I ordered 3 pair of flip flops to qualify for Amazons $25 off $80 purchase... and got free shipping too! I noticed the one pair of flip flops I wanted was 60% off already. So I guess I saved $25 plus maybe another $10 in shipping.

Cool deal. I really only needed one pair of flips, but figured it this way... One pair would cost me around $40 with shipping. Total I spent was about $65 ... so maybe I wasted 25 bucks but only paid an average of $12.50 each for those other two pair of flips - which is all they are worth anyhow.

I bought 9 new peonies on sale this week (really great deal)
Bought seeds from Valueseeds-another great deal, for my wintersowing, sharing, and gardening entertainment next year.
Bought ground beef on sale, and am making a big ole pot of chile using home canned tomatoes and juice.
Pulled a roast out of the freezer (which was on sale b4), and am making veggie soup with some home canned goods, and a few commercially bought ones.
Switched my AT+T Long distance plan to a package deal with Verizon...YAY! Monthly savings there.

Mikie,
How many flip flops do you have? Got a pic to share with us?

Sue

I got a bottle of delicious Chardonnay out of the cellar. I made it 2 years ago from regional grapes for about $3. If I bought it retail, it would have cost about $15-$20.

I shopped at a discount grocery store. Based on previous calculations, I save about 15% over the regular store so on approx $100, I saved $15.

I combined the trip to the store with a trip my friend and I were already making to town. Round trip costs $7.50 in gas, so we both saved that.

I got organic veggies from a local CSA. Saved about $8 there, plus gas.

I can see how much I save by making careful, wise, purchases, but I really find it hard to determine how much I save by regularly not buying stuff I can do without. That is where the savings really add up.

I didn't buy any flip-flops which I don't need, so I guess I saved between $40 and $65, unless I didn't see the special offer, in which case I saved $120 by not buying 3 pair.

I didn't go to the opera this week. There is another $82.50 plus gas ($7.50)-$100 saved over last week.

I think next week I won't buy flip-flops or go to the opera. Pretty soon I will be wealthy.

Here's what this pair of Dr Martins $30 flips look like..
{{gwi:2062712}}
Supposed to be medically correct foot support. Healthy hiking shoes ☺
- Normal $7 flips from walgreens, I went through 3 pair this summer, and they get mighty unconfortable when they mush and go flat.
That's the reason I'm spending the big bucks on my feet, hoping to eliminate that stinging 'slapped foot down too hard feeling'. Caused by Stomping on concrete, getting the mud off after walking thru turf - dodging sprinkler rotors, manually throwing lawn pump valves. Sun and Wed ritual, yr round. Unless we've had rain.

Oh, I just saved another bundle at amazon ... can't tell you what, sort of a secret as they havent shipped yet. Fraid everybody would run them out of stock if I say what it is here, it really is that good of deal!
One was 24.99 and free shipping offered for $25 orders,,, so I bought 2. Used online banking, done deal in about 2 minutes,,, saved lots of my time too.

Trying hard to keep lights turned off. Drying heavy towels, etc. on the clothes line instead of the dryer.

Cooked at home instead of eating out.

Didn't buy a tote bag I wanted. Might still get it, tho'. I'm thinking about it.

Helped the UPS store save money by donating a bunch of styrofoam pellets and other packing materials insted of putting them in the trash. They were glad to have them.

Come on, Mikie, let us in on the "deal!" LOL! I don't consider $30 big bucks at all if they help your feet, and those look very comfortable. You gotta take care of your feet. Hmmmm...is that what Amazon has?

I purchased an extremely comfortable pair of SAS shoes that retailed for $125.00 at 75% off. The store was going out of business and started at 25% off for each pair. I waited until the last day and was happy to find a pair at 75% off especially since I must wear a better quality shoe because of foot problems.

Cartn o' choc. mlk @ abot 2/3 reg pr (svg spc, 2).

o j

I didn't go buy a book; went to the library instead: $7
I didn't go buy a cookie or candy bar when I got the munchies: $1
I brought lunch from home all week: $7 per day

I bought a $12 sale 2.4ghz wireless phone at walgreens -

fwiw
its power brick uses .. 1 watt when battery is not charging, 2 watts when it in the base. Always seems to have a maintance charge as the phone gets every so slightly warm over the battery pack sitting in that cradle.

Assuming cradled, 2 watt x 24 hrs x 30 days 1000 x 13cent per kwh = 19 cents per month.

I have an answer machine that eats exactly one watt so combined, my two telephone power bricks, which are very small ones, cost me about a penny per day in power.

