I must say I have always been a thrifty shopper. I think its in my blood. : )
I had a single mom who worked alot and was always about saving money. My brothers & I wore used clothing & ate alot of store brand foods. We didn't buy name brand food without a coupon. I was never embarrassed by this. When I was seeing the money my mom saved, it would blow my mind. I would think why waste money when it can be used for so much more. We baught most of our clothes from thrift stores & yard sales. You would be amazed at the nice clothing we would find. Name brand clothing for a huge fraction of the retail price. I still go to thrift stores and still go yard selling. My husband use to be wierd about it, until I took him in a local thrift store called Karms. (All the money made there goes to the homeless shelter here in town. They have many locations now here in East Tennessee.) We went out to buy school clothes for our daughter. We got 16 outfits for $62.00. He was in shock. With some of the money we saved we baught her brand new nike tennis shoes. She never even new the clothes were pre owned and neither did her friends. Then, a few weeks later he went to the store with us. He had always teased me about the coupons. So I thought i'd show him the money I was saving us. I have a budget of $85.00 a week for groceries ( he was giving me $150). We buy between $115- $150 worth of groceries for under $85 & i'm always under budget. When he seen this he asked, "what are you doing with the left over money"? "Well, i've been putting it in our bank account". I had over $700 saved in just 5 months. At the end of the year we had saved enough to go on vaction to FL. And to this day he doesn't make fun of me using coupons.
Here are my tips for saving money:
* I buy a newspaper every Sunday, if it has good coupons I know I can use, I pick up another.
I always save the buy one get one free coupons, because a week or two after they come in the paper that item goes on sale. So then I can use the money saving coupon & buy one get one free coupon. I have baught Gillette disposable razors, covergirl make up, shaving cream, & olay body wash this way and spend less then $4.00 on two products.
* I use coupons.com It's a wonderful website for so many coupons. And the best one I have found so far. Be sure to check out your stores policies first, not all place accept printable coupons.
* Some bricks coupons can be sent to you via us mail. Just click on the help link, an address form pops up, fill it out & they will print it for you and send it to you. As I said only some will do this, but its worth the extra second to look, it will save money on printer ink.
* I have also recieved coupons by emailing our favorite companies. Not all companies will send you coupons. But it's worth a shot. I've had success with revlon, zipblock, huggies, glade, crisco, campbells soup, kashi, del monte, & many others.
* Always have a loyalty card to your grocery store, this helps alot. Our local krogers even sends out coupons every month for new products & items we buy the most of.
* If you shop online always look up coupon codes for the websites your buying from before checkout. You can get coupon codes for so many places. You just have to look.
There are so many ways to save money. Yes, it sometimes takes a little time, but I have found it's always worth it.
25 cent coupons, 55 cent coupons, $1.00 off coupons, it doesn't matter, it all adds up.
* And if you don't want to buy clothes from a yard sale or thrift store, i'm telling you, you are missing out. If it's not your thing maybe you should try ebay. The clothes on ebay are not all pre owned, most are new and still cheaper the retail stores.
