Although I have always liked the restaurant Panera there isn’t one that close to where I live so I don’t go there very often. A couple of months ago I did end up there with my sister and I got a Panera Card for free and they told me to take it home to register it. I put it in my desk drawer and didn’t think about it again until my friends decided we should go to lunch at Panera. The night before I got out the card and registered it. I clicked on the “My Surprises” section of the website and it gave me a free Espresso or Smoothie that I was able to use the next day. Even better, my friend was able to get a card that day, register it on the internet on her phone, and get a free drink also. Now under the “My Surprises” tab I have a $1 off of any drink. If you are going to eat at Panera it can’t hurt to get a card.
Tag Archives: Frugal Ideas
Save a Page or Getting the Most from Your Newspapers
I buy or get delivered 4 Sunday Newspapers every week. I hate the amount of paper that goes to waste when I recycle them so I try to come up with as many ways as possible to use them. I give away at least one paper (minus coupons) ever week, more if anyone else wants one. Closer to Christmas I will save the comics for wrapping paper (see the cute wrapping paper here). We are about to have a yard sale and my mom pointed out to me that I should also be saving the yellow flyer ads because they are blank on the back and we can use them as smaller yard sale signs. I love frugal / green ideas 🙂
Making Home Brewed Sweet Tea
If you have never made your own sweet tea then you obviously don’t live in the south. Just joking, but I made some sweet tea with our coffee maker recently and I wondered how many people actually do this. I used tea bags I already had in the house, put them in the top of the coffee maker, added water and ran the coffee maker like I would to make coffee. Let it cool, add sugar and you have fresh brewed Sweet Tea. I have worked at restaurants for years that sell sweet tea and they make it in a very similar way. This is something I make when we are out of other sweet drinks in the house and I am trying to stretch our grocery budget since I have everything to make it on hand. Note- I recommend using decaf tea bags because the tea can get very, very strong if you don’t.
We Got a Free Gift From At&t U-verse
So when we moved into the house we live in now we were unable to transfer our current internet/cable provider and the choices were limited. We ended up choosing At&t U-Verse. This week in the mail we received a free pizza and movie from them for being with them for a year. What a nice surprise! They also unexpectedly gave us $150 in Visa gift cards for signing up for a cheap plan with them.
We have had good luck with their customer service. Read my article about How One Phone Call Saved Us $343.
See Family Movies at Regal Theaters for $1
Click HERE to see a list of theaters, movies and showtimes at Regal for $1.
Frugal Article- “Millionaires in the Making”
I enjoyed reading this article about people who are on track to be millionaires. Some of them are doing it partly by living frugal lifestyles in addition to their income. It wasn’t the traditional “How I made a million dollars with my business” article. Click here to read “Millionaires in the Making.”
Couponing in as Little Time as Possible
I have had many people say to me that they don’t coupon because they don’t have the time. I am also an extremely busy person and I make sure that couponing takes as little time away from the rest of my life as possible. There is no denying that couponing will never be as fast as jumping in your car, heading to the grocery store and buying whatever you want regardless of price. Therefore, I am going to share my tips and tricks for couponing quickly and in such a small amount of time that it is very worthwhile to my grocery budget.
Learning to Coupon– This is probably where the greatest amount of time is spent. Couponing is a skill. Like any skill it has to be learned , practiced, and perfected. I recommend starting small. Try doing a few small deals a week at the store you will already be shopping at. You will learn as you go. It’s addicting and it will encourage you to try more.
Use the Whole Insert Method of Organizing Your Coupons– I organize my coupons in a filing cabinet by date with a folder for each week. When I need a coupon, I grab the right folder, get the right insert and cut it out. I do not have time to cut out ever coupon I ever receive individually nor do I think this is a productive use of time. You will not use the majority of coupons you ever receive so unless a great deal comes along for a particular coupon I don’t want to spend time on it.
Save Only 12 Weeks Worth of Coupon Inserts– After that you will rarely find any coupons that have not expired. Add a new week and get rid of an old week at the same time. This creates less clutter and is less to keep track of. Thanks, SouthernSavers.com for a great article about this HERE. They also show you how to check if any coupons are left unexpired so you don’t throw them out. In favor of saving time, I generally do not do this extra step.
Get Your Sunday Newspapers Delivered– Instead of having to go to the store every Sunday and buy newspapers to get coupons, have them delivered right to your house. You are able to do a Sunday only subscription. A newspaper subscription is cheaper than buying them in the store every week and it helps to ensure that you will never forget to buy them. Most coupons line up better with sales a few weeks down the road from when they are issued, so you never want to miss a week. This also saves a lot of hassle if you want to use a coupon the same day it comes out because you won’t be trying to cut it out at the store.
Use a Coupon Wallet– I use a pendaflex style coupon wallet that has a tab for each store I shop at and then a few generic tabs for extra cut coupons ex. Personal care, household, and grocery. Once I have picked the deals I want to do for a week I file them by store so they are easy to access. Sometimes I will even just use an envelope for a quick stop at one store.
