I do not shop at stores that have a "loyalty card." Last thing I want is yet another plastic card. Hate them with a passion and will not pretend to 'forget' mine or any other lies just to get their normal prices.
I shop two stores (out of three possible...but one has a stinkin' card so I don't visit) once a week. I visit their online ads and figure out a loss leader from each that I want. I use a list and I would suggest a calculator to figure out unit prices.
For standard food items that I buy (broccoli) that are not in the ads, I have a price book and will buy at the first store I visit if the quality is good and the price at least ok. Sometimes when I get to the second store, I discover I paid a bit more but i do not return to the 1st store. That costs too much in time and transport.
a loyalty card is a marketing research tool used by a store to track spending trends. Most grocery & pharmacy chains issue them these days. You give the store some basic demographic info & you get a card that they swipe each time you buy; as an incentive to shoppers, they offer special pricing, sales, deals to holders that other customers don't typically get. However, I've found that a few stores (CVS drugstores, for example) will swipe a generic card to give me a deal (I don't participate in any loyalty programs because I consider them a marketing ploy that's more to the vendor's benefit than the buyer's).
I'm surprised that the participants only ate 3 or 5 m&m's. How is that possible. If I had been a participant the results would have been quite different. Now, give me that endless bowl of m&m's.
What works for me is bulk shopping quarterly and having organic produce delivered weekly via Orlando Organics. An online service that really helped me save big is emealz.com. I spend $300 monthly for four people and that includes pets/cleaning/paper/toiletry products.
I like fountain pens (and drool over the Fountain Pen Hospital catalog on a regular basis), but I only have a couple. But after reading this, I realized I *do* have a Luxury Eccentricity.
One of my prizes is a small inherited collection of bone china cups and saucers. I've added a few nice pieces from yard sales and such, and I've been given a few. Doing this regularly could get expensive; I almost fainted when I looked up the retail price for one of my prizes! But there's an ancillary luxury that goes with the collection: good tea, to drink OUT of my lovely cups. (I believe in appreciating things such as good china by USING them.)
I absolutely *sneer* at Lipton et al. :) I have three nice tea pots, and I know how to brew a proper potful. The flavor, and the elegance of my china, makes it both a Luxury and an Eccentricity. OTOH, you can buy very good teas for amazingly low prices. I can't afford the Hajua Estate Assam, at $35 a pound, but the Rembeng Estate Assam is only $16 and still makes any supermarket tea look sick. (It's also organic and fair-traded!) My standard cuppa, the Irish Breakfast blend, is still less expensive. And then there are such greens as Gunpowder, or Jade Dew...
What was that about actually knowing something about your eccentricity? (grin!)
Keep your receipts if you don't want to do the notepad idea, but write down things that you don't get a receipt for, so all your spending is documented
First of all, that the government is still doing no-down payment seems to me that we all still have not learned the lessons of the recent housing bubble. Odds are, if you do not have the self discipline to save even a modest down payment, that's a good sign you are not a good candidate for a mortgage. Also people who have no skin in the game are more likely to walk away from a mortgage.
But aside from that, there might be limitations in the fine print. I do not know about USDA loans, but I do know a little about FDA loans. The property my daughter wanted to buy didn't qualify because it had six acres of land, which was too much. The government felt she might profit buy reselling a few acres as a house lot. There was also a penalty if she sold the house within a certain number of years, and she would also not be allowed to rent the house to another individual. For example, if her income changed and she could afford a better house, she would not be allowed to rent the house to a sibling. There were just enough strings to make her feel wary about being locked in for too long to this particular property. Instead she went for a loan that required a few thousand down.
Say I want a bowl of ice cream. It works instead to eat a carrot, followed by a spoonful of ice cream. What matters is the last taste that is in your mouth.
Another exercise I do is to have a bite of sweet and hold it in my mouth absolutely as long as possible. When I do this I note just how really good this sweet is. It's good but honestly only a fraction of good as I had thought. Somehow a forbidden food becomes better in our heads just because we think we can't have it.
Single bites of food do count as calories... be sure to add them in to your tally.
The point about reducing food consumption as a way to cut the grocery bill is really quite valid. Yeah, sure some of the cheapest foods are the most fattening. A good rule is to diet just by eating a third less of the same foods you normally eat... so automatically you cut your grocery bill by 33%.
Remember to that the less you weigh, the fewer calories it takes to maintain that weight... you burn more calories just carrying around the extra weight. For most people, it works out to something like 13 calories needed to maintain a pound of body weight (depending on different variables like how much physical activity you do). So if you permanently lose weight, you permanently cut your grocery bill.
Ultimately weight loss and weight maintenance is a very personal thing, what works for you. For some people the exercise in this article might work.
Although I'm not a millionaire (I'm still young) I pretty sure anyone can become a millionaire. To be honest a millionaire isn't even what most would consider very rich. It is basically "well off" in todays terms. You just need to be frugal, save a lot and invest wisely. That means no Lamborghini and other unnecessary spending.
If you have larger jeans or can sew pieces together use the material to recover chair seats. I did this with a patio set of 4 chairs I had that are white. Looked great. Lined the seam of the leg down the center of the seats which were round and stapled. They held up for 4 years and only just changed them out because of spills and stains. Am sure you could sew pieces together and do square ones too. Perhaps get creative and do 90 degree triangle pieces that meat in the middle of the seat. Embroider designs on them to match napkins or room drapes.
If you have a smart phone or any phone that allows music to be played, adding earbuds to the list won't take up much more space or add more weigh than you already have. Many are the times I have been earbudless when I could have used them. Don't be that guy who tries to play his music low, but still disturbs everyone around.
Also, I 17th the call for a toothbrush. I actually keep both a toothbrush and a small thing of baking soda in my bag. The baking soda can make not-so-tasty toothpaste, but also deodorizes smelly shoes and whatnot.
As for underwear, you can always flip it inside out in a pinch. Or do a sink wash. I once survived a week-and-a-half trip with only one pair of underwear because I forgot to pack any and only had what I was wearing. I learned really quickly how easy it is to wash and rewear and that a damp pair quickly dries out due to body heat.
Good tips. The big thing to me is the time it takes to go through coupons. Yes, they can totally be worth it. But think about how long you're spending sorting through coupons and factor that in. Maybe it's worth it, maybe it isn't.
A big way to avoid overspending on food is to shop on a full stomach. Those impulse purchases just might be diminished quite a bit then!
I never use groupon, I use bradsdeals.com. Also, I find the more I see good deals, the more I want to buy more things, so I just get real frugal and don't look at too many of those sites.
I have a complete black rubberized cover for the iPhone 4, the first item above prompted me to pull it off, stuff 5 business cards in the back and put it back on again. Hardly a noticeable difference and I've always got a business card handy. Brilliant! Thanks for the prompt...
I received a NetSpend card through the mail which I did not want nor order. So I decided to look them up on Google and when I type their name in NetSpend scam pops up which gives a big red flag for me. I am glad I read the comments about this company because it doesn't sound good at all in fact I am going to call to report them. I still don't understand how they got my name and address which concerns me and is an outrage.
9. is a great point, although they are also useful notes. i currently would like to live in a small house with a large-ish garden so i could grow lots of things and keep chickens. inner-hippy is dreaming!
I subscribed to Groupon for a couple of months and have bought 3. I only buy things that I need and have always wanted but never had a chance until Groupon comes along. I also linked Groupon with my Discover card to get additional 20% rebate. I had good experience with Groupon.
I've used Groupon for gifts (massages), trips to a local steamroom we go to anyway, a car wash and sometimes for classes or month-long memberships at local gyms. I don't belong to a local gym but benefit by mixing up my workout routine and having an expiration date on the coupon forces me to the workouts, if only because I can't stand the idea of having wasted my money by letting the certificate expire.
Amen, sister. I actually like Groupon as a service. But copy that sounds like a pretentious but uneducated 13-year-old using a thesaurus unsupervised kills my enthusiasm and understanding of what it is Groupon is trying to sell me.
I think mine came from Griffin, which usually has high-quality products. The bumper I had, however, was not ideal. My charger wouldn't fit properly into the phone; I had to remove the bumper to stick it in. Perhaps it was an anomaly, but it was frustrating.
I do not shop at stores that have a "loyalty card." Last thing I want is yet another plastic card. Hate them with a passion and will not pretend to 'forget' mine or any other lies just to get their normal prices.
