Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Nickles and Dimes, Baby!

Since I moved into Vann's place, I have been trying to find as many ways to save money as humanly possible. Sharing a house is a money-saver in itself, but with it comes preparing meals for two....toiletries for two...and, well, everything for two. I absolutely love living here, but I have brought it upon myself to find as many deals as possible, especially in the grocery department. I will say that I have become especially good at checking out Kroger's weekly deals online. And the wonderful thing about Kroger is that they ALWAYS have great stuff on sale, even items that they don't advertise. Add some coupons to the mix, and you have yourself an even better deal! If you hate cutting out coupons, I would highly suggest checking out www.cellfire.com. They allow you to load their coupons onto your Kroger Plus Card, therefore cutting out the need to clip some coupons (no pun intended!).

I have also found that in order to save money, you have to spend a little money to get ahead. For example, if you check out eBay, you can search for grocery coupons that people are selling for cheap. I paid $1.35 the other day for over 100 coupons. It may seem silly to spend that kind of money for small pieces of paper, but it could also save us A LOT of cash... and in my opinion, it's worth a shot! And speaking of eBay, Vann and I have started an account on there in hopes that we can sell a few things that we no longer want....fingers crossed that we make a little bit of mulah!

If you are someone who enjoys getting samples in the mail, check out www.pgeverydaysolutions.com. You can sign up for free, and they have some great samples and coupons that they can send you in the mail. Not only are samples cool because you get to try them for FREE, they eliminate having to buy the full product just to find out that you HATE IT. Been there, done that...it's no picnic! Also, Dove is offering a sample of their conditioner right now. They give you two choices. I thought that I would be able to try both, but they make you choose. But it's free, so I'm not complaining!

Once things calm down at work, I am going to start working on a budget for us so that we can really save up some money. On top of that, I am going to start working on a binder that show the rotation of the items on sale at different stores. I saw this idea on Oprah I believe. She had a woman on her show who literally paid nothing for her groceries for a family of 6. And in some cases she got money back. Uh, yes please! My brother said that it takes a bit of time to get everything organized (per what one of his co-workers said), but once it's done, it's a breeze. I'm pretty sure I can put the time in to spend little to no money on groceries! My only issue is that I can't find the woman's website to save my life. If you know what I'm talking about, please let me know!