Pick a Couple of Stores You Actually Shop At– Driving all over your state to every store possible to get ever deal available is not an effective use of your time, money or energy. Pick a few stores close to home that you actually shop at and focus your effort on those. There are exceptions to this, if you do find a really amazing deal that makes it worth a trip out of your way, but you have to determine when it’s worth it.
Pick a Couple of Coupon Websites that Give You the Best Results– If you are combing hundreds of coupon blogs every week you are not spending your time effectively. There are many couponing blogs that I enjoy reading, but if I don’t have much time I stick to two or three that I find have most of the best deals for my local stores so that I see the deals quickly. I use www.moneysavingmom.com, www.couponaholic.net, and www.southernsavers.com but find the ones that work the best for you.
Quickly Review the New Drug Store Coupon Deals of the Week Sat Night/Sun Morning– I spend less than half an hour looking at new deals for the next sale week. Target, CVS, and Walgreens have sale cycles that run Sunday through Saturday. I like using www.southernsavers.com I go straight to the section for the store I want, look at the Ads and Coupon Match Ups for that week, pick the deals I want to do, and it even creates a shopping list for me. I then take that list and copy it into a word document with the lists from all of the stores I want to shop at that week to make one single list. I find that this one site has 99% of the best couponing deals already listed out so I don’t have to search a ton of sites to find the best deals quickly. And no, unfortunately, I don’t get anything for promoting their site but this is really what I do.
Quickly Review New Grocery Store Deals Before you go Grocery Shopping- Unlike Drug or Big Box Store sales that run until Sunday grocery store sale cycles change every wed or thurs depending on where you live but they are less likely to run out of items. I usually only check grocery store sale deals when I am going grocery shopping. If you want to make sure you are first to get their deals look over them the night before the sale starts. The reason I usually wait until I am about to go shopping is because if I see a great deal I want to run out to the store even if I have a kitchen full of food and I usually don’t stop at just one item.
Quick Pick Your Deals– I don’t do every deal, ever time. I’m selective to save time. What I mean by this is know what you need to buy that week and then keep your eyes open for those deals. Other than something that I need to buy immediately, and will have to spend full price for if I don’t find a deal on it, I look for stock up deals. These are deals on items I know that I need for my household and I will stock up on them when they are FREE, I get paid to buy them, or a really great price (as time goes on you will learn what a really great price is for a coupon deal in your area). I have a small cabinet (not a whole room) I fill with my “coupon stash” of household items and food goes in the pantry. You won’t always be able to find a great deal on an item that you need at exactly the time you need it so stocking up helps you to buy items only when they are cheapest.
Shop the Day Your Stores Sale Starts– This is Sunday mornings for drug stores and big box stores, Wed or Thurs Morning for most Grocery Stores or On Your Store’s Restocking Day. Because Couponing’s largest time investment comes from getting ready before hand, you are wasting time every time you cut coupons for deals that the store is out of. With couponing’s recent surge of popularity it can be harder to find the best deal items in stock. You increase your chances of find an item in stock by shopping during one of the times I listed.
Rainchecks are Your Friends– If you have already invested the time and energy to collect coupons for items that are sold out, take a minute at the store to get a raincheck and then file it with the coupons so that you can get the deal at a later time. If your coupons are expiring soon, ask that the clerk include the terms to accept your soon to be expired coupons on the raincheck. CVS rainchecks never expire so it makes it easy to fit a deal into another week of shopping.
If the Deals Aren’t That Great, Stay Home– If you look at the deals currently going on and don’t see anything that great- stay home! You will ALWAYS spend less money staying at home and away from temptation.
Look at Couponing as Your Hobby– I have so much fun couponing it really is one of my favorite hobbies. No it is not fun all the time, especially if something goes wrong, but if you can’t find a way to have fun couponing it will be much harder to justify spending your time in it.
Don’t Disregard Other Methods of Saving Money at the Grocery Store– Couponing works best when it is used in conjunction with other methods of saving money at the grocery store. I do use coupons but I also- shop sales, keep track of prices, shop at discount grocery stores for items I don’t usually get coupons for, etc.
Another Target Beauty Bag is Available thru Facebook
There is another Target Beauty Bag give away! These are some of the best free samples ever! The picture above is of the last target beauty bag (minus the MIO). The page is crawling right now but keep trying because it’s worth it. Click HERE to go to their page.
How I Save $60 Every Time I Buy Printer Ink
Yes, that is a picture of my actual printer! I have had it since I was in high school. I LOVE this printer. It’s a HP LaserJet 1100. My father bought it for me off of eBay for $5. It only prints in black and white but it prints quickly and clearly. The down side? If I want to buy a new ink cartridge for it from an office supply store it costs $75 and a half an hour drive to find it. Instead, we buy refilled ink cartridges off of eBay for $15. They work great and I only usually have to buy one every year or two. As my fellow couponers know, when you are printing coupons you use a lot of ink.
