As you all have learned, I am really enjoying grocery savings these days. I saved 60% at Publix and 53% at Kroger yesterday! However, due to the fact that we technically are a one income household these days, I wanted to share other ways we are trying to save as well... and maybe they will help you too!
FOOD:
Let's start with groceries, just because I have had more questions since my previous savings posts. I want to make one thing clear: you don't have to coupon to save money on groceries! If you don't want to deal with that hassle, because it can be time consuming, just focus on shopping the sale items. You'll automatically save 20-30% just based on that. However, if you do want to find coupons, a great place is the internet. You don't always have to go buy the newspaper every Sunday. Here are some places for you to check out:
Coupon sites: coupons.com
redplum.com
couponnetwork.com
smartsource.com
Grocery sites: Just about every grocery store now has printable coupons or electronic coupons that are specific to them. Target, Kroger, Publix, Food Lion, and even Walmart are some examples.
Product sites: Many products now have somewhere on their site for promotions. You can usually get a handful of coupons, maybe more if you're lucky.
Facebook: It's not a bad idea to "like" your favorite products' pages, so that you will be notified when they put up coupons or free samples for their products.
Samples: Free samples often come with coupons for the full size versions of the product. The best part is that you get to try the product for free first! A good place to find these is
http://www.heyitsfree.net They pull them from all over the internet and put them in one place. Even better, you can sign up for their daily digest, where they will send you one email a day that lists all the free samples for the day. (I also happen to know the guy that runs this site, and he doesn't post anything that makes you "do" something for the freebie)
CLOTHES/HOUSEHOLD:
I rarely go clothes shopping these days, but when I do, I make sure that I have some kind of discount in hand. Lots of major stores allow you to sign up for emails from them, and some of those contain coupons for percentages off or dollars off a certain amount. Facebook is also great for getting high value coupons. Old Navy has been great lately, with 30% off a single item, or 20% off an entire purchase.
Online shopping is also great for this. There are coupon codes or promotional codes for tons of websites. A couple of weeks ago, Jamie was shopping for new checks. The ones he wanted were over $20. I suggested we do a Google search for promo code. We found one, plugged it in, and suddenly the checks were only six or seven dollars! It really is worth it to take the short time to search on the internet to see if you can find a discount. It can save you so much money!
UTILITIES:
We have been looking for so many little ways to save that would add up, and one of those places is through utilities. Many of these have been stated over and over, but we can always use a refresher!
Electricity/Water: Handwash dishes as much as possible, and only run the dishwasher if you have a full load. Only run the washing machine with a full load, and wash with cold water instead of warm or hot. Keep the thermostat at 68 (fall/winter) or 78 (spring/summer). Use sunlight as late into the day as possible. Open the blinds!
Cable/Internet/Phone: Take a look at what you're using and what you can cut back on. We watch a lot of television (or I do anyway) in our house, so we are considering switching from Time Warner Cable to AT&T U-Verse. It's cheaper, for more services. We also have our phone plan with AT&T, so bundling is a good option. We saved a good bit of money switching to the same cell phone carrier.
ENTERTAINMENT:
Lots of daily deal sites have popped up in the past couple of years. Living Social and Groupon are two of the biggest. You can save 50% or more on restaurants and other entertainment. Restaurant.com also allows you to buy gift certificates at a fraction of their worth.
If you like movies, obviously actually going to the big screen isn't a great option for the price. Netflix's monthly DVD charge for one at a time, or streaming option is less than the price of one movie ticket. If you don't watch movies often, but still want to see them once in a while, Redbox or Blockbuster kiosks are cheap for a movie night at home. You can even find free rental codes online, making it an even better deal!
Free music streaming can be found courtesy of Spotify, Pandora, IHeartRadio, YouTube, and many other places on the internet.
Don't forget about the public library! Not only do they have tons of books (duh) and magazines, but they have lots of movies and CDs too!
Whew! That was a lot of information to absorb! I hope it was helpful and you found at least one new thing you can try. What do you think? What are some ways that you save?