I was out this afternoon, and in my haste did not get to eat anything today b4 leaving. I treated myself to 2 sandwiches from the 99cent menu at Rally's, and had water with me.

I dropped off my recycles, and picked up many nice containers for winter sowing of seeds. Free containers + Free seeds = free plants.
I also found 8 brand new 6 ft T posts there...not sure what I will use them for, put will someday put them to use...possibly holding up the fence in the garden for peas, beans, or cukes.
Also got a new cement block there...if I 'find' enough of them, I'll build something...compost pit, mulch pit, what ever.
Discovered they have a pallet there for disposing of lumber. I raided it, and will use the lumber for a new shelf, dog house repair, or something...can't have too much misc wood around for projects and repairs.

I love going to the recycling place...never know what you might find. A while back I got nice windows for making a cold frame, and an almost new wheelbarrow.

I raked and shredded leaves at a friends today. Brought all the shreddings home, and they will be brown gold used on the garden to improve the clay soil.

Charged cell phone going down the road, instead of using AC here at home.

Eating leftovers...last of the soup, I hope!

Last Fri. we were at an outlet center. THey had a book section where the books were seriously discounted, but they were then taking 40% off THOSE prices. Got a stack of brand new books for $2-3 each. One or 2 look like duds (you can never tell, really), but the others are very entertaining. Also picked up a really cheap bra--$4--just to try. It's one of the most comfortable I've ever had. Have to get back and buy some more of them.

Our biggest saving, though took place this week. We bought a new car last May. We liquidated as much as we could to put down as much cash as possible--about $26,000--so that we only had to finance about $6000. We've diligently paid huge payments ever since--and just the other night, we mailed in our last payment. Now, of all the ways we've saved money over the years, paying off a brand new car in under 6 months is probably the best savings we've ever made. And yippeee!!!! Cookie Monster is now all mine! (take a look at the Voodoo Blue FJ Cruiser, and you'll 'get' the name--LOL).

I also shopped at a discount grocery and saved 15-20%. I didn't go to Walmart so I saved about $100. It seems like I can't go in there for less. I've been off work and haven't been anywhere except for yesterday and I drive 70 miles round trip each day for work so I saved about $40 in gas. We have eaten homemade muscadine jelly. A friend was given a small grist mill so he's been grinding cornmeal for us and he provided the corn and didn't charge us for it. My husband was given a homemade trailer for his 4-wheeler but it had wood floors. A friend of his is over the workshop at the local high school so he took it to work for them to have something to do and they removed the wood and welded on metal, painted it and provided the materials for free since it was for projects anyway. I'm not sure how much a trailer would have cost so don't know how much we saved but I'm sure it was in the hundreds of dollars.

I like this forum and this is a great thread.

Nancy

I bought a huge 368g (one lb I think?) pot of petroleum jelly in the £1 store. No more sore dried out hands during winter, it cured them in a couple of days, and not only does a tiny bit go a long way it's also vastly cheaper than anything else for dry skin. Double bonus that it works better than anything I've tried before as well. It also works really well as lip balm so I won't get painful dry lips anymore either. I don't use much, it's better to just rub your lips with the back of your hand after applying it to them. Too much makes a mess and it stays sticky. When doing my hands I only use a thin almost invisible film. I would expect this pot to last years, which is great for £1.

I made a greeting card instead of buying it using images off the internet and photos I took with my camera. A bit technical but more fun than I had anticipated.

Some ideas that we implemented that have helped us save toward purchasing an acreage in the next couple of years:

We stopped buying soda three months ago and instead have switched to water and calorie-free lemonade mix (a container makes up to 12 quarts of drink) for when we have a 'sweet stuff' craving. Total savings to date: $65.00.

I had someone teach me how to trim our horses' hooves myself so we don't need to pay someone to do it until they need shoes again next summer. Estimated savings: $350.

I bought a beautiful stretchy slipcover for our "in good shape but really ugly" couch for less than $100 instead of buying that pricey new furniture. Savings: $950.

Instead of a weekend vacation at a hotel for the two of us, we 'swapped houses' with a friend and his wife. Both couples got a weekend away from home in another part of the state, and didn't pay for an expensive hotel room.

We're doing a 'potluck' style Thanksgiving dinner instead of paying for most of the food since we will be hosting yet again. We're providing the turkey and mashed potatoes, plates, silverware, etc. Guests were only too happy to be assigned their personal 'specialties' such as the rolls, stuffing, green bean casserole, wine, appetizers, and pies to bring. We'll save a bunch of money, and everyone will know they contributed to the joyfulness of the day. We aren't going out to a movie as a group afterward like we usually do, either. We're having everyone bring a favorite board or card game. Should be fun, and we get to spend time as family and friends instead of sitting in an overpriced theater seat. Skipping the movie alone will save us about $20 per person once a drink and popcorn is factored in.

