Frugal Living Tip #8: Use Social Media

Before I attended the savings.com Save Up ‘09 Event in San Francisco last fall (video | post), I’ll admit I only had a vague inclination of what Twitter is all about. None of my friends use it. For the most part, I was relying on the Sunday paper insert and blogs for the source of my coupons. Now, I realize the value of social media in saving money! Here’s my two cents:

Facebook:

Go directly to the source! A company’s Fan Page gives you direct access to coupons, promotion codes, and free samples. Get their updates in your news feed. Become a fan of Savvy Chic Savings while you’re there! My feed updates to the fan page nightly and I’ll often post more time-sensitive deals during the day.

Twitter:

Real-time deals! Some coupons or sample giveaways go quickly due to the volume of readers in the frugal blogosphere. Follow your favorite companies for immediate access to coupons, promos, and giveaways. Of course, you’ll want to follow SavvyChicSaving on Twitter, too!

If you’re not quite ready to jump on the Twitter Wagon, watch the “Recent Tweets” widget in the right-hand side bar. You’ll find my 5 most recent tweets. Sometimes I don’t have time to write up a full post about a deal (this is only a part-time hobby… wow I said “hobby” which is almost as cool as admitting I knit!?!) so I’ll retweet someone else’s post. Simply click on the link and go straight to their deal!

Email:

I know for some of you, this “social media” just isn’t your bag and never will be. If that’s the case, just subscribe to my once-daily emails so you don’t have to leave the comfort of your inbox to get all the deals! You don’t have to use your “coupon email” for this, I prefer to be delivered to the personal account.

How do you feel about social media? Do you find Facebook or Twitter more helpful in saving money? Share your thoughts…

By Jolon, 28 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #7: Create a Coupon Email

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Today’s tip may be more obvious to you than it was to me, at first.

Frugal Living Tip: CREATE A SEPARATE EMAIL FOR COUPONING

Many coupons require registration with the company’s website/newsletter. Use an email address other than the personal account you use for everything else. While getting extra coupons via email is very convenient, it will fill up your inbox in a hurry! If you have a separate account you can check when you have an extra minute it makes it much easier/faster to sort through all the promotional emails!

*This should probably be the same email you use for sites such as Ebates, Shop at Home, and Alice.com.

(I just finished the process of unsubscribing my personal account/resubscribing with my coupon email. Save yourself the time!)

By Jolon, 27 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #6: Stretching Your Gift Card

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Here are a few tips for stretching your gift card dollars!

1. Shop online because you can often score free shipping. (No driving time, no gas.) If you need to reach a certain dollar amount for free shipping, ask a friend to order with you.

2. Use a cash-back site like Ebates or Shop at Home. If you’re new to the site, you get a $5 sign-up bonus plus you earn cash back on your purchases. It’s like earning money for spending your gift card! (Type the store into the search box and select the deal you want. A new window will open and you shop through the window to earn your cash back.)

3. Search for online coupon codes for $ or % off! I like to use savings.com or RetailMeNot.com

By Jolon, 26 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #5: Shop At Home

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In this case, I’m not referring to Shop At Home (to get cash back on your purchases.) I mean: shop your pantry, shop your linen closet, shop your stockpile. Just to be clear, stockpiling does not equal hoarding. There should only be two objectives when stockpiling: to avoid EVER paying full retail price and to collect more to donate!

Today’s Frugal Living Tip is: SHOP AT HOME

Shop Your Pantry:

If you’re grocery shopping with a strategy similiar to mine, you’re buying multiples of staple ingredients. (Read the first two paragraphs of any Meijer weekly deals for my strategy. Example HERE.) Make an effort to plan menus #1 using the items already in your pantry/freezer and #2 from items in the weekly sale ads. This was the idea behind NO SHOP January – I’ll humor myself and imagine you all participated in your own way

Shop Your Linen Closet:

(Or where ever it is you keep your personal care and household items.) Because I make the effort to gather more coupons, I have 6 months worth of FREE toothpaste in my closet. When I run out, I don’t have to throw a full-priced tube in my grocery cart. I can spend that $3.00 on perishables.

