etc) or on smaller items (groceries, clothing, eating out, etc).

The savings you'll see if you buy a less-expensive car is far more than you'll probably see at the grocery store (I hope - maybe you buy really expensive groceries), but you'll probably go to the grocery store hundreds of times for every one car purchase, which means the savings you can get at the grocery store, while only a few dollars a time, can really add up over time.

One of the places I save a little money is with my home printer. We're not talking hundreds of dollars of savings here, but it is a place where we can cut costs a little bit with no real effort on our parts. We do this in two ways:

1) We realized last fall that 99% of our printing is done for things that don't require any particularly nice paper. It's just directions from Google Maps or grocery coupons or boarding passes for an airplane trip. Instead of buying packs of paper for a few dollars at Wal-Mart or the grocery store, we started hoarding all the paper that entered our house that was blank on one side. It became immediately obvious how MUCH paper we got. A calendar from church, a credit card offer in the mail, a letter informing us what precint to vote in. And then, we started bringing some home from work - the notices I got at school alone filled up our printer tray in a matter of days.

The grocery store doesn't care if my coupons have the date of the next PTA luncheon on the back. I can get to my destination just fine if my directions are printed on the back of my privacy policy notification from the bank.

2) As I said above, we realized that our printing rarely needed to be high quality. Printer ink is fairly expensive, so we hate to waste it. We went on to our computer settings and changed the automatic mode for our printer to "Fast Draft," rather than high-quality. The quality is still perfectly fine - I have no problem reading anything and it's sharp enough for the scanners to read the barcodes on my grocery coupons - but it uses a fraction of the ink and, bonus, prints FAR faster and your paper isn't warped from all that ink. Win-win.

I'm certainly not going on a cruise with these savings, but it's less trips to the store and less money out of my wallet.