I’ve gone back to work full time again but that’s no reason for me to go back to spending whatever like we used to. In fact being home for nearly 2 years with the family even while my husband’s work slowed down last year taught us we needed to do the opposite. Now that I’m working, I do have more coming in  BUT I’m watching the pennies come and go and saving for another rainy day while trying to pay off some debt. I’m actually amazed we made it on practically 1/3 of what we used to make but not something we wish to do again.

As I go along my journey towards financial freedom, I thought I’d share some tips I’ve learned so far…

• Shop on non-busy days (usually M,T,W and stay away from holidays) during off peak hours
• Buy in bulk when you can (toiletries, paper towels, household goods, toilet paper, meat, etc) – BJs, Costcos, and Sams are great places for bulk buying (you may even want to buy bulk with another person and split the cost to save money)
• Eat before you shop to avoid impulse food buying
• Create a shopping list and STICK to it
• Bring your coupons, pen and calculator while you shop to stick to your planned shopping budget
• Grow your own vegetables and herbs (salad & herb gardens are great to have around and don’t take long to grow)
• Buy local for your produce items
• Shop big once a month as weekly shopping can make your grocery budget higher
• Shop around for your deals, don’t go to just one place
• After shopping peak-hours you can often find deals in the deli section (bread, chicken, side dishes)
• Give yourself time to look for the deals and shop
• Plan to spend 1 day in the month for bulk freezer cooking and plan it into your shopping list (do this with friends and split the meals & cost)
• Start looking towards the bottom of the shelves, you can often find better deals as stores want to sell what’s at eye level
• Match coupons with sales & promos
• For clothes, shop 2nd hand; you might be surprised of all the brand name items and clothing pieces you may find a just a couple of dollars

WHAT’S YOUR FRUGAL BUYING TIP?

You can imagine the look on my husband’s face as he overlooks my shoulder while I’m reading some frugal blog about someone buying $40+ worth of groceries for less than $5. He looks at me, looks back at the screens, views the name brand foods (that he’s missed bc I went on a generic fad THINKING I was saving money), looks at the receipts posted and says “now THAT’S something you MUST learn and I’ll help get whatever you need to do it!”. I look at him calmly of course (as I’m over the jaw dropping I once did every time I saw what others were doing) and tell him then I need to get my coupons in order, subscribe for coupons, get printer ink for internet coupons, etc etc etc…

So now I’m in the process of getting serious about couponing and frugal buying. Today I’m going to try working on my coupon binder. As I make it and get into it all, I thought I’d ask what & how others do it. In addition to the couponing to save, what else are you doing to save money on the purchases going on?

I’ve subscribed to my local Sunday paper, friends and family give me their leftover coupons, I save the coupons sent in the mail, I subscribe to Grocerygame.com, cellfire.com, coupons.com, grocerygadget.net; perhaps I’m in overload but we’ll see what ends up working for me and weed out what doesn’t.

So here are my questions for you…

• Do you have a coupon system? A binder, an accordion, envelopes, boxes? What do you use? What categories do you index them in?
• Do you use internet coupons in addition to the store & coupon inserts in the paper?
• Do you subscribe to coupon helpers like Grocery Game?
• Do you use shopping/coupon apps (cellfire.com, grocerygadget.net, coupons.com) on your computer or handheld device or are you a pen/paper kind of person?
• Do you have any couponing / frugal buying tips?
• Do you do a big monthly shopping trip or weekly trips w/ your coupons?

Well of course I knew that…in fact nearly every day I read emails with others who buy something like Dove deodorant priced at say $2.47 and they use a coupon when it’s on sale and end up only spending like 47 cents!

I SHOULD be doing this, we all should be taking advantage of this…

I’ve just been SUPER LAZY and STUPIDLY giving away money when I didn’t have to in the first place!! That just has to stop. I can’t keep throwing away money and crying that I’m barely living paycheck to paycheck when I’m not being frugal with my money. Does this mean I have to buy all the off brands or stop buying things I need or want to have? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Call me the Analyzing Freak Queen…I have to research, research, and research so I can devise a plan that I can stick to. (Although frankly I can’t help but think I spend too much time planning, but we’ll save that for another day…)

So what do you think I’m doing now? I’m analyzing the best plan and I need your help so I can get started efficiently and in a manner that I won’t easily find an excuse for it not being easy enough to stick with.

So far, I’ve registered with Coupons.com and grocery stores so I get email sales ads: Food Lion, Kroger, Harris Teeter, and Lowes Foods (but honestly…I need to figure out a better way because I end up deleting this emails before reading them).

I need to create some sort of coupon, sales binder that is efficient and doesn’t make me feel like I’m carrying a load around when I go shopping and I probably need to start buying the Sunday paper for more coupons. The problem I’ve had though in the past is that coupons get cut and never get taken with me or I never end up using them and they end up collecting dust. How do I make myself change that?

I’m an electronic application freak…does anyone know of a good one to use to help me do all this grocery/frugal buying planning?

Do you have any other tips that might help me? What else am I missing?