My New Love…

I’m really digging ebates.com right now. Seriously. I know that I’m like the last person in the free world right now to have heard about this site and join up…but now that I’ve gotten the hang of it…I LOVE it!

Let me explain it to you all (even though you probably don’t care) like I explained it to Brent this weekend. He’s hooked now too, by the way!

Let’s pretend that I’m running low on diapers. I have two options: run to my local Target/Wal-Mart/Wherever and purchase them, saving $2 with the normal coupon that can be found either online or in the paper. Or I can order them online through Drugstore.com via ebates. When I look them up online, I see that drugstore.com sells them for the same price that I would pay in Target. And they also give you the automatic $2 coupon just like I would use in a normal store, without actually having to use the coupon that I clipped. There’s no shipping for orders over a certain amount (or when they’re running a special), so that’s a moot point of difference.

So what’s the difference you ask – besides having to wait 5-7 business days for the online order to arrive at my office? I’ll tell you. When I buy the diapers through Ebates, I get the $2 coupon…plus I don’t pay sales tax. That’s an 8.5% savings for me immediately for where we live (since sales tax rates vary this could be more or less for you) automatically. Then, Ebates pays me back 6% on my total purchase. PLUS, drugstore.com pays me back 5% on my purchase in their own store dollars for me to use during the next quarter (kinda like how CVS dollars work). So, if you think about it, I just saved almost 20%!!!

source

Wow. And when you look at the cost on a per diaper basis, I would pay $.27/diaper if bought in the store (when using a coupon)…but I will only pay $.19/diaper. $.08 might not seem like all that much to you, but factor it out a bit. The average family that uses disposable diapers will go through 60 diapers in a week or 3,120 diapers in a year. That $.08 adds up to a savings of $249.60 on a yearly basis! Holy cow!

Or here’s another example. I talked about my high chair situation before, I think. Well, I’m thinking about going ahead and ordering it this week or next week to give it plenty of time to get here and give us time to get it set up before Jax actually needs to use it. I looked online today and found it at diapers.com for $116.99 (jeez, high chairs are expensive!), which is a store that Ebates works with. Diapers.com offers free shipping on orders over $49 so there are no shipping charges, which makes it the same as picking it up in the store. Except that I also won’t pay sales tax by ordering it online – an immediate 8.5% savings to us. Also, right now through 11/15 diapers.com is running a promotion for first-time customers giving them an additional 10% off of your first order (on everything except diapers), so I’ll save that too. And I’ll earn 1%-5.5% cash back on my purchase by going through ebates to get it. So the total potential savings is anywhere from 19.5%-24%...and the price is $13 lower than the price that I would pay at Target anyway!

It just seems to keep adding up. And the more that I use the service, the more benefits that I see to using it. Sure, it takes a little planning to order diapers online…but if I missed something and got into a bind, it’s not a big deal to run to my local store and buy a small pack to hold me over until my order arrives. I haven’t had to do that yet, but I could if needed. And since I didn’t have to use my physical coupon when I ordered online, I would still not pay the normal price.

And ALL of those savings goes into our savings fund…the totals just add up week after week. We get SO excited to see it add up…just putting us that much closer to our vacation on normal purchases that we would make anyway! Love it!

Yes, we know that we’re big dorks for getting THIS excited over saving money…but it truly is addicting once you start paying attention. What do you do to save money in your household? I know with all that we do, there’s SO much more that we could/should be doing!

Are You A Goal-Setter?

I’m really curious to know. I’m not. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have goals. I set targets in my mind…I’m really good at planning, just not so good at the execution stage of the game. And I’m no good at things like New Year’s Resolutions. Never set them. I don’t have a 5-year plan. Or even a 10-year plan.

You would think that an organized, anal-retentive type-A person like myself would have these things, wouldn’t you? I mean, I have some goals in mind, but nothing set in concrete or anything actually written out on paper. And those goals can change at any given moment…for any given reason. So yeah, pretty much that means that I just don’t have them, right?

By now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this, huh? I know that I have a tendency to “ramble” a bit…understatement of the year! When I wrote the other day about how I’ve managed to save almost $500 in less than two months’ time, it really got me thinking. It made me think about how I did that without even really trying to do that…so what could I do if I set my mind to it? How could I make my money (what little I might have!) work smarter for me so that I could save even more?

