9 Strategies to Save on Groceries

With gas prices at an all time high, are you searching for ways to reduce your spending in other areas? In our household, we’ve renewed our interest in using coupons and for added savings we target double-coupon days. Here I’ve offered 7 ways to save money on household groceries.

1. Cut coupons – Each Sunday I look forward to receiving the newspaper, where we receive upwards of 100 coupons in our Sunday newspaper.

2. Download coupons off the internet – Check out www.coolsavings.com or www.couponcart.com for great on-line deals on your favorite items.

3. Join frequent buyer clubs at your local grocers – These no-cost programs offer club members on select products. In my last grocery trip I saved $15 as a member of my local grocer’s club and another $10 in clipped coupons.

4. Join a local warehouse club – Locally we have a Costco and Sam’s Club, as well as a Super Target and Super Walmart, where I have found significant savings over our name brand supermarkets. The wholesale clubs can save you 20

5. Purchase generic brands and/or store brands – I have often compared store brands to name brands and find that there is rarely a difference between the two. In fact, like many other products we purchase (i.e., electronics, appliances), the same manufacturer that makes the name brand often manufactures the generic product.

6. Purchase fresh products instead of processed/packaged products – It’s no surprise that fresh unprocessed foods are healthier for us, but these foods not only save in calories, but are also less expensive than packaged and processed foods.

7. Prepare a List – when you go to the store with a plan, you are less likely to succumb to impulse purchases. Check out the ‘All Out Of’ shopping list notepad that allows you to create your grocery list as you deplete household items. It has a magnet on the back so you can affix it to your frig.

8. Shop your supermarket’s weekly specials – Each week we receive our local supermarket’s brochure of advertised specials, which often include two for one sales. These circulars will also advertise double-coupon days. During double-coupon days and two for one specials, I’ve taken the opportunity to stock up on often used staples.

9. Choose products on the top and bottom shelves – It is no accident that higher priced products appear at eye-level on our grocery shelves. These are often the smaller sizes of a product, which typically have a higher per unit cost.

Originally posted 2008-08-24 09:24:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

The Couponizer – Coupon Organizing System

The Couponizer® is a time and money saving organizing system for the shopper in the family. Invented by a busy mom, the kit includes all the tools necessary to make saving money easy. The Couponizer® System will not only help keep your coupons organized, but it will keep you motivated to shop for savings over and over again.

The Couponizer® System includes:

* The Couponizer® wire-bound 6 x 8 booklet
* Your Guide to Smart Savings book
* CoupStacker coupon sorting mat
* Shopping List pad (store in Couponizer)
* CoupTracker list pad for recording monthly savings and spending
* Scissors for cutting coupons
* Durable clear-plastic zippered bag for carrying and protecting your Couponizer

Having sold out multiple times on QVC, the Couponizer is the #1 best selling coupon organizer on the market.

LEARN MORE

Originally posted 2010-07-10 22:35:43. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Reduce Household Spending One Coupon at a Time

Everyone is worried about the current state of our economy, with good reason. But much of what is going on globally is out of our control.  What we do have control over is how we spend our own money.

One of the easiest ways to reduce household spending is to use coupons when you shop. It’s a no brainer … if you found fifty-cents, seventy-five cents … a dollar on the floor, wouldn’t you pick it up and feel like luck was on your side that day? Isn’t using coupons like finding money on the floor?  You bet! Yet a small percentage of Americans even use coupons, let alone have a system for organizing, storing and redeeming coupons. Consequently they spend much more of their hard-earned money on household purchases than necessary. Yes, it takes some time to get set-up ~ all the more reason to have an organized system in place to greatly reduce the time it takes to use this free money when you shop. I’ll be highlighting three tools and systems here that you can use to stay organized and find the most savings possible with coupons.

To get started learning about the world of couponing, I found a helpful guide written by a money-conscience mom Stephanie Nelson, Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom. This 165-page guide is a quick read and a great resource to help you learn how to find, clip, sort and organize coupons for saving money on every household purchase. Stephanie shares all of her coupon-clipping, money-saving tips and tricks.

 

Another very helpful organizational tool for saving money with coupons is The Couponizer, developed by Amy Bergin, another cost-conscience mom. Amy developed this system for her family when other systems she tried were too cumbersome. The Couponizer system she developed gives you all the tools you need to clip, organize, store and use your coupons to reduce household spending. Included with the Couponizer system are:

• a clear zippered storage bag
• scissors
• Money-saving Guide
• shopping list
• Coupstacker, which is an organizing mat for sorting clipped coupons to insert into.

The Couponizer categories.

Some of the categories are: Meat, Vegetables, Breakfast, Dairy and many more.

The Couponizer even includes a plastic sleeve to store your frequent-buyer cards and coupons that are about to expire.  One of it’s best features is that The Couponizer is designed to lay flat in your grocery cart, making it easier to find and retrieve a coupon and maneuver the cart at the same time.