Shop Your Stockpile:

This one is my favorite. My goal is to keep about 6 months worth of necessities on hand in case ________.
a. I run out
b. I have an unexpected change in my employment situation.
c. Disaster strikes. (No, I don’t have a bomb shelter.)
d. Someone I know needs something.
e. Someone I don’t know needs something.

By Jolon, 23 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #4: Getting More Coupons

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If you’re going to go through all this “work” of using coupons, are you going to go to the store with your one little set of coupons you got from the Sunday paper you subscribe to? NO!

Well, you could but personally I think that’s an inefficient way of going about it (since you asked.) You need to go armed with MANY coupons so you make an actual impact on your budget and out of pocket (OOP)!!

Today’s Frugal Living Tip: GET MORE COUPONS!

So how do you get more coupons?

Buy more papers!
I frequently incorporate multiple Sunday papers into my drugstore Savvy Scenarios and get my $2 Sunday paper for 25-50% off! Friends and family also save inserts for me. AND umm… is anyone willing to share the location of a newspaper recycling location? I’m not above dumpster diving… *gasp*

Print more!
Print coupons you want as soon as you see them because they often have print limits. They reset and reappear at will! Here is a controversial tip and I’ll leave it up to your discretion: you can find different coupons/values by searching under different zip codes.

Coupons.com – this is my favorite site and I check it daily!

Smartsource – Original Flavor HERE or Family Fare Flavor HERE

Red Plum – not my fav because it takes FOREVER to reset.

Purchase more!

The Coupon Clippers – great alternative if you don’t like to clip coupons PERIOD. You purchase only the coupons you want without purchasing a whole insert. If you run out, reorder and they arrive in a couple days!

Ebay – some people have great luck finding a particular coupon on eBay. Just be careful not to over-pay for coupons! Shop through Ebates for cash back on Ebay purchases.

All You Magazine – this is sold per issue at Walmart or save on a subscription HERE. Great high value coupons!

Stack coupons!
See my Frugal Living Tip #2 HERE

What’s your favorite way to collect coupons?

By Jolon, 22 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #3: Stockpiling

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Today’s Frugal Living Tip is STOCKPILE!

Stockpiling: buying as much of a useful product as you can afford and have room to store when the prices are lowest (by combining coupons, sales, and rebates) so you’re not subjected to full retail prices!

Sales are cyclical. Buy what you can at rock-bottom prices to last you until the next sale! In my mind, there are three types of pricing: retail, buy, and stockpile.

Retail price = what the store wants me to pay (this may even be a “sale” price).

Buy price = the price I’m willing to pay if I need something and have a coupon for it.

Stockpile price = the lowest price at which I buy as many as possible.

Stockpile products you will ALWAYS need… like toilet paper. For example, the retail price for Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is around 58 cents. Suggested “buy” price for toilet paper is 42 cents per double roll. This past summer, I purchased Quilted Northern Ultra Plush (that’s like the ultra-elusive Queen/King toilet paper couponers only dream about, just so you know) for 8 cents per double roll!

It was on sale at Rite Aid so I used manufacturer coupons, RAVV coupons, AND a purchase coupon all rolled up into a Savvy Scenario. (Explained in Frugal Living Tip #2: Stack Coupons.) When I tell you I purchased 84 rolls (and you know I am one person living in a 700 sq ft space) refrain from thinking I’m crazy. The point is, I bought as much as I could because it was ridiculously cheap and I don’t need to buy it again until the next sale cycle!

Stockpiling requires more coupons than just one little coupon insert in your Sunday paper can provide you. More on that tomorrow…

By Jolon, 21 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #2: Stack Coupons

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The bottom line is coupons are like money. They’re a form of payment. The more coupons you use, the lower your out-of-pocket (OOP). It’s not rocket science.

Today’s Frugal Living Tip is: STACK COUPONS!

“Stacking coupons” is combining 1 store coupon with 1 manufacturer coupon on 1 item.