I shop two stores (out of three possible...but one has a stinkin' card so I don't visit) once a week. I visit their online ads and figure out a loss leader from each that I want. I use a list and I would suggest a calculator to figure out unit prices.
For standard food items that I buy (broccoli) that are not in the ads, I have a price book and will buy at the first store I visit if the quality is good and the price at least ok. Sometimes when I get to the second store, I discover I paid a bit more but i do not return to the 1st store. That costs too much in time and transport.
a loyalty card is a marketing research tool used by a store to track spending trends. Most grocery & pharmacy chains issue them these days. You give the store some basic demographic info & you get a card that they swipe each time you buy; as an incentive to shoppers, they offer special pricing, sales, deals to holders that other customers don't typically get. However, I've found that a few stores (CVS drugstores, for example) will swipe a generic card to give me a deal (I don't participate in any loyalty programs because I consider them a marketing ploy that's more to the vendor's benefit than the buyer's).
I'm surprised that the participants only ate 3 or 5 m&m's. How is that possible. If I had been a participant the results would have been quite different. Now, give me that endless bowl of m&m's.
What works for me is bulk shopping quarterly and having organic produce delivered weekly via Orlando Organics. An online service that really helped me save big is emealz.com. I spend $300 monthly for four people and that includes pets/cleaning/paper/toiletry products.
I dig the Minimalist 4, been using it for four months now. You can save 15% on it if you use coupon code: TRTLCREW002
I like fountain pens (and drool over the Fountain Pen Hospital catalog on a regular basis), but I only have a couple. But after reading this, I realized I *do* have a Luxury Eccentricity.
One of my prizes is a small inherited collection of bone china cups and saucers. I've added a few nice pieces from yard sales and such, and I've been given a few. Doing this regularly could get expensive; I almost fainted when I looked up the retail price for one of my prizes! But there's an ancillary luxury that goes with the collection: good tea, to drink OUT of my lovely cups. (I believe in appreciating things such as good china by USING them.)
I absolutely *sneer* at Lipton et al. :) I have three nice tea pots, and I know how to brew a proper potful. The flavor, and the elegance of my china, makes it both a Luxury and an Eccentricity. OTOH, you can buy very good teas for amazingly low prices. I can't afford the Hajua Estate Assam, at $35 a pound, but the Rembeng Estate Assam is only $16 and still makes any supermarket tea look sick. (It's also organic and fair-traded!) My standard cuppa, the Irish Breakfast blend, is still less expensive. And then there are such greens as Gunpowder, or Jade Dew...
What was that about actually knowing something about your eccentricity? (grin!)
Kate
Oh yeah! I've gone skydiving, home brewing, and to my favorite gym basically free off of Groupon, and I follow Living Social too - great sites.
Keep your receipts if you don't want to do the notepad idea, but write down things that you don't get a receipt for, so all your spending is documented
First of all, that the government is still doing no-down payment seems to me that we all still have not learned the lessons of the recent housing bubble. Odds are, if you do not have the self discipline to save even a modest down payment, that's a good sign you are not a good candidate for a mortgage. Also people who have no skin in the game are more likely to walk away from a mortgage.
But aside from that, there might be limitations in the fine print. I do not know about USDA loans, but I do know a little about FDA loans. The property my daughter wanted to buy didn't qualify because it had six acres of land, which was too much. The government felt she might profit buy reselling a few acres as a house lot. There was also a penalty if she sold the house within a certain number of years, and she would also not be allowed to rent the house to another individual. For example, if her income changed and she could afford a better house, she would not be allowed to rent the house to a sibling. There were just enough strings to make her feel wary about being locked in for too long to this particular property. Instead she went for a loan that required a few thousand down.
Hmmm... I have a couple tricks.
Say I want a bowl of ice cream. It works instead to eat a carrot, followed by a spoonful of ice cream. What matters is the last taste that is in your mouth.
Another exercise I do is to have a bite of sweet and hold it in my mouth absolutely as long as possible. When I do this I note just how really good this sweet is. It's good but honestly only a fraction of good as I had thought. Somehow a forbidden food becomes better in our heads just because we think we can't have it.
Single bites of food do count as calories... be sure to add them in to your tally.
The point about reducing food consumption as a way to cut the grocery bill is really quite valid. Yeah, sure some of the cheapest foods are the most fattening. A good rule is to diet just by eating a third less of the same foods you normally eat... so automatically you cut your grocery bill by 33%.