What I mean by that is that if I applied a little bit of what I’ve learned in the past two months to more of my financial “life” how much could I really end up saving? If I could save $500 in two month’s time…doing nothing more than clipping a few coupons and shopping a little bit smarter…what could I save if I really TRIED?!?! If I did just what I did the past two months, I could feasibly save somewhere around $3,000 over the course of a year. So if I could do that without really trying, then what could I do if I tried?

And what if actually took the money that I saved each week and put it into a special spot? Like a new account, or my sock drawer, or wherever it is that I like to squirrel my money away to…would watching it add up motivate me that much more? I think that it would…I mean, if $500 could motivate me to do all of this thinking, what would seeing $1,000 or more do?

I talked it over with Brent the other night, and although he doesn’t exactly share my “level of enthusiasm” about the topic of money and savings that I do…he sure does like the rewards that it brings about and he’s on board with whatever I want to do. I think that I’ll continue to do what I’m doing for the rest of this calendar year, but maybe try to incorporate my goal into a New Year’s Resolution of sorts. I know, I know, it’s only October! But believe me, the holidays are right around the corner and it’s a small miracle that my Mom hasn’t asked us for our Xmas list yet…so thinking about a New Year’s Resolution this early isn’t really all that early.

I think that it’s not too early to think about these things, mainly because in order to make my money work smarter, I need to really take an honest look at how we spend our money. I think that I know what we spend money on, but I really need to take the time to look at our actual budget versus my “in theory” budget because I’m sure there’s a vast difference between the two! That means pulling financial records on all of our accounts and really looking at the transactions…maybe making some charts and graphs and doing all those nerdy things that makes me happy…insert happy, longing sigh here.

And since this is all new to me…the lone person in the room that doesn’t actually set goals or resolutions…I’m wondering how you all set your goals. Or if you even do. Maybe I’m not in the minority as much as I think that I am!

When do you start thinking about your goals? How early is too early? Do you start thinking about them now…or the night before/after the new year starts?

Do you physically write them out somewhere? Do you publish them to at least one other person so that you’re a little more accountable?

How do you celebrate when you meet your goal? What happens if you don’t meet your goal?

These are all things that I’m wondering about as I start making my “savings plan” for 2011. I also think that I need a catchy sort of name for it…Brent laughs and rolls his eyes at me…but I’m a girl and if that’s what I want to do, then that’s what I’ll do! I’m still working on that aspect of it…the name seems slightly less important than the actual goal itself, although there are days that I might actually argue that point.

Any advice that you could throw my way would be really appreciated! I’m trying to fumble through it…but a little help never hurts…LOL!

Coupon Cutting Tips

It seems that saving money struck a chord within several of you guys, so I thought that I would continue from my post the other day about how I’m saving money each month and offer up some more tips/advice/things that I’ve learned over the last few months. Some of this is common sense stuff, but if you’re like me, sometimes you have to spell it all out to really “get it.”

In regards to coupons, be careful about coupons where you have to buy multiple items to get larger savings. Like buy three of this item to save $1. If it’s a perishable good, you might not be able to use all three items in time, and you spent more money than you might have to begin with. Remember that the #1 rule is to not spend money that you wouldn’t normally spend. For example, when I had a coupon for $1 off Pop Tarts, but I had to buy three boxes, that was an ok coupon for me since I eat Pop Tarts at work…and they won’t go bad over the course of time. But when I had a coupon for $2 off a frozen breakfast entrée that I thought we would like to try, I didn’t end up using it since I would have had to buy 2 of them and I didn’t know that we’d like it. I’ll wait for them to go on a normal mark-down sale and try one box…then look for the coupon again if we like them and they’ll keep.

Also, be sure to read the fine print. A lot of times, companies will put a picture of the most expensive item in their line, but the coupon is actually good for ANY item in their line. You don’t always have to buy what’s in the picture…but sometimes the coupon is ONLY good for the item shown in the picture. You have to read it to know for sure.