When you stack coupons during a sale and/or with a rebate you get the kind of savings you need to “stockpile” (more on that tomorrow.) Many drug stores and grocery stores publish store coupons for this purpose.

Here is an example of how I post it:

Starkist Tuna Pouch $1.79
Use $1 coupon HERE
Also use $0.75 Meijer MB coupon
Final Price $0.04

How can you tell the difference between a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon (MQ)? BEST way is to look at the bar code. A manufacturer bar code will always start with a 5 or 9.

Drug Stores:

Rite Aid

(any coupon with a bar code beginning “RC”)
Rite Aid Video Values (RAVV): Watch video advertisements to earn coupons. New each month HERE. I post the newly available coupons each month.
In-ad coupons
Purchase coupons: $5/20, $5/15, $3/$15, etc available in pdf format or sometimes on coupons.com **These can be used in addition to any other store coupons!

Walgreens

Monthly coupon booklets: **Dont’ forget (at least at my Walgreens) these actually count toward your “coupon to item ratio” which is the # of MQs (plus # of Register Rewards – they are MQs) cannot exceed the number of items in your transaction.
In-ad coupons (don’t count toward coupon to item ratio)

Grocery Stores:

Meijer

Mealbox (MB) coupons: print HERE or HERE

Retail Stores:

Target

WEB coupons: print HERE. **Target’s new coupon site is actually a combination of store coupons AND manufacturer coupons. CON: You can’t tell if the coupon is store or MQ until you print it. PRO: While the MQs have a Target logo, they are actually MQs that can be used anywhere!

Have any questions? I’m happy to help!

By Jolon, 20 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Frugal Living Tip #1: Don’t Spend to Save

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My most obvious Frugal Living tip is: DON’T SPEND TO SAVE!

When I first started couponing, I was so excited to get FREEBIES I was spending coupons like a nutso!

Perfect example: Bath and Body Works just released THIS coupon for a FREE Antibacterial Soap with a purchase of $10+ (exp 2/21/10). IF you’re going to make a purchase at Bath and Body Works anyway… COOL you get a FREEBIE! BUT if you’re printing your coupon and heading there for the FREE soap, you’ll be spending $10 + tax to get a FREE item that frequently goes on sale for $3.

Pay attention to how much you’re spending and how much you’re actually saving.

By Jolon, 19 January, 2010, Leave A Comment

Does Frugal = Cheap??

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What does “Frugal Living” mean to you?

I’m preparing materials for a coupon class coming up next month and it got me thinking about what exactly frugal living means to me… and how it is ”chic” exactly. I think some people automatically assume coupon-users are ”cheap” or that they NEED to use coupons. On the contrary, I just want to get as many necessities as possible for FREE so I can continue to purchase my $67 eye cream (*gasp!!*) If I’m comparing notes with my girlfriends and we all bought the same sweater and I paid 75% less for it, who wins? Me! haha Does it make me any less cool that I used a coupon code and got FREE shipping?

Not every thing is cheap but how does it fit into frugal living?

If Rite Aid sold houses, I could live in a million dollar house for $100,000! haha I’ve told you before I got $700 of products FREE in one month last year at Rite Aid and my typical monthly savings is 90% to 100%. Unfortunately, not everything I need is sold there. I can’t find a deal on ALL of it.

There are some things I will continue to treat myself to even though they are not FREE or cheap, BUT I time my purchases to make sure I’m getting the best deal. For example, I always purchase my Lancome eye cream when I can get a gift with purchase, FREE shipping, and cash back on my purchase through Ebates or Shop at Home. I never just run out to the mall and buy it at full price.

What savings methods do you use to save money on your “must have” items?

Obviously not everyone thinks it’s cool to spend $67 on eye cream even IF you got FREE shipping and cash back. BUT I’d wager everyone has their “must have” items. If your hobby is painting, are you willing to purchase one supply at a time to use 40% off one item coupons? Obviously I would, but would you? Is there a point at which your time is MORE valuable than saving 50% – 75% off everything you buy? Some think so, some don’t.

Care to share your thoughts?

By Jolon, 17 January, 2010, Leave A Comment