Saving Money

Ever since I decided to stay home with my daughter, our stress due to money (or lack there of) has definitely increased. I do work part-time as a wedding planner and have an Etsy shop, but neither of those comes close to what I used to make working full-time. So, I've been on the hunt for ways on how to save money.

I was sitting at home watching the Nate Berkus Show one day and they had the ladies from thekrazycouponlady.com on. I'd seen these types of segments before, and couldn't believe how much they saved, but never really had interest in buying 60 bottles of mustard at a time. It sparked my interest though, and I went on Youtube to look for videos on using coupons. I came across a few that I liked that were also aimed at normal people - a.k.a. those who just need 1 or 2 bottles of mustard - definitely look up savingwellspendingless.com, hip2save.com, and thekrazycouponlady.com if you're interested. The ladies have lists on their websites of sales matched with coupons every week, and also have lots of videos. The most helpful for me were the ones showing how to shop at CVS and Walgreens.

Before couponing, I always thought CVS and Walgreens were overpriced and never considered shopping at those stores. I didn't like that their way of bringing down costs entailed giving you "credits" via ExtraCareBucks (CVS) or RegisterRewards (Walgreens) that you couldn't use until your next trip. They also expire within a few weeks so you have to watch the dates. I thought, I don't want to have to come back! After doing more research though I realized there were good deals to be found on a weekly basis, plus there are some tricks, such as checking out more than once, that you can do to use up those credits in the same week.

Our main newspaper is pretty expensive - $3 a pop - and all these sites recommend you buy 2-3 newspapers each week. That is too costly for me, since I don't want to end up with tons of stuff and nowhere to store it. I will NOT become one of those crazies (no offense to any of you out there) who has a stock room full of stuff. I'm still not sure how they use up some of that stuff before it expires....I mean, even skincare and toiletries expire. Plus, I get a free local newspaper every Saturday and Sunday that has coupons in it delivered to our front door! It doesn't always have all the coupons you'd get in the city's newspaper, but for my purposes I'm satisfied. With a free newspaper full of coupons and easy sites to look up sales, how could I not do it right? So now, my Sunday-morning-before-church ritual is to head to Walgreens and CVS to see how much free stuff I can get!

What are some money saving tips you've come up with?

Welcome Back

It's been SOOO long! I had started this blog with the intention of discussing parenthood and trying to balance work and being a mom. However, I took a review hiatus and didn't have the time to do any other blogging. I also took a break completely from blog hops, networking, etc. this past 2 months. We've finally settled into our new house and I now feel the urge to write again! Hopefully there is still someone out there interested in this little blog, but if not...it'll be a nice public journal for me :).