My husband and I each picked a magazine subscription that we could live without and didn't renew it. Total savings: $42.00

I love shopping for Christmas gifts during the holidays, but did some shopping early this year when certain items were on sale. A friend and I are also planning on (shudder) getting up early the Friday after Thanksgiving to do some shopping at the Early Bird Sales. We did this a few years ago, and really saved a lot of money on items we would have purchased anyway.

I planted a garden and froze the vegetables produced. We haven't had to buy corn, beans, zucchini, potatoes, or tomatoes since June. I'm not sure how much money this saved, but we're certainly enjoying our fresh vegetables and homemade spaghetti sauce and salse is SO much better than store bought!

We installed a water-saving showerhead and a new toilet in our bathroom. The water we've saved has more than paid for both items, and we can't tell the difference in water use when showering or flushing.

We opted for a quality adhesive vinyl tile floor in our remodeled bathroom instead of laying ceramic tile. We saved several hundred dollars, and the floor looks wonderful. With the money we saved, I can afford to put new flooring in our kitchen as well.

My best friend and I make double batches of things like spaghetti sauce, casseroles, bread, rolls, etc., freeze them, then swap 'double batches' with the other couple. It provides variety and great homemade meals without having to prepare them and making double batches isn't much extra work. Besides, we can buy things like meats and other ingredients in larger sizes and save a few cents.

Where we live, meat is also FAR cheaper at the local meat locker than the grocery store, and is of much better quality. I estimate I save $300 - $400 per year purchasing meat there instead of the grocery store. For example, chicken breasts at the grocery store are almost a dollar more per pound than at the locker. 90% lean ground beef was on sale at the grocery today for $2.49/lb. I regularly buy it at the meat locker for $2.20/lb and it's raised locally.

Does helping your son save money count? My son has been working diligently for several months now to save up his money for a Sony Playstation 3. These are not cheap, in fact, they are $600. A pretty large investment for a 14 year old boy to say the least. Anyway, he worked hard and saved his money and preordered his Playstation and should have it any day now. The trouble is, he didn't have any money set aside to buy games for it and at $50/$60 a pop he'd be saving a while before he would. So I thought I would help him out a bit and buy him a game or two to get him started. I was looking around online for the best deals on the popular games and found a company called Gamefly who has them all. Turns out they operate on the same model Netflix does. For a monthly membership fee you are entitled to rent a pre-determined number of games. There are no late fees and he can keep them as long as he likes. There are also steep discounts for purchasing games if he decides he likes one enough to own it. It's a difference of about 35/40% off the going rate for new games. So I told him about the service and agreed to pay for the first three months (half of what two new games would have caught me). After that he'll be responsbile for the monthly bill. He was thrilled and in addition to saving a small fortune on games I have also been nominated "coolest mom ever."

We're in the process of finishing the new basement we had installed under our exsisting house.
I went to restore yesterday and bought two scones for either side of the fireplace for 4.00 each. They had some like them for 32.00 a piece at Lowes.
I also bought an oak cupboard there for over the utility room sink for 25.00, I'm not sure what the savings are but I'm sure it's quite a bit.
I bought our sofa and loveseat for the media room at the salvation army for 124.00 .... I was going to buy a slip cover for a found sofa (hadn't found it yet though) lol for 119.00 that wouldn't have included any additional seating so I think that was a score (and I LOVE this set) ... found one sofa pillow at Goodwill for 1.38 and a matching one at a consignment store for 2.99. Not sure how they ended up at different places, they had to be a set at one time or another. I got two others almost matching at JCP for 26.00. Yesterday was buy one pillow for 25.00 get the second for 1.00. I like the prices of the other pillows better :~)
After my husband got his plasma tv I scoured the ads and sears gave us 110.00 back because I found the same one at Best Buy for 100.00 less, plus they gave us another 10% off.
It's so odd, although I *could* for about the first time in my life buy whatever I wanted, it still upsets me to have to pay full price for anything :~)

Patricia Lynn -- what a great deal -- and what a great lesson to teach your son! (Teaching wise consumerism while still being the coolest mom around -- pretty neat trick!)