Our Experience as a One Car Household
This has been a very interesting year for our household, although when is life ever dull? It was shortly after I lost my job that my boyfriend’s car blew a head gasket and was no longer worth fixing. This left us as a one car household with a decision to make. Do we go and finance buying a new car, losing money the second we drive it off the lot, but knowing it would be reliable, or did we save up to buy a quality used car which can save a lot of money in the long run as long as it’s not a lemon? A couple members of our family had recently had bad experiences buying used cars which made us especially wary.
We live in an area where there might as well be no public transportation so owning a car isn’t optional. We decided that since I wasn’t working we didn’t immediately need a 2nd car and would save up money for as long as we could until we absolutely had to have a car with the idea that hopefully we would save enough and buy a car before we had to finance one at a dealership.
Six months later we had saved up enough to buy a new-to-us car. We bought a 2006 Nissan Sentra that we found on Craig’s List. It was sold by the original owner, who was looking to sell this car because he wanted to buy a new larger vehicle for work. He had all of the records showing that he had done excellent preventative work on the car. We were excited but were determined to have a vehicle inspection done before we proceeded any further. I will never buy a used car without one, especially off of Craig’s list where scams are common. I learned from reading a book by financial expert Clark Howard that a car seller can legally lie to you about the condition of a car so it’s important to protect yourself.
We are lucky to have a fantastic mechanic who was able to go that day to look at the car. He noticed several things that we, not being people who know a lot about cars, had missed. This helped us when it came to negotiating the price of the car and also let us know that the breaks needed new pads and other inexpensive but important work right away. The money we paid for the vehicle inspection was worth every penny. It gave us a clear picture of the car we were buying and also set our minds at ease that we weren’t buying a complete lemon. Had a relative of mine done this he could have saved himself thousands of dollars he spent on a car that was a complete lemon and also on the repairs he then had to pay for.
What Helped Us to Only Need One Car-
1. There are only two of us in our household which means less people to shuffle around
2. One of us wasn’t working so there were no conflicting work schedules
3. We live close to family who was more than willing to help us with rides and let us tag along on errand runs. Thank you so much!
4. We worked around each other’s schedules to make it work!
How we saved money-
If you follow this blog then you already know about the thousands of ways we save every day but here are a few that really stood out to me during this period
1. Needing less gas from only having one car
2. Not needing to pay for insurance on two cars anymore
3. Bringing a lunch to work every day instead of buying
4. Cooking at home instead of going out to eat
5. Spending more time at home instead of going out
6. Postponing any other large purchases that were less necessary until after we had bought a car
7. Going over our bills and calling the companies that provide our services (Phone and Cable +Internet) and were able to reduce our bills just by calling
8. Did I mention couponing?
9. Also using up things we already had in the house A.K.A. our coupon and pantry stash
10. Less access to a vehicle meant less trips to the store overall. We often followed policy of “Use it up, wear it out, make it work or do without!” If we couldn’t make it to the store I decided we really didn’t need whatever it was that badly no matter how good a deal.
Things We Learned About Buying A Used Car-
I will say it again, we aren’t people who know a lot about cars, so that definitely made it much harder to know what to buy and when but we did learn a lot during this process.
1. ALWAYS get a vehicle inspection
2. Buying a car with a salvage title is a good indication it has been in a wreck and may cost more to insure or be hard to find an insurance company
3. A car that has just had a paint job may look nice but be hiding something
4. If you are looking for a used car beware of scams, never send anyone money
5. If the title isn’t in the owner’s name they are probably buying the car and flipping it which isn’t a good sign (I believe this is illegal)
6. Used car lots will often charge a lot of additional fees ex. Dealer Fees, so make sure you know the real price before you commit
7. It never hurts to see a Car Fax or equivalent vehicle history report
8. Always try to negotiate a lower price
9. It’s a good sign if the owner has extensive vehicle records on repairs, oil changes, etc.
10. Always test drive on the highway because higher speeds can reveal a lot of problems that slower speeds hide
11. If your gut is telling you it’s too good to be true, it probably is
12. If you have someone who knows about cars ask for their help
13. Google, google, google things to look for/at when buying a used car
14. Look, look, look and then call, call, call- being familiar with prices can help you determine a fair car price in this economy and the area you live in and then make calls to car owners to help rule some out
15. Ask a million questions- if they aren’t willing to answer or you catch them in a false statement then it is probably a bad sign
In the end, we actually were faced with a decision- We knew we had to go on a 8 hour road trip to a sister’s college graduation. We didn’t feel comfortable driving our only car (reliable but older) that far, so we knew we either had to buy a new car within a week or pay around $300 to rent a car to drive up there which would dig into our car savings. We were very fortunate to find a car that week that was everything we were looking for and to pay a fair price for it. I guess you could say that we knew that if we didn’t feel that the car was good enough for a long road trip immediately then that ruled it out for us.
Our road trip went off without a hitch and our car got us there and back with no problems. We are very happy with our new car and enjoy having greater freedom from owning two vehicles; however, our one car experience does make us think twice about hopping in the car to go anywhere which is still saving us money on gas and vehicle wear and tear. We no longer take the freedom of mobility for granted and are very excited to be driving our new-to-us car!
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