DollarDays

Monday, April 4, 2011

Living Cheap with High Gas Prices

Gas prices have spiked again and the experts say that this is not the end of it. They say that we will see even greater gas prices as wars wage on Middle East and as long as we see the price of crude oil increase in the markets. They say that we all should brace ourselves as the prices continue to rise. Well people like you and I are not only bracing ourselves but we are looking for ways to save and live cheap. Right? Right. Here’s little tip that I’ve know about for a while now and if you shop at Kroger, you’ve known about it also but recently Jenny of SouthernSavers.com mentioned a little tip that we all can benefit from. When you shop at Kroger using your Kroger Plus card you are earning points toward Kroger fuel centers and participating Shell stations. You can literally save .10 per gallon per fill-up. I suspect that these days Kroger is selling more gas than they have in the last few years. The only catch, if you can call it catch is that the points accrue on a monthly basis and do not carry over from month to month. As you can see there, Kroger’s trying to corner the market on your monthly grocery trips but hey it’s worth .10 a gallon and in some vehicles like SUVs or trucks, that’s no small thing. In my car, an 11 gallon tank my family would save 1.10 on a fill-up, I’d go for that but the Kroger gas station is about 20 miles from my house. Since we get about 23 miles per gallon, we’d loose almost a gallon of gas in travel which means we’d loose over 3.00 trying to save 1.10. So, that’s not a great way for me to save, but if you have a Kroger gas station in your area, you may want to try it out to spike up your cheap living plan. Remember though if there is not a Kroger fueling center in your area, look for a Shell station, ask if they participate in the Kroger Fuel Points. Now Jenny from SouthernSavers.com recently said that more than one car can fill up at one tank just by not hanging up the pump when you’re done then rolling your mom or brother or whoever right behind you to fill up their tank. She suggested this as a viable way to help each other out from month to month. To me that seems a bit much and I’d feel a little weird doing it, but if it benefits you and doesn’t break the law, I say, why not.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Shopping At Marshalls

Living cheap and looking good are easier done these days than they used to be. With stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx, you can actually live cheap but look like a million bucks. I happen do a lot of shopping at Marshalls for my kids. In fact, I put a pair of Ralph Lauren Polo jeans on my two year old the other day and they looked fabulous on her, the perfect length and everything. Then I had to think about where I’d gotten them from. Suddenly it came to me, we’ve had those for three years now and I got them at Marshalls when my five year old was two. To really blow your mind, I’m almost certain that I paid less than $5.00 for them, at the most, I may have spent $7.99 on them. That should say a lot about the quality of clothing that you can get from Marshalls. For those of you who don’t know much about how a store like this works. Basically, they are what we consider a deep discount or closeout store. Which means, they sell name brand items anywhere from 25 to 90% off. It’s true. I was in there a few months ago and I saw some nice sweaters on a display. I look at the tag and they were selling for 99.00. Now you may be saying 99.00 is not cheap! Well when it’s a cashmere sweater whose original price was over 400.00 dollars, that kind of puts it in perspective for you and all of a sudden, the sweater is cheap! More specifically, what a store like Marshalls does is they make deals with top designers to buy their excess inventory or out-of-season inventory then they offer to people like you and I for an affordable price. I love that idea.! Marshalls is not just a clothing store, they also sell designer furniture, luggage and accessories. They sell men's clothing, professional and casual, they also have a nice selection of high end gadgets. The next time you are out shopping for a birthday gift for a kid or an adult, a Christmas gift (or whatever you celebrate) think Marshalls. The last item that I purchased there was a nice black leather purse for 15.00. In my mind it doesn’t matter who makes it, it’s leather, it black and it very well made. Anyway, it was by someone I’d never heard of. But you get my point. The purse I purchased before that was falling a apart within six months and I paid more for it. So cut out the high-priced middle man and shop at Marshalls. Saving money is not hard. Getting out of your old habits and/or routines may be difficult but even in this economy, saving money is possible.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cheap Living with Couponing Basics

O.k. I’ve started couponing, I’ve been going at if for about two months now and it’s going o.k. Why is it just, o.k.? Well, I was so used to buying what we eat that now shopping by the sales flyer and which coupons I have has really thrown me off. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like couponing, I like clipping coupons, I like looking through the sales paper and seeing the awesome deals, and I like putting those deals together with the coupons and seeing how much I saved after each shopping trip. In short, I like living cheap! However, I have not yet found the balance of buying what my family and I are used to eating and couponing. I actually feel out of control a little bit. I feel like I’ve lost control in the area of grocery shopping because I have given the control over to the sales flyer and the Sunday paper. But I won’t quit couponing. Do you know why? The reason is, because by couponing I save, and I save pretty well. I’m not what they call upside down in my shopping trips, meaning I have yet to save on one trip, more than I spend, but I my savings has been growing every with every trip. This past shopping trip I saved sixty dollars. Now I don’t care who you are, if all you’ve ever saved while grocery shopping is 20 to 25 dollars, saving 60, will get you excited and would be enough to hang on to doing something new until you get better. One of my issues right now is not having a printer. With all of the great sites out there on the web who offer lists with all of the sales items from the major chain grocery stores from which you can print a personalized shopping list. That way when you go shopping, you’re focused and you get the best savings possible. Well not having a printer leaves you kind of at the mercy of the all of the “fake sale” tickets hanging off of the shelves in the store.

