I follow the pantry principal. This means keeping a good supply of the items my family regularly uses on hand at all times, rather than shopping for a specific meal or when we run out of something. In order to achieve my goal, I rotate which items I purchase each month. This helps me to keep a well stocked pantry, freezer and a good supply of personal care items and cleaning supplies. I reserve an amount of money each month just for this purpose.
A major goal I have for this year includes challenging myself to get more mileage from the deals I find. I want to take a month's budget for stocking up on food, personal care items and cleaning supplies and see if I can turn it into a year's worth of deals. I will use coupons, rebates, store rewards cards, store fliers, internet deals and anything else I can come up with in order to turn my meager month's budget into a substantial haul. I want to see if it is possible to really get something for nothing; in fact I am hoping to get a whole lot of something for nothing!
Coupons - I am not very good about coupons, in fact I kind of suck at coupons. Part of the reason I think I do so poorly with coupon use is that I tend to start with great plans for organizing and using of the darn things and then I forget what I have. Even worse, I forget to take them with me when I go to the store. My neatly filed coupon binder with it's nicely labeled headings does me no good if it sits on a shelf at home unused. I do not get a newspaper so I don't get the weekly coupon fliers on a regular basis. To me it has always seemed silly to buy a newspaper subscription for the sole purpose of those pesky coupons. I enjoy reading my news online, so subscribing to a delivered newspaper and then recycling it every week is a waste and a hassle. It makes me feel like I am paying for the coupons. Adding in the cost of the newspaper negates some of the savings that I'm trying to achieve. I plan to find many of my coupons online. I will also acquire coupons by looking in recycle bins or asking friends and relatives for any they aren't using. Oh man, who am I kidding? I doubt I will be pawing through any recycle bins looking for coupons. I am probably too lazy for that. Yeah, this might limit me somewhat...Oh sheesh, what have I gotten myself into by posting this?
BOGOF - Lots of times stores offer rebates for buying certain products or free items in buy one get one free scenarios which I will from now on refer to as BOGOF.
I frequently purchase pantry items with this strategy. There are also deals where you buy a given number of say, cereal boxes and get something free, such as milk.
Peelies and Blinkies - I never even knew there were names for those self stick coupons on foods and those annoying blinking little red machines with coupons. I had noticed those stickered peelie coupons on products; usually while putting the item away in my fridge. Doh! I can see how it can be worthwhile to peruse the shelf and choose the item with the tear off coupon.Note to self: tear it off and use the blasted coupon while you are IN the store! Those blinkie machines with annoying flashing lights spit out coupons for a product stocked nearby. I vow to start paying attention to those red blinking lights instead of shading my eyes and grabbing blindly and quickly for the item on the shelf nearby and scuttling down the aisle as fast as my gimpy grocery cart wheels will go.
Store fliers - Grocery and drug store fliers sometimes have coupons within their pages and often have special incentives going to entice us into their stores.The store fliers come free in my mailbox each week. Free movie tickets, cookware or other food products are some of the deals I have seen in the past.
Check out coupons - When paying at the grocery store the checker often hands me a streaming banner full of coupons along with the receipt. Sometimes these coupon streamers are so long that I feel like when I reach my car in the parking lot, it is still trailing out the automatic doors. I sometimes look at them,but usually they end up in the trash can.
The receipts sometimes have deals printed along the bottom edge or on the back in advertising. I don't even "see those" things anymore. No longer .Hand held aloft with the three finger salute as I recite... "On my honor, I will try" to pay attention to every coupon that passes my way .Can you tell I was a Girl Scout eons ago?
Month's budget - I need to come up with an amount of money I plan to spend in January. I am kicking around the idea of either$30 or $50. This figure has to not only include the cost of the item, but any sales tax. I will keep a running total of this in my posts. This ought to be interesting. I am not the greatest accountant and in the past have often forgotten to mail in a rebate form or not read the directions through and bought a wrong item.
I don't have all the details worked out yet and am still muddling through the particulars of how to best do this challenge. Can I do it this for even a month? Who knows, stay tuned and I will keep you posted on how it is going.
Wish me luck!
The Freebie Maven
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