Coupons

I was planning on posting about recycling today, but I've got coupons on the brain right now so there's no use fighting it.

Years ago I tried couponing and spent a great deal of time cutting coupons from the Sunday paper and organizing them in a fancy (expensive) coupon organizer. More often than not, however, I would find myself at the store without my coupons and they would expire before I ever got around to using them. Eventually, I gave up and decided it wasn't worth my time.

A few months ago in an effort to further lower my grocery spending, I decided to give it another go. I got myself a cute coupon organizer at the Dollar Tree and sat down with the Sunday paper only to find that there weren't very many coupons in the coupon section anymore. Most of them were ads for mail order products and the entire coupon section might only yeild me three or four useful coupons. So now what? Well, I've kept my eyes open and have found some additional sources for coupons.

TV commercials. I've noticed a lot of commercials are now directing you towards a website for coupons. Just in past few days I've seen the following:

• $29 coupon booklet for Cascade, Dawn, Swiffer, Mr. Clean, Febreze, etc.



• A commercial for the new Woolite Carpet Cleaning Pod pointed me towards Smartsource.com where they have a $2 coupon for the Pod along with many other brands that you can print from your computer.

Samples. I check the websites for my favorite brands and products looking for free samples. Many of the free samples that I get are accompanied by a coupon such as this one from Tampax that came with a $1 coupon.

Products themselves. I've also found quite a few cereal coupons printed on the inside of the box.

So now that I'd collected myself some useful coupons, the next hurdle was making sure that I had them with me when I went shopping. My shopping trips these days are usually planned out, but now and then I find myself at the store unexpectedly so I decided to keep my coupon organizer in my car. I keep it in the glovebox and am able to organize and pull out expired coupons when my husband is driving us somewhere. I also keep any restaurant, fast food, or store coupons in the glove box as well.

I find it rewarding to check the store receipt and see that I've saved $5 or $10 dollars using coupons. It may not be much in the grand scheme of things, but it works for me.

Easing into Frugality Part One

When starting down the path of frugality the internet can be an invaluable tool, but it’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the information that’s available. It can be helpful to remember that frugality isn’t an all or nothing concept. There are some simple solutions that you can implement easily to help save your family money right away, but for the more involved frugal activities it may be better to break things into steps. This, of course, will be different for everyone as every family is at a different place in their frugal journey. I’d like to begin this blog with a series of simple and frugal ideas that even a beginner can use.

Save $ Strategy: Cooking at Home

How does this work?: The household food budget is one area that you have a lot of control over. If you’ve never stopped to think about how much $ gets spent on eating out, it can be pretty surprising. Here are some things that you can do:

Create a meal plan. Try it for one week and see how it goes. Come up with seven dinners that you’d like to make and assign them to one night that week. Or maybe do six meals and reserve one night for eating up leftovers. Now add on simple breakfasts and lunches. Post this plan on the refrigerator for all to see and use this plan to make your grocery list. You can take it a step further and use coupons to save you $ at the store. It’s really as simple as that, but there are some pitfalls to watch out for.

Oh no, there’s a game/recital/scout meeting tonight and we don’t have time to cook dinner!!

Frugal Solution 1: Stop at the grocery store and pick up a rotisserie chicken, frozen veggies and a bag of salad. Throw a quick meal together at home that is more nutritious and cheaper than take out or fast food.
Frugal Solution 2: Freeze dinners ahead of time and defrost overnight in the fridge. Whenever I make dishes such as spaghetti sauce, chili or sloppy joes I double or triple the recipe and freeze the extra portions for later. If you plan ahead and pull these out of the freezer the night before then by dinner time all that needs to be done is to warm it up and serve.

Frugal Solution 3: Use your slow cooker to make a meal that’s ready by the time you walk in the door. The added benefit of slow cookers is that you can use cheaper/tougher cuts of meat because the long cooking time makes everything nice and tender. There are a ton of great slow cooker recipes available online and it’s easy to feed your family spaghetti and meatballs, pulled pork, roasted chicken, stew, pot roast…

I just don’t feel like cooking tonight!!

Frugal Solution 1: Buy frozen dinners, pot pies, frozen pizza at the grocery store when they're on sale. They may not be the most frugal purchases in your cart, but they’re certainly cheaper than going/ordering out.
Frugal Solution 2: Keep the ingredients on hand for a very simple meal that your husband or older children can cook on their own (depending on skill level). How about breakfast for dinner night with pancakes or an omelet?

It’s boring to eat at home all the time!!!

Frugal Solution 1: If the weather’s nice how about a picnic at the park?
Frugal Solution 2: Theme night. Make one night a week or month a theme night and cook and decorate to match. You could go ethnic with a Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or Italian theme and have the kids help you decorate accordingly using items that you have on hand. Or you could choose a different family member each month and have them create a menu of their favorite foods. You can use this as a chance to learn about different cultures as a family.
Frugal Solution 3: Invite friends and family over.
Frugal Solution 4: How about starting a supper club with your neighbors/friends/family? Every month you could gather at a different member’s house who is then responsible for the main dish and everyone else brings a dish to pass.

In Part 2 of this series, I'll talk about how recycling can save you money and benefit the planet.