Thursday, February 21, 2008
Frugal Friday: Coupons in the phone book
A quick frugal tip - when you get your new phone book each year, check the back for coupons. A lot of times they might be for food you never will buy, or the most expensive home repair place in town, but sometimes you can find some really good ones. Our local phone book has some great ones for a fairly new hair salon in town - only $4.99 for a haircut! Plus other discounts for the same place which are almost as good. I ended up with three phone books this year, so I'm covered on cheap haircuts for the next year!
Be sure to visit
Crystal's blog for more great frugal goodness!
(Pssst.... if you're a regular reader who likes to use the free notebooking pages I make, would you mind popping over to a previous post and answering my poll about one-inch ruled notebooking paper? Thanks!)Labels: frugal friday
Friday, February 15, 2008
Frugal Friday: Good habits will save you frugal grief
This week's Frugal Friday posting is a warning - form good habits with your coupons and forms!
Since we moved, I've been rather discombobulated. Haven't updated my coupon binder in ages. Don't manage to pick up the paper half the time. And worst of all - I'm losing stuff.
I'm not the most organized person in the world, but I did used to have decent habits with my coupons and other pieces of paper for savings. But I've just let it all slide and now? Horror of horrors, I have managed to MISPLACE $29.99 worth of CVS Extra Bucks! Can you believe that? It just makes me SICK to think about it. I don't know if I dropped it out of my car (I remember leaving the store with the register tape), cleaned it out of my car, cleaned it out of my purse, or if I did bring it home but misplaced it when I got home. I am just beside myself. And since Corporate will no longer reset ECBs for us, it's just gone. Poof. No reprieve.
Learn from my mistake - form a habit and stick with it! You'll be sorry if you don't!
Be sure to visit
Crystal's Blog for more, positive frugal tips!
Labels: frugal friday
Friday, February 16, 2007
Frugal Friday
Short Frugal Friday post today: sharing to save money. The kids and I rarely eat out, but occasionally I have a big day of errands that requires us to be out during the middle of the day, making a bought lunch necessary. (Okay, okay, yes, I COULD pack a lunch!) The kids have finally outgrown kiddie meals, so they want adult sandwiches. Besides trying to take advantage of "value menues" and coupons as much as possible, I also insist on sharing when possible. As large as the drinks and fries have gotten in most places these days, all it takes is one medium or large item to satisfy all three of us. For example, we stopped at Wendy's the other day. I could have gotten each person 1 99 cent sandwich, 1 99 cent fry and 1 small drink, which was either $1.09 or $1.19, I forget which. Instead, we all got a sandwich, and I got a large fry and a medium drink. That medium was the size of what would have been an extra large 20 years ago! So instead of around $10 to feed the three of us, we got by on just $6.66. (Ooooooo.....)
Another quick tip for eating out: most places will not let you use more than one coupon per order. If your kids are old enough to order for themselves and handle money (and you've got cash on hand) split folks up and let everybody order off of coupons for themselves. It's good practice for their social skills, money handling, etc!
Crystal is out of town for a family funeral, so no Frugal Friday posts from her blog this week. Please keep them in mind as they travel.
Labels: frugal friday
Friday, February 09, 2007
Frugal Friday
Today's Frugal Friday post is a simple one. I love coupons, and I love it when I can double my deals. I like shopping at Target much better than a certain other large retailer - the stores are brighter, cleaner and cheerier, and the employees are much nicer and FAR easier to find when needed. I find that the prices are basically the same as the other store, maybe a couple of pennies more, but not enough more to make me want to leave. And their clearance spots are easy to find! To make Target even sweeter, they actually have coupons at their website that you can use in the stores. Just go to their home page, go down to the bottom, and click on "Super Target Coupons". Even though it says "Super Target", you can still use them at a regular, non-Super Target.
The only problem with the Target coupons is that each one is good for a few weeks, but they change them out every week or every other week - and once they're gone off the site, they're gone. One thing you can do is go in and save a copy of each coupon to your own hard drive, but if you forget one week, you're out of luck. Luckily, someone more web-savvy than I has fixed the proble. This site keeps a copy of every current Target coupon so that you can pick and choose which ones you want, and print as many at one time as you want.
The best part about Target coupons? You can use a regular manufacturer's coupon in addition to the Target coupon! So you get extra savings, fabulous. Another great thing about the Target coupons is that since they are in-store coupons, it's like a sale price - which means the tax goes down, too. I live in a state where EVERYTHING is taxed, and my county is currently at 10%, so for every dollar in Target coupons I use, I save an additional 10 cents. A couple of notes about Target coupons: yes, you can use more than one at a time, but don't go overboard even if it's a good deal. For example, right now there is a coupon for a free Choxie chocolate bar. Don't go in with 100 of them! 2, or 4 maybe, but not a ridiculous amount.
Another thing is the fact that a lot of Targets have stopped accepting internet-printed coupons, and some of the less bright employees think this means their own store coupons as well. It does not. Nor do you *have* to print out the entire web page to "prove" that you got it from the Target website. But if you do have problems, and the coupon you're wanting to use is one from the current week, just go up to the kiosks at the customer service area, visit the website from one of them, go to the coupons section online and hit "Print". It will print it out for you right there! They can't argue if you just printed it from their own machine, LOL.
Go visit Crystal's blog for more frugal goodness!Labels: frugal friday
Friday, February 02, 2007
Frugal Friday, and another unit study freebie
Today it's Friday, so that means it's time for frugality posts!
One thing homeschoolers do is buy a LOT of books, so
here is an article about saving money on those books. I hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to give any feedback.
Also, Tapestry of Grace is giving away a free three week unit study on Egypt. You can find that
here. More frugal goodness!
Be sure to check
Crystal's blog for the rest of Frugal Friday!
Labels: books, free, freebie, frugal friday