At any rate, this blog is about showing you how to live cheap. With that said, here’s the basics of what I know about living cheap with couponing basics. You buy your Sunday papers, in it, you pull out your couponing inserts and your sales circulars. Then you match up what’s on sale at your local grocer with the coupons you have on file or from the paper. Go to sites like couponingmom.com or southernsavers.com, search their shopping list tools, check their coupon database and voila, you’re on you way to savings you’ve never experienced before. You will also learn from these sites that there are other places whereby you can acquire coupons. The more places to find legitimate coupons, the better. There are also classes that you can take to get good information on how to effectively coupon. These classes are offered all over in different cities and usually cost about ten bucks. So in short, I have personally found couponing to be definitely worth the learning curve that you may need to go through, so hang in there and live cheap!

Living Cheap with Kids Part II

My kids are no longer eating baby food. I have a preschooler and a toddler so we have long since left that behind but here’s what I know about living cheap with kids when you have to buy baby food. When my kids were that age, I learned a few tricks few tricks of the trade. I mean how could you not. For those who are actively in the throws of rearing children and babies especially, I know you have figured out how to cut a few corners. The very first and I consider to be the most obvious way to save money on a new baby is by nursing your baby. That saves you money on formula. Our babies were both breastfed so I don’t even know how expensive or inexpensive formula is but I’ve been told by many, many mommies that it is outrages. Breast feeding is extremely economical and also comes with amazing health benefits. However economical and healthy, it isn’t easy. Plenty of women have shed plenty of tears over just trying to nurse their little newborns. Also, while doing some shopping recently I found out that the popular store Big Lots, sells baby food now and for less than .50 per jar.

A really good tip for saving money on baby food is by couponing. You can Google search gerber baby food coupons or baby food coupons or beechnut baby food coupons. You get the idea. Whatever baby food you choose to feed your child, just Google search for that brand followed by the word coupon and you should pull up a good offering for a great way to save. Here’s one thing that I did and moms are beginning to do more and more. Don’t buy “extra” food. Look in your pantry or refrigerator and pull out anything in there that can be boil and/or cooked to mush and serve it up! I used to take all of the hard fruit we had in the house, cut them into small pieces, boil them in nothing but water, combine it with softer fruits like bananas and strawberries and feed it to my kids. They loved it and it didn’t cost our household any extra money. Not only did the children love it, but because it was full of fiber, it kept their bowel movement regular and softened their stool. For dinner or lunch, I’d cook potatoes and mash them with other soft vegetables that I already had in the house. Another favorite for the girls was sweet potato. I’d cook it and mash it and when they were ready for finger foods, I’d cut them into fries, sprinkle cinnamon over them, drizzle a little olive oil and bake them in the oven. One thing that I learned is that kids don’t need a buffet of foods to eat and they are not requiring new fare every night, they just want to eat. So don’t get hung up on variety. Do it if you can, but know that you little baby doesn’t really care about it all that much as long as it’s good. My daughter ate the “fruit medley” that I made almost every morning for several months and never turned it down once.

Cheap Living with Kids

In today’s times, I am always looking for ways to cut corners financially. Raising two little girls on one income often calls for some ninja, jujitsu, origami paper folding skills when it comes to cheap living. That may not be quite true, but that is how I feel sometimes when I’m out looking for and getting deals. For me, one of the most obvious places that I can save money is with buying children’s clothing. Because I have same gender kids, I happily and faithfully pass down my eldest daughter’s clothes to the youngest. Now, not all items can be passed down from sibling to sibling so I then have to get a little creative. I love, absolutely love baby consignment shops and consignment sales. All mommies want their little people looking their absolute cutest and therefore they tend to purchase nothing but the cutest clothes, whether they be new or used, there is one thing you can count on, they will be cute. If you are a stickler for having name brand clothing, then you may want to check out baby consignment stores. It may be good to mention here, that baby consignment shops don’t just carry clothes for babies, they carry clothes for children up to around the ages of six or seven. Coincidentally, those stores also carry baby toys, baby gear, baby equipment, books and children’s movies and all for cheap. In my neck of the woods, mothers get together and throw consignment sales all of the time. They are like yard sales but generally held indoors and you can actually sign up to sell your own baby items at the event, there is another way to make some money, sell your used clothing that is still in good condition.

When trying to live cheap you won’t be relegated to buying used clothing. I mean five year old will be starting school soon and I don’t intend on sending her to school with all used clothing (although I there is nothing wrong with that). I also shop at closeout and outlet stores. One of my favorites is the JC Penney outlet store. Their back to school sale is INSANE. If you’ve never been, the deals that you will get there will have you hooked after one visit. I’ve purchases brand new, brand name jeans for $1.50. Beautiful tops for my girls for $2.00 and even brand name shoes like Skechers for under $20.00. Living cheap in today’s world is not hard to do, most companies offer coupons and discounts for filling out surveys, participate in all of that, it only takes a few minutes but you will save a lot so, it’s worth it.