I was reading Rocks In My Dryer's blog this morning and she has people sharing ways they save money or time or their sanity. This got me thinking about all the little ways I cut corners and shave off pennies. I am not a coupon clipper or sale watcher. However I do have a few ways I save money on my purchases.
1. I get the frequent customer cards at the stores I use so when they do have specials on something I need I save money on it. I have cards for Kroger, Steinmart, Petsmart, Petco, CVS, etc) It doesn't cost me anything and it doesn't require sitting and clipping coupons. What's easier than swiping your keychain? If you get their card they will also send you coupons and fliers in the mail for specials coming up.
2. I buy diapers through a diaper subscription service on amazon.com. They only offer Huggies now but they used to offer the subscriptions for Luvs and Pampers. Basically I pay $28.00 and a box of 144 diapers sitting on my doorstep every month. They automatically ship a box at whatever interval you choose (1 month, 2 months, etc). No tax and no shipping.
3. I never pay full price for clothes unless I am shopping at Walmart or TJ Maxx. Walmart has amazing pricing on baby clothes so I get a lot of my son's clothes there and they are cheap. Same for Target. If I buy stuff at Kohls or JC Penny's I will shop the sale rack for next seasons stuff so at the end of the summer I will buy summer stuff on sale for next summer. I do a lot of my clothes shopping at Steinmart when they have their really good sales and I use my Steinmart customer card for extra discounts.
4. I buy just about everything I can online especially if I can get free shipping. Buying online saves me the 8.25% sales tax I would pay if I shopped in a store here in Texas (unless the store is located in Texas like Target). So I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, Blue Nile, Perfume Bay, etc.
5. I have a Sam's card. We pay $50.00 a year for my husband and I to have a membership but I buy gas, baby food, clothes, baby books, etc there. Gas is usually about 20 cents cheaper a gallon there than at the station by my house. I save on formula, medicine, electronics but I don't buy a lot of groceries there. The quantities they sell of groceries aren't really practical for a family of 3.
6. We use credit cards with cash back or points to pay for just about everything. We have a credit card with our bank so when I pull up bank accounts online I can easily view the credit card balance and transfer the money whenever I want to pay it off. Then we use the points to get cash back or to put towards gift cards.
7. Anything we can fix ourselves we do. We change our own oil, replaced the kitchen sink and disposal ourselves, fixed our hot water heater, etc. I managed to find step by step instructions with pictures on the web on how to fix and replace many many things ourselves.
8. Don't order tea or soft drinks at restaurants. We went out to eat this weekend at a chain restaurant and in a moment of weakness we ordered soft drinks. They were $2.00 each plus tax. That was $4.33 on drinks. If we did this every time we eat out (which is a lot) we could easily waste over $50.00 a month on drinks (assuming we eat out 3 times a week over 4 weeks in a month).
Those are just a few of the ways I save without really having to try.
1. I get the frequent customer cards at the stores I use so when they do have specials on something I need I save money on it. I have cards for Kroger, Steinmart, Petsmart, Petco, CVS, etc) It doesn't cost me anything and it doesn't require sitting and clipping coupons. What's easier than swiping your keychain? If you get their card they will also send you coupons and fliers in the mail for specials coming up.
2. I buy diapers through a diaper subscription service on amazon.com. They only offer Huggies now but they used to offer the subscriptions for Luvs and Pampers. Basically I pay $28.00 and a box of 144 diapers sitting on my doorstep every month. They automatically ship a box at whatever interval you choose (1 month, 2 months, etc). No tax and no shipping.
3. I never pay full price for clothes unless I am shopping at Walmart or TJ Maxx. Walmart has amazing pricing on baby clothes so I get a lot of my son's clothes there and they are cheap. Same for Target. If I buy stuff at Kohls or JC Penny's I will shop the sale rack for next seasons stuff so at the end of the summer I will buy summer stuff on sale for next summer. I do a lot of my clothes shopping at Steinmart when they have their really good sales and I use my Steinmart customer card for extra discounts.
4. I buy just about everything I can online especially if I can get free shipping. Buying online saves me the 8.25% sales tax I would pay if I shopped in a store here in Texas (unless the store is located in Texas like Target). So I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, Blue Nile, Perfume Bay, etc.
5. I have a Sam's card. We pay $50.00 a year for my husband and I to have a membership but I buy gas, baby food, clothes, baby books, etc there. Gas is usually about 20 cents cheaper a gallon there than at the station by my house. I save on formula, medicine, electronics but I don't buy a lot of groceries there. The quantities they sell of groceries aren't really practical for a family of 3.
6. We use credit cards with cash back or points to pay for just about everything. We have a credit card with our bank so when I pull up bank accounts online I can easily view the credit card balance and transfer the money whenever I want to pay it off. Then we use the points to get cash back or to put towards gift cards.
7. Anything we can fix ourselves we do. We change our own oil, replaced the kitchen sink and disposal ourselves, fixed our hot water heater, etc. I managed to find step by step instructions with pictures on the web on how to fix and replace many many things ourselves.
8. Don't order tea or soft drinks at restaurants. We went out to eat this weekend at a chain restaurant and in a moment of weakness we ordered soft drinks. They were $2.00 each plus tax. That was $4.33 on drinks. If we did this every time we eat out (which is a lot) we could easily waste over $50.00 a month on drinks (assuming we eat out 3 times a week over 4 weeks in a month).
Those are just a few of the ways I save without really having to try.
3 comments:
I use my club cards at my favorite stores, too. Whenever possible, I try to combine sales with coupons for extra savings.
Smart idea to look for free shipping. Sometimes, the shipping is almost as expensive as the items you are buying!
Yeah, we only drink water in restaurants in US. But in Europe, you pay more for the water than the soda. So we eat out once every 4 months, maybe. We save our money for our vacation to the states!
These are easy and great tips. The price of drinks at restaurants is outrageous....a glass of tea truly only costs cents to make and yet they show up as $1.89 on most of our tabs....nuts!!!!
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