Try to stack your coupons. If your coupon is a manufacturer’s coupon (what comes from Red Plum, SmartSource, P&G or coupons.com typically are manufacturer’s coupons) and your local grocery store is running a sale on the item, you can usually score double! You would get the store discount AND the manufacturer’s discount. For example, that same coupon mentioned earlier for the Pop Tarts? It just happened that Wal-Mart had all Pop Tarts marked down the week that I bought them as just a regular Wal-Mart roll back…so I not only saved the $1 from the manufacturer, but I also saved an additional $.50 per box from Wal-Mart. I basically got one box free, if you think about it. Just be careful that the discount the store is offering isn’t the manufacturer’s discount…some drug stores offer the manufacturer’s discounts but cleverly disguise it as their own coupon. If that happens, your coupon won’t work because you can only use a discount/coupon code once unless otherwise stated.

Start out knowing what you pay for items. This is just good shopping sense overall, and something that my Mom taught me at an early age. I noticed that my boyfriend’s Mom would go to Sam’s Club and buy all of their groceries there, whereas my Mom would just buy certain things from Sam’s Club. When I asked her why she did that, she explained about cost/item or cost/pound (ounce) and that just because it’s sold in bulk doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s cheaper to buy in bulk. You have to know what the price of detergent is normally to know if a store is running a good sale on the item. This is also true on coupons. I had a coupon for Lysol disinfecting wipes, when we would normally buy the Clorox brand. When I got the store, I had my coupon out and ready to use when I looked/compared the two brands on the shelf before I added anything to my cart. Yes, I had a coupon for the Lysol brand, but the Clorox price (not on sale) was still cheaper to buy even without a coupon. So, I threw that coupon away and didn’t use it. You have to be a smart shopper! (Thanks MOM!)

When I know that I’m going to the grocery store for a few items, I will typically take a minute and glance through my coupons before going inside just to see if there’s something else that I might want to go ahead and pick up. You know, something that we NEED. You don’t want to drive all over town and spend the money that you’ve saved using coupons on extra gas money! Make your shopping trips count.

"Friend" your favorite stores.  These days, most stores offer an email list that you can get signed up on for extra/additional savings that in most cases are just offered to their "fans."  My favorites?  JoAnn's, Kohl's, Carter's/Osh Kosh, JC Penney (they offer GREAT incentives to their email listing!) and Babies R Us.  I also like BRU and their Rewards club...I've gotten several $5 off coupons through their points program - they add up faster that you will expect.  I have also joined a mailing list (email or snail mail) if I think that it's a store that I'll start shopping at if they have good coupons/discounts offered, and then later go back and cancel if I find that I don't like the store as much as I thought that I would...that's okay to do too!  You can usually get anywhere from $5 off your next purchase on up to 10-20% off of everything in the store...great deals!  I clip these down or fold them to also fit into my accordian coupon file so that I always have them with me when I'm out and about.

Keep up with what you’re saving. Although none of this takes that long to do, and most of it can be done while watching TV, sometimes it seems tedious and time consuming. (I do mine in small steps, because life with an infant in the house is unpredictable at best, and I’ve found that doing things in stages that can be put down and picked back up to finish later works best for me.) But when I go to the store, use 10 coupons and then look at my receipt and realize that I only saved $3.89 it can be discouraging. That’s why it’s important to keep up a tally of your total savings…not just trip to trip. In the spirit of things, I think that I’ll put up a counter on my blog so that I can share what I’ve saved for the year so far…updating the total each week. I think that would be interesting to watch it grow and help keep me motivated!

As always, the things that I'm sharing here with you are what works for ME. It might not be the best way, it's definitely not the only way, and there might be a better way out there to do it...but this is MY way.  There are some others who would argue directly against some of the tips that I think help my way work better...and that's ok.  That doesn't mean that their way is wrong, or that my way is wrong for that matter.  It just means that there are several options and methodsto achieve the same goal.  You have to find the plan that works best for YOU.  My way might not be it...I just wanted to share with you in case it was something that might work for you. 

If you clip coupons, do have some other tips to share with me? Like maybe someone could explain to me how CVS membership works…it seems SO confusing to me that I haven’t even attempted to tackle THAT one! I’d love to hear about your tips and tricks…

My Latest Addiction

I’ve heard a statement several times in the last few months, and I’ve decided that it really is true…shopping with coupons is ADDICTIVE! And I’m the newest Coupon Clippers Anonymous member…if there was such a group!

