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.

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!!

Food Storage (Merrick)

When we did our 100th Post Giveaway, someone commented about food storage, and it got me thinking. I grew up in a home where my dad was a huge food storage guy. We drank powdered milk, made wheat bread from canned wheat, and froze large quantities of fruit from the trees in our garden. But growing up this way isn't the only reason I'm an advocate of food storage; here are a few other reasons:

1. Having food storage can decrease your weekly purchases at the store. Food storage doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, only lentil beans and potato pearls -- it should be things that you want to eat and will eat. It's the "overbuyer" concept. When I make up my weekly menu, I go through my list of ingredients and see what I need and what I already have. If I purchased extra canned tomatoes or cream of chicken soup when they were on sale a few weeks back, that is one less thing I have to buy this week. Or if my budget is tight on a particular week, I can look in my pantry and build my menu around pasta or canned green chilies that I already have. If you're a couponer, use those coupons or wait for the big sales, and stock up on items you know you will use. Then when you go to make your grocery list, you will already have half of the ingredients.
2. In this economy with frequent layoffs and salary decreases, it's nice to have a food cushion. I know several people who have lost their jobs and have been able to live very cheaply because they can live off their food storage for a few weeks or months.
3. With all of the earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters that have hit so many people recently, there is no doubt in my mind that a little extra food in your pantry is a good thing, just in case you can't get to the grocery store for a few days.

Now obviously the nature of this blog is saving money, and building food storage costs money. But as I mentioned above, wait for the sales (especially caselot sales), use coupons, or just buy two cans of beans instead of one each week, and soon you'll be on your way to a nice supply of food without breaking the bank.

Are You an Underbuyer or an Overbuyer? (Carole)

Currently, I'm reading  The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  Have any of you read it?  Read it if you get a chance.  It will make you laugh -- and think.

Even though Gretchen is a Yale trained lawyer (whoa!), she is also a pretty ordinary wife with two little girls.  One day she came to the realization that even though "the days were long -- the years were short" and she was not really enjoying her daily life as much as she thought she should!  You too??   After tons and tons of some pretty highbrow (and some lowbrow) reading, she embarked on a year-long "project" to find more happiness in her daily life.  I won't give away her many many insights (told in a very readable style), but I will share one interesting concept relating to money that you might find useful from Chapter 7.   Here's what she has to say, When I began to pay attention to people's relationship to money, I recognized two different approaches to buying: 'underbuying' and 'overbuying.'  I am an underbuyer, I delay making purchases or buy as little as possible. . .I often consider buying an item, then decide, 'I'll get this some other time' or  'Maybe we don't really need this.'  As an underbuyer, I often feel stressed because I don't have the things I need.  I make a lot of late-night runs to the drugstore.  I'm surrounded with things that are shabby, don't really work, or aren't exactly suitable.  


She goes on to say, I gaze in wonder at the antics of my overbuyer friends.  Overbuyers often lay in huge supplies of slow-use things like shampoo or cough medicine.  They make a lot of purchases before they go on a trip or celebrate a holiday.  They throw things away -- milk, medicine, even cans of soup -- because they've hit their expiration date.  Like me, overbuyers feel stressed.  They're oppressed by the . . . the clutter and waste often created by their overbuying.


Gretchen eventually recognizes that there must be a happy medium and that it probably lives more in the camp of the Overbuyer:  I knew that I'd be happier if I made a mindful effort to thwart my underbuying impulse and instead worked to buy what I needed.  For instance, I ended my just-in-time policy for restocking toilet paper. . .As Samuel Johnson remarked, 'To live in perpetual want of little things is a state, not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation. . . I realized that the paradoxical consequence of being an underbuyer was that I had to shop MORE OFTEN, while buying extras meant fewer trips to the cash register.  I bought batteries, Band-Aids, lightbulbs, diapers -- things I knew we would need eventually.  


Do you recognize yourself in any of this??  Are you an Overbuyer or an Underbuyer??  I have been a life-long sad, sniveling underbuyer -- just ask my girls.  Constantly out of vacuum bags, light bulbs, tooth paste, pepperoni, chocolate chips (well, I might be short of this last one for a very different reason than not buying them).  And the list goes on and on.  On the other hand, living in a galaxy far far away, I have a lovely friend who is a very wise Overbuyer.  She keeps an entire box of  paper (filled with a dozen reams!) nestled safely near her printer.  She purchases charming birthday cards 20-30 at a time and even has ten spare deodorants in her bathroom closet!  She is prepared, prepared, prepared -- and smells good too!  I've always wanted to be like her, but could never quite figure out before what the difference was between us.  Mystery solved.

I'd love to hear how you buy and if it really makes you happy.