I dug through a discount bin at my local boxstore and found a new non-fiction hardback book which had a discounted sticker price on it. The policy is lowest discount price ...which in this case was a whole 44 cents ..... the cashier looked twice but rang it in no questions....so a thirty dollar book became a bargain....and all for a little looking deep in a bin. DH will enjoy it this Christmas.

Yesterday, I used the Michael's 40% off coupon to buy an outdoor timer for my Xmas lights. It came to a little less than 10 bucks with the discount, and now that the weather is cold, it's so lovely to have the lights go on and off by themselves. That one outlet doesn't control all the lights, so I'd like to get a couple more. Guess that will be a week at a time!

Teamed up to do a birthday party for my 8 year old daughter with another mom whose daughter (7) has a birthday the same week. The little girls are friends. They each invited 1 friend, we took them to a Tea House in the afternoon (therefore it wasn't to include lunch.) We ordered tea for everyone, and three sampler platters to share. My half, tip included, was $18. It was elegant and my daughter had fun. We did not trash our house, nor did I have to think up games (not my favorite pastime!) We could have done something similar at my home... but all the brothers and sisters would have to have been invited or they would have crashed the party for the yummies! This was not only a dollar saver, but a sanity saver.

Also, per forum instructions, I looked up the ads for the (only 2) grocery stores in my town, and stocked up on meat for my family (freezer.) This is new to me because I tend to go to Wal-Mart & Costco routinely, uh..., just because it's easy I guess. What a savings! I have 12 in my home to feed daily and for $25 I got a ton of good meat! (OK maybe not 2000, but about 35 pounds...) NOW I know what a loss leader is. Oh, and I only bought the sale meat I went in for, NOT ANOTHER SINGLE ITEM.

This week I also was brave enough to stop at a neighbors house whose veggie garden I can see when I drive by. I had to ask what the heck he had growing in December! He was a retired gentleman (nice to meet the neighbors) who spends a 1/2 hour every day rain or shine in his garden, he told me. I live in CA, zone 9, but being new to gardening, didn't realize the potential for growing year round. He shared his wisdom, and inspired me to begin my gardening now and not wait for spring. This will save us bucks because our family loves the fresh veggies and greens.

Next week I will begin a shopping comparison price journal to see per ounce/per item, where the best deals are where I shop. Then when an item is on sale I can also see if its a good deal or just advertising...

Not a biggie, but one night for dinner, I made a huge pot of vegetable soup. Used a small piece of sirloin that I had a coupon for (so it only cost me about $3). I had a quart of the tomato liquid, with a couple of whole tomatoes, that was leftover from when we made margharita pizzas a couple of weeks ago. Had a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, and some fresh baby carrots that I'd gotten free with a Wegman's coupons. Had some whole wheat alphabet pasta that I'd gotten really cheaply at an Amish market. Did add an onion that I'd paid full price for. My soups are almost stews, btw--more 'stuff' than broth, so they make a hearty meal. So for well under $5, we had dinner one night, lunch another day, and I still have some in the freezer. So I made dinner for us all for about $1.50 a night.

Hit a store that was clearing out their entire book section--bought a pile of paperbacks for $2 ea., and some hardbacks (including a $30 cookbook) for $4 ea.

I've been collecting those books of free Wegman's coupons from friends and neighbors who don't use them--so in the past week, DH and I have gotten--totally free--3 large bottles of Coke; 3 containers of Edy's Ice Cream; 15 pounds of potatos (guess I'll be making gnocchi this week), and 3 loaves of bread. They also had my shampoo on sale this week for 4.99 (regularly $7/bottle), and I had a $1 off coupon for that--so I got a couple of those while I was at it.

Oh, and I was at a store that had a great kids book that I can use with my summer school class next summer--but I couldn't see paying $30 for it. Checked Amazon, and it was only $16, and since I wanted another book they had and was in no rush--got them both with free shipping (not to mention, ordering on Amazon, I saved paying my state's 7% sales tax!)--so those 2 items probably saved me over $20 right there.

Went to Happy Hour instead of cooking at home. One glass of wine and all the munchies I could eat. I know, weird...

Hi everyone,

I saved gas by staying home for the last 2 days instead of coming to the library to chew the rag with you folks.

My old step-uncle had a steel-clad shed that he used for storage, with a dirt floor.

Landlord dug about 1.5 feet of dirt, installed gravel, last week had a concrete floor installed.

Then he installed framing between the posts holding up the trusses, and insulation.

For the past couple of days he's been putting steel sheets up on the trusses to form a ceiling, and is to put insulation above that. He's installing steel sheets on the walls, to cover the insulation, as well.