Is anyone else here addicted to looking for coupons and using them? I get SO excited at a store when I save a good chunk of money…it’s not really natural, I’m thinking. And Brent makes fun of me all the time – he tells me that I now have a coupon for EVERYTHING! But it’s true! And just because he was making fun of me, I started keeping track of what I was saving on a weekly basis - mainly so I could throw it in his face and tell him to be quiet, but what I found out astounded me. You know those $.50 coupons don’t seem like much by themselves, but over the course of a few months I’ve been amazed that I can save a LOT of money on things that I would normally purchase anyway. And it takes less than an hour each week for me to save that money.

I know what you really want to know…you want numbers. You want the facts. You want to know exactly how much I’ve saved, huh? OK, twist my arm – I’ll share it with you! (You can’t tell that I’m proud about this or anything, can you?) Since August of this year, I’ve personally saved…

$489.48!!!

Can you BELIEVE that?!?! I couldn’t. And that’s just in the last two months…and only what I remembered to save the receipt on and/or record in my notes. I mean, $4-5 each time I go to Target or HEB just doesn’t seem like all that much…but Wow! Even I’m amazed. And since I’m so amazed, I thought that I should share with you what it is that I’ve done to get these savings, just in case you’d like to do the same…I mean, I know that economic times might be better for some people now than they were a few months ago, but who wouldn’t want to save almost $500 in less than two months? No one that I know!

The Sunday paper – I subscribed to the Austin paper while on maternity leave for the SOLE PURPOSE of getting the coupons. Yep, it’s true, I’ll admit it. I’ll also admit that I got a deal on the delivery and only paid $20 to get the paper delivered to my house every day of the week for 6 weeks…and that my current subscription has run out but for some reason I’m still getting it. I don’t know why that is…I don’t plan on renewing the subscription, but you can bet that I’ll still go to the store and pick up the Sunday paper each week!

Anyway, the Sunday paper has a whole section dedicated to coupons and coupon booklets of manufacturer’s coupons. I look through the circulars at stores where we shop first, noting items that we might buy. Typically I don’t spend too long doing this, as these items are only on sale for that ONE WEEK and we might not need the item yet. Please hear me on this one point: I’m not about spending money on things just because they’re on sale for a good price. I only buy things that we actually use. And I only buy items that we will definitely use/consume in the future (like toilet paper, paper towels, toothpaste, deodorant, etc.) when we don’t need them yet. I also won’t keep more than two extras of anything anywhere…mainly due to lack of space in our house, but that’s another issue all together.

That’s hoenstly the hardest lesson to learn about clipping coupons. Just because it’s on sale does NOT mean that you need to buy it. If you do, then you’re spending more money than you would have unnecessarily, which is just silly.

After glancing through the circulars for retail stores (keeping an eye out for odd things that I know we might not normally buy but currently need – i.e. Jenna needs new tennis shoes and all kid’s athletic shoes are on sale this week at Academy, for example.), I move on to the Coupon books. Typically they are from Red Plum, SmartSource and then possibly a booklet from someone like P&G. They’re not all three always in each week’s paper, but sometimes they are. I take these and go through them page by page. I tear out the whole page of the items that we would normally purchase (or would like to try, if it’s a new product being offered with a discount) and set them aside in a pile. I don’t keep the whole booklet, whereas some people prefer to keep them. I can look through them and know what we’ll use and what we won’t so that I don’t have to keep up with it all.

Once I’m done with all of the books, then I go back with my scissors and trim out the coupons that I wanted to keep. Some are on both sides of the page that I tore out; others are just on one side. I set them aside to store later.

Coupons.com is my favorite online coupon resource for coupons. Once a week (usually on Sundays/Mondays) I go online to coupons.com and “clip” the coupons that I’m interested in. I then send the “clippings” to my printer and print them out. After cutting them down to size, I add these to my pile of clipped coupons from the Sunday paper (if they’re still out). These are mostly grocery coupons…just FYI. There’s another source - MommySavesBig - that has store coupons for places like Kohl’s, Old Navy, JC Penney, etc. that I also like when I’m looking to shop somewhere specific for something specific.

Stay organized – use whatever works for you, but if you’re going to clip coupons, you’ll need something to store them in. And it needs to be something that you always have with you, since you never know when you’re going to “run in” somewhere and need your coupons. I use an accordion file that is small and fits into my purse…other people use binders…it’s really up to you and what works for you.

Once I have all the coupons out of the paper (and from coupons.com) and they’re all nice and trimmed, I put them into my organizer by categories that I created. I use pretty broad/general categories right now because that’s what works for me…you might want to narrow yours down a bit. I use these: Health, Beauty, Services, Diapers, Formula, Misc. Baby, Home Goods, Restaurants, Cereals, Grocery. I actually have space in my filer for more Grocery categories, but I haven’t gotten around to separating them out into smaller subcategories.

After I’ve put all the new coupons into their spots, I usually take a few minutes and go through all the coupons in each section. I take the time to pull out any that have already expired and throw them away. I also remove the ones that are expiring within the next few days (up to a week) to see if I want/need to use them.

Once again, unless it’s a non-perishable item that I KNOW we will consume/use, I do NOT use the coupons if we don’t need the items.

Don’t feel bad about the expired or about-to-expire coupons…another one will show up within a few weeks, if you don’t already have another one in your filer that has a later expiration date on it. I promise you won’t miss out, this I have noticed in the past two months.

Ebates.com - This last one is something that is sort of new to me, and I’m still figuring it all out. I’m hesitant to share too soon, but I’m excited about it, so here goes…I signed up for ebates.com. Another blogger was writing about her experience with it, and I figured that it couldn’t hurt to try it. But in less than a week, I’ve already earned/saved $11. I know, it’s not much, but let me explain how it works and why I think that I’ll really enjoy using this in the future.

Basically, you sign up and create an account (and receive $5 just for joining) and then you start shopping. When you find an online retailer with something that you’d like to buy, you simply check through the ebates site before you buy it to see if they honor ebates. If they do, then you can earn anywhere from 1-5% cash back on your purchase simply by logging in and going through ebates to make your purchase. Then once a quarter, they’ll mail your rebate check to you. Free money!

For instance, we did not receive a high chair for Jax at either of our showers. I found the high chair that I want at Target but I haven’t purchased it as we don’t need it yet. We’re getting closer to that time though, and before buying it I checked with ebates.com, and Target honors ebates. So instead of going to target.com (or to my local Target store) to make the purchase, I logged into ebates and did a quick search for the high chair. I found that not only did Target carry it, but another ebates retailer carries it and offers more % cash back on their purchases than Target does. The second site actually offers the same high chair at a lower price, with free shipping and no tax. On top of those savings (which I would totally count in my savings chart!), if I go through the ebates site and click back to the retailer’s website, I earn an additional 5% in ebates on my purchase. So not only did I save sales tax and shipping charges, but I will also get 5% cash back on my purchase. Sweet! I like this!

And it really does work. You remember last week (or the week before) when I was trying to order my birth announcements? Well, Shutterfly honors ebates…so you know what I did, right? I went through the ebates website first and THEN clicked in to the Shutterfly site, placed my order just like normal and three days later, my 8% ebates earnings showed up in my account! I saved $5.72 and I only had to make one extra click to get it…I’m HOOKED!

If this is something that you’re interested in doing too, here’s a link that you can use to sign up with them! I love it…and can see ordering more things online in the future just to get this extra savings.

Sign me up to start earning cash back!

The only drawback that I can see is that the savings isn’t instant, like it is with coupons. The ebates are only mailed out once a quarter, so you have to pay full price, knowing that your savings is coming later. But I think that getting a “bonus” check in the mail as a surprise is also pretty nifty!

So…those are the things that I’m doing. And like I said before, it’s really adding up. $500 over the course of two months is nothing to scoff at, at least not in our house. Granted, some of that savings was earned on clothes coupons and they add up faster than grocery coupons do…but even without the clothes shopping, it was almost $200 in savings on groceries and baby stuff. Still pretty cool, if you ask me.

When it all boils down to it, if you’re not shopping with coupons or using sites like ebates.com (there are others like it out there, just search for them) to save money, all you’re doing is leaving money on the table. Money that you could have saved and put back in your pocket or toward a vacation or a new pair of shoes! And I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t enjoy a vacation! Especially one that was paid for you instead of you paying for it!

And don’t sweat it if your hubby wants to make fun of you for clipping coupons. Or for stopping him from leaving for the store just so you can give him some coupons for the items that you are sending him to the store to pick up. He won’t be laughing when you tally up your results after a few months…Mine isn’t!!

Do you clip coupons and track your progress? Do you use a site like ebates.com? What do you do with the money that you’ve saved? I’d love to hear from some fellow coupon cutters!