Tis the Season to be Thrifty
I love a good deal. My sister-in-law, Karla, scored a GREAT deal on a robe for one of the kiddos. She shared it with me since she knew how excited I would be. Woo HOO!
Since we're keeping an eye on our expenditures, I've really utilized tips and tricks to save money. Check out some of my best tips below:
1. www.coupondivas.com. This handy website has grocery, retailer, and restaurant coupons. It also has Kitty's Picks which show up in a great format on a smartphone. I look at this several times a day to catch good deals. For example, I got a year subscription to Self magazine for $3.99. Just yesterday, I bought a year subscription to Budget Travel for a certain family member who has time to travel....Uncle Ron!!
Every week, I print off a coupon to Michaels and Kohls. Emil buys miscellaneous uke-making supplies at Michaels or Jo-Ann Fabrics. Did you know you can use a Michaels coupon at Jo-Ann's and vice versa? Did you know you can have the cashier at Michaels scan the coupon off your smartphone? Technology...embrace it, people.
2. Coupon codes. I'm a big on-line shopper. Love it! Love looking at sparkly shoes at Nordstrom in my pajamas, drinking coffee in the morning. Love looking at Old Navy for pajama pants and yoga pants. All on-line. Before I purchase anything, I do a quick Google search and look for a coupon code that will give me a discount or free shipping. Rarely do I pay shipping on anything. Sign up to receive emails from your favorite stores....they will notify you of upcoming sales.
3. Thrift stores. We have some fabulous thrift stores in Redmond and Bend. I even found two great stores in Sisters last week. Why should Emil pay retail price for a tool when he can buy it used for one tenth of the price? Exactly! The good stores change often, so go often! Peruse. We picked up almost new tennis rackets two weeks ago because we want to learn to play. Now we're on the hunt for tennis balls.
4. Craigslist. I'm addicted to it and on it all the time...just ask Tommy Boy. HA! Yesterday, we picked up three huge bags of packing peanuts for free! LOVE the category "Free" under For Sale. Why do we need packing peanuts? Well, we aren't going to hand deliver every ukulele Emil makes...that would be silly. Ukuleles will come with a gig bag, but we still need to pack them safely in a box with lots of soft cushy stuff. I also connected with a local upholstery shop who is saving scraps for us. She was delighted to know the scraps wouldn't be wasted. Score! You never know what's on Craigslist, and I have several ads posted on there right now either looking for items or selling stuff.
5. Fred Meyer app. Thanks to Tommy Boy for telling me about this app. Lets me load coupons on to the Fred Meyer card, so when I check out, it gives me the discount. So handy! I go on there twice a week to look at coupons, load the ones I want (I just load stuff I generally buy.), and then voila!
Hope this gives you some good ideas! I've been making a little fun money selling stuff on eBay. It's been a learning experience...finding out what sells and what doesn't!
I love a good deal. My sister-in-law, Karla, scored a GREAT deal on a robe for one of the kiddos. She shared it with me since she knew how excited I would be. Woo HOO!
Since we're keeping an eye on our expenditures, I've really utilized tips and tricks to save money. Check out some of my best tips below:
1. www.coupondivas.com. This handy website has grocery, retailer, and restaurant coupons. It also has Kitty's Picks which show up in a great format on a smartphone. I look at this several times a day to catch good deals. For example, I got a year subscription to Self magazine for $3.99. Just yesterday, I bought a year subscription to Budget Travel for a certain family member who has time to travel....Uncle Ron!!
Every week, I print off a coupon to Michaels and Kohls. Emil buys miscellaneous uke-making supplies at Michaels or Jo-Ann Fabrics. Did you know you can use a Michaels coupon at Jo-Ann's and vice versa? Did you know you can have the cashier at Michaels scan the coupon off your smartphone? Technology...embrace it, people.
2. Coupon codes. I'm a big on-line shopper. Love it! Love looking at sparkly shoes at Nordstrom in my pajamas, drinking coffee in the morning. Love looking at Old Navy for pajama pants and yoga pants. All on-line. Before I purchase anything, I do a quick Google search and look for a coupon code that will give me a discount or free shipping. Rarely do I pay shipping on anything. Sign up to receive emails from your favorite stores....they will notify you of upcoming sales.
3. Thrift stores. We have some fabulous thrift stores in Redmond and Bend. I even found two great stores in Sisters last week. Why should Emil pay retail price for a tool when he can buy it used for one tenth of the price? Exactly! The good stores change often, so go often! Peruse. We picked up almost new tennis rackets two weeks ago because we want to learn to play. Now we're on the hunt for tennis balls.
4. Craigslist. I'm addicted to it and on it all the time...just ask Tommy Boy. HA! Yesterday, we picked up three huge bags of packing peanuts for free! LOVE the category "Free" under For Sale. Why do we need packing peanuts? Well, we aren't going to hand deliver every ukulele Emil makes...that would be silly. Ukuleles will come with a gig bag, but we still need to pack them safely in a box with lots of soft cushy stuff. I also connected with a local upholstery shop who is saving scraps for us. She was delighted to know the scraps wouldn't be wasted. Score! You never know what's on Craigslist, and I have several ads posted on there right now either looking for items or selling stuff.
5. Fred Meyer app. Thanks to Tommy Boy for telling me about this app. Lets me load coupons on to the Fred Meyer card, so when I check out, it gives me the discount. So handy! I go on there twice a week to look at coupons, load the ones I want (I just load stuff I generally buy.), and then voila!
Hope this gives you some good ideas! I've been making a little fun money selling stuff on eBay. It's been a learning experience...finding out what sells and what doesn't!
You may already know that prices on Amazon.com vary widely based on demand and tricky IT algorithms intended to coax deal tracking sites into mentioning a good deal, only then to see the price jump.
ReplyDeleteThis is where camelcamelcamel.com comes in. It's pretty simple: you can search for Amazon.com items from there, or more typically, paste in the ASIN for the item on Amazon.com that you want. The camelcamelcamel.com site will show you the price history, so you'll know whether or not the current Amazon.com price is a good deal. If you create an account on that site (you will want to), you can enter a target price, and it will send you an e-mail or text when Amazon.com drops the price to your target. Sweet!