I've helped install about half of the ceiling, and one of the 48' walls (the other wall is 32').

Even though we've been having fairly mild weather ...

... I'm less than enthused about hitchhiking the 13 km. (about 8 mi.) here to the library.

Part of the reason being that it's dark when (being so long winded) I'm usually ready to go home.

Today was senior men's coffee hour at the church, whose name has been changed to (more romantic) ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) and today we had record turnout of 20 ... plus a lot of squares, tarts (but I said that am not in the habit of running around with tarts), etc. for our Christmas celebration. I said that it should be "ROMDO" (Retired Old Men Drinking Out" ... but that suggestion went over like lead bricks, as you can imagine. Actually, I refer to it as, "The Old Farts' Club".

And I'm to go shopping with son, shortly.

Gov't. pensions, that usually appear about the 28th of the month, come early in Dec., so I'm going to the bank to cash mine. Should have it sent by Direct Deposit.

Looks as though I'll have to spend some money.

Have a happy, healthy holiday, everyone.

Let your get-togethers with family be a time of unalloyed joy - forget those old animosities, O.K.? Well ... put 'em in cold storage, for that day, at least.

ole joyful

At the supermarket this week, I purchased potatoes but they were scanned in at the wrong price. I caught it and ended up getting them free per the supermarket policy. But I had to ask for the no charge.

I had to take finger foods to a church gathering, so I decided that egg salad sandwiches and pecan toasty candy could be done cheaply. I found large brown eggs 22 cents a dozen cheaper than white eggs so I bought two dozen. With store brand bread and things I had on hand, it cost me less than $4.00 for a big platter of sandwiches and a plate of candy. One of the members brought in out of town guests who did not eat meat, so they were happy to see the eggs salad sandwiches. I sent the remaining sandwiches home with them.

Along with three other Christmas books, I checked out, from the library, Christmas with Martha Stewart Living Classic Crafts and Recipes inspired by the Songs of Christmas. I also checked out Rachael Rays 30-min. Meal cookbook. These saved me $116.82. The same day I found Christmas cards and decorations for 60% off at Dirt Cheap. I wrapped presents with the wallpaper that I found for 50 cents a roll.

This morning we emptied two jars of jelly. My DH saw me holding them up to the light and said, "You might as well toss those in the trash they are empty." I ran about a fourth cup of water in the blackberry and shook the jar, poured it into the peach and did the same thing, then it went into the freezer. I used it to cool, sweeten and flavor the tea that I am drinking now. The jars were washed and stored for a later use.

Update:

After left library, was rear-ended at the east end of the village.

Tailgate badly pushed in, rear window and one side window at rear are history.

Dump truck had drain plug on rad broken off, lost all anti-freeze. Will have to be towed to police portng Centre, as was my vehicle. It is mobile, but no brake, tail, licence lights.

No one injured - glad I had no intimation of any whiplash.

No visit to bank.

No shopping with son.

Camped out at son's apt. in city, within walk dist. of auto body shop, where car left after departing Police Report. Centre.

No one charged.

So - as car may be write-off, no saving of money in near future.

Anyone interested in a small measure of crying with me?

ole joyful

Sorry to hear that, OJ. I'm glad you're OK; the car always can be replaced.

Joyful, that certainly is bad luck but like Steve said, you weren't hurt which is the most important thing. Do you have car insurance?

Glad YOU are okay, OJ... cars can be replaced!

What was in the dump truck, maybe you can get a deal.

On Friday, I did my grocery shopping at Albertson's. On Friday night, I read the newspaper and saw that the bag of pistachios was "buy 2, get 1 free" and a block of cheese that was already on sale had a coupon for another $2.00 off. I had to go back to Albertson's on Saturday to pick up a prescription and brought my receipt with me. I walked out with a "free" bag of pistachios and $2.00. I had brought the cheese with me to show them, but the manager said I didn't need to do that.

I learned my MIL wraps her Christmas presents with recycled Christmas wrapping paper. I always wondered why she would save the paper. Way to go Ma!

I tried buying the big cheap bags of muddy potatoes and discovered that once you wash off the mud and deal with the fact they're really strange shapes, they're actually ok. They're a staple food where I come from, I don't even know how I eat so many of them, the things just steadily vanish because all my recipes seem to have potatoes in. We're using about 3-5Kg a week, so it's going to save a load of money now we can buy the cheap ones.

I also bought a battery charger, but that hasn't paid for itself yet. But it will do, and quite soon too. Throw away batteries are absurdly wasteful.

Looked in the fridge yesterday and made chef