Remember to that the less you weigh, the fewer calories it takes to maintain that weight... you burn more calories just carrying around the extra weight. For most people, it works out to something like 13 calories needed to maintain a pound of body weight (depending on different variables like how much physical activity you do). So if you permanently lose weight, you permanently cut your grocery bill.
Ultimately weight loss and weight maintenance is a very personal thing, what works for you. For some people the exercise in this article might work.
I have never heard of BradsDeals before. I'll have to check it out!
Although I'm not a millionaire (I'm still young) I pretty sure anyone can become a millionaire. To be honest a millionaire isn't even what most would consider very rich. It is basically "well off" in todays terms. You just need to be frugal, save a lot and invest wisely. That means no Lamborghini and other unnecessary spending.
If you have larger jeans or can sew pieces together use the material to recover chair seats. I did this with a patio set of 4 chairs I had that are white. Looked great. Lined the seam of the leg down the center of the seats which were round and stapled. They held up for 4 years and only just changed them out because of spills and stains. Am sure you could sew pieces together and do square ones too. Perhaps get creative and do 90 degree triangle pieces that meat in the middle of the seat. Embroider designs on them to match napkins or room drapes.
If you have a smart phone or any phone that allows music to be played, adding earbuds to the list won't take up much more space or add more weigh than you already have. Many are the times I have been earbudless when I could have used them. Don't be that guy who tries to play his music low, but still disturbs everyone around.
Also, I 17th the call for a toothbrush. I actually keep both a toothbrush and a small thing of baking soda in my bag. The baking soda can make not-so-tasty toothpaste, but also deodorizes smelly shoes and whatnot.
As for underwear, you can always flip it inside out in a pinch. Or do a sink wash. I once survived a week-and-a-half trip with only one pair of underwear because I forgot to pack any and only had what I was wearing. I learned really quickly how easy it is to wash and rewear and that a damp pair quickly dries out due to body heat.
Good tips. The big thing to me is the time it takes to go through coupons. Yes, they can totally be worth it. But think about how long you're spending sorting through coupons and factor that in. Maybe it's worth it, maybe it isn't.
A big way to avoid overspending on food is to shop on a full stomach. Those impulse purchases just might be diminished quite a bit then!
I never use groupon, I use bradsdeals.com. Also, I find the more I see good deals, the more I want to buy more things, so I just get real frugal and don't look at too many of those sites.
I know I am posting on a really old comment, but I just wanted to thank you for posting this. It is really helpful.
I love Groupon and the other sites like it. I can treat myself and family to things I would not buy at full price.
I have a complete black rubberized cover for the iPhone 4, the first item above prompted me to pull it off, stuff 5 business cards in the back and put it back on again. Hardly a noticeable difference and I've always got a business card handy. Brilliant! Thanks for the prompt...
I received a NetSpend card through the mail which I did not want nor order. So I decided to look them up on Google and when I type their name in NetSpend scam pops up which gives a big red flag for me. I am glad I read the comments about this company because it doesn't sound good at all in fact I am going to call to report them. I still don't understand how they got my name and address which concerns me and is an outrage.
9. is a great point, although they are also useful notes. i currently would like to live in a small house with a large-ish garden so i could grow lots of things and keep chickens. inner-hippy is dreaming!
I subscribed to Groupon for a couple of months and have bought 3. I only buy things that I need and have always wanted but never had a chance until Groupon comes along. I also linked Groupon with my Discover card to get additional 20% rebate. I had good experience with Groupon.
I've used Groupon for gifts (massages), trips to a local steamroom we go to anyway, a car wash and sometimes for classes or month-long memberships at local gyms. I don't belong to a local gym but benefit by mixing up my workout routine and having an expiration date on the coupon forces me to the workouts, if only because I can't stand the idea of having wasted my money by letting the certificate expire.
Amen, sister. I actually like Groupon as a service. But copy that sounds like a pretentious but uneducated 13-year-old using a thesaurus unsupervised kills my enthusiasm and understanding of what it is Groupon is trying to sell me.
I think mine came from Griffin, which usually has high-quality products. The bumper I had, however, was not ideal. My charger wouldn't fit properly into the phone; I had to remove the bumper to stick it in. Perhaps it was an anomaly, but it was frustrating.