Grocery Savings without the Fuss

There are many different grocery savings tips out there, but most of the general advice involves spending a lot of time cutting coupons, driving from store to store, shopping at odd times, and creating a full-blown price book. For many of us, that is just too much fuss and a larger time commitment than we can handle right now. The good news is that you can still lower your grocery bill without all of the fuss by just following a few simple rules. 1. Find the right store and stick with it Without going crazy, compare prices on a few … Continue reading

How Grocery Stores Make You Spend More

Grocery stores know how most people like to shop, and they use that information to make you spend more. However, you can counteract their intentions with some information on product placement. If you know just where to look (and not look) in the grocery store, you can reap some big savings. There is a lot of thought and marketing that goes into product placement in a grocery store. Major brands compete for shelf space, often paying stores for the privilege of being put in highly visible areas. The store displays have a science behind them and are usually arrange specifically … Continue reading

My Best Use It Up Ideas

Extend the life of common household consumables, from laundry detergent to cleaning wipes with my best use it up ideas. You’ll save more, spend less and have fewer trips to the grocery store. Cleaning Wipes/Baby Wipes It is inevitable that once you use that last wipe up, you still have a nice little pile of cleaning solution left in the container. Take advantage of the extra cleaner to get another five or six wipes, more cleaning than you expected. Simply detach a few paper towels and put them in the solution where they will soak it up and be as … Continue reading

Getting Out of Debt: Extreme Couponing

My husband thinks I am obsessed with extreme couponing. I admit that I never actually saw the Extreme Couponing show. Nevertheless, I have been a crazy coupon lady, clipping grocery coupons and getting the best deals on groceries that I can find. I’ve always believed in coupons, but my dedication to using them had fallen off and become sporadic. I needed the focus of getting out of debt to really step up my game in order to reduce our grocery bill even more and to get out of debt. My goal is to actually come under the amount that we … Continue reading

Money Saving Ideas

At the moment in our vegetable garden, we’re picking tomatoes, apple cucumbers, beans, silver beet, zucchinis. Sweet capsicums are starting to come on. We picked our first yesterday and used them on pizza. And we can’t keep up with the number of passionfruit literally raining down each day. When our son-in-law was staying over Christmas and new year he could eat at least 6-8 passionfruit in one sitting, and I admit so can I, and it hardly made a dent in the number we have left. In case you’re wondering we have two vines. It certainly saves money given that … Continue reading

Save Money—-Make Your Own Chinese Restaurant-Style Dishes

I love getting Chinese take-out, especially on Friday nights. Unfortunately, with the economy (and my family budget) in flux, Chinese food has tumbled to the bottom of the priority list. The fact that it cost nearly $40 to feed a family a four (two main dishes and two sides) means I probably won’t be visiting my favorite Chinese eatery for a while. If you love Chinese food as much as I do, but you don’t have the cash to feed your habit, consider making your own. There are dozens of Chinese dishes that can be made in less than an … Continue reading

New Coupon Deals

It’s time for some new coupon deals. New printables paired up with sales at Wal-Mart and your local grocery store will score you cheap peanuts, Powerade, a baseball cap, popsicles, school supplies, and lots more. How about free Cheerios? Keep reading to find out all the details. The Planters Peanut deal is even better than I originally thought at Wal-Mart. I found 14 ounce jars of peanuts for $2.00 each. So I bought 3 Kool-Aids for .20 each and a jar of peanuts and got a .40 overage. You have to buy 3 Nabisco, Kraft, or Oscar Meyer products in … Continue reading

Ways to Save Money on Vacation

Settling on a vacation spot everyone in the family can agree upon is only half the battle. Once you know where you are going there is the challenge of budgeting for transportation, meals, souvenirs and other incidentals. The following tips are ones I have compiled from my own family’s cross-country adventures. Some may seem a bit obvious, but the fact is they are effective and have served us well over the years. Hopefully they can do the same for your family as well. COUPON BOOKS. Never underestimate the power of a coupon. I used to completely ignore those kiosks loaded … Continue reading

Reuse Review: Items from The Kitchen

Most of the time, the kitchen really seems to be the functional heart of the home. There is generally a lot of ongoing activity in a kitchen. This makes for plenty of opportunity to reuse items that otherwise might be thrown away. You can also repurpose a lot of kitchen items for other functions as needed. I think you will like the following articles. They focus on some creative ways to use everyday items you might find in the kitchen. Real Storage Solutions Using Egg Cartons Unless your are a homesteader, you probably have an almost endless supply of egg … Continue reading

New Uses for Old VHS Cases

We are slowly in the process of getting through our many VHS movies. Over the years, we’ve picked up quite a few of them from thrift stores and yard sales. Friends have given us their VHS tapes when they have upgraded to DVD because they knew that we would use them. We were one of the last hold outs in purchasing a DVD player. Some of the movies are starting to wear out and are so loved that we will have to attain the DVD versions. Others have been watched a few times but are not worthy of precious space … Continue reading