I’ve heard people say that when they have coupons they often buy products they wouldn’t ordinarily, so they actually spend more money when they use coupons. The solution for this is to never go to the store without a list of what you truly need. In our home we use a shopping list called ALL OUT OF notepad, which is a 6 x 9 sized shopping list pad shopping list pad which adheres to your refrigerator with a heavy-duty magnet.  The ALL OUT OF notepad saves you the hassle of having to write out a shopping list each time you shop. As we deplete household items, we circle the needed item on the ALL OUT OF notepad on our refrigerator. We tear off the already prepared shopping list and take it with us to the store. 

When your coupons are organized it will be much easier to find and use them to save big money during every trip to the grocery store. I get great satisfaction from seeing the subtotal at the register, then watching the total reduce as each coupon is scanned. It’s like getting free groceries.

Originally posted 2009-02-25 13:26:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

BLOGMANIA – Let’s Get Organized!!! Theme

********** BLOGMANIA IS NOW CLOSED  **********

Thank you to all who visited The Organizing Genie and who entered our giveaway!! Winners have been chosen and contacted.

********************************************

Oh I am so excited to be participating in BLOGMANIA! As you might imagine, here on The Organizing Genie blog our theme is … LET’S GET ORGANIZED! Our prize package is a dream come true for every busy woman, wife, daughter or mother!

Here’s what’s included in our “LET’S GET ORGANIZED” prize package valued at more than $100 from The Simplified Home …

Mom, Can I Help Around the House, A Simple Step-by-Step System for Teaching Your Children Life-Long Skills for Pitching In and Picking Up

The COUPONIZER – coupon organizing system

 

 

POCKET.DOC by Buttoned Up
 

LOC-A-SOK – sock grippers for keeping socks matched in laundry

Practical Organizing Themed Post-it Notes Set

ALL OUT OF Grocery Shopping Organizer Pad

Home Organization Secrets for Busy Moms e-Book  

 

All of these great organizing products are offered courtesy of The Simplified Home!  

To Enter:

1. Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect.

2. Visit The Simplified Home and then post a comment here telling me which product you like the best.

3. Live in US or Canada

Bonus Entries:

1. Follow me on Twitter
2. Like The Simplified Home Fan Page on Facebook.
3. Join our list and receive our special report Shelf Life of 100+ Common Household Items (green sign-up box above right)
4. Subscribe to The Organizing Genie blog feed

NOTE: Your entry is not valid if entry requirements above are not followed. BLOGMANIA ends on September 16, 2010 at 11:59 pm EST. The winners will be selected by random.org and contacted by email and will have 48 hours to reply back before a new winner is selected. Good luck!!

To visit more BlogMania blogs, see the full list below:




Originally posted 2010-09-14 23:24:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

How to Save Money with Online Coupons

Online coupons are the wave of the future. Technology has afforded us the ability to shop in cyberspace and that has extended also to saving money online. Before you shop again learn a few facts about online coupons.

Online coupons are not like printable coupons that you find in newspapers and magazines. Online stores can’t scan your coupon like they do in the store. Instead, you will see a picture of a coupon on your screen that has a bolded code made of numbers and letters at the bottom. This code is the way that you use online coupons.

Some sites call this code a coupon code and some call it a promotional code. The two names are interchangeable. A coupon code (we’ll call it that since we are talking about coupons) is used at checkout just like in the actual store. Here’s an example of on online coupon site:

Coupon sites like www.Coupons.com offer coupons in a couple of different options – for some coupons they will ask you to install a coupon printer driver which allows you to print scanable coupons (to use physically in grocery stores), other options they offer are for you to click on the link to the coupon offer.

But, where do you find these handy coupon codes for online coupons? Hint: stores don’t tell you this but there are sites that list coupon codes for a number of popular stores. One such site is www.currentcodes.com. This site keeps up with the latest codes so you don’t have to spend tons of time visiting website after website to find the code you’re looking for.

If you receive a promotional offer through an email from a site inviting you to shop there, first go to your coupon code site and see if that store offers any coupon codes you can shop with. It is like a goldmine for online shoppers.  Some of the online coupon offers are “Free shipping on all orders”, “Save $50 on all orders over $100”, and “15% off your entire order.”

Online coupon codes do expire so be mindful of time limits. Always read the fine print after each coupon code so you know the exact requirements for the coupon code to be valid. You don’t want to get to check out and find out that you can’t use your code.

Some online coupons are presented to you in the form of links. If you’ve ever bought anything online, you will get an email from everyone wanting you to spend money in their store. In the email ads, you’ll see things like “Click here to save 10% on your next order.” By clicking on that link, you are taken to the offer web page where you can use your savings. Upon checkout, your savings are automatically deducted because you clicked on the link that offers the discount. But, check to be sure you aren’t being ripped off.

Some of the benefits of online coupons are:

• There are no long lines to stand in and you don’t use up your precious gas driving to the store.
• Many online stores offer deals on items that aren’t for sale in their physical stores. These coupon codes take some time to find, but they add up to big savings for the diligent shopper.
• You can do your research on-line about where to find the best deals from the comfort of your own home before ever stepping foot in a store.

Organize your clipped coupons with The Couponizer. The Couponizer is not just your ordinary coupon holder, it is an entire system designed by a busy mom. I have been using The Couponizer for several years and it is the only system that has worked for me consistently.

Originally posted 2010-05-20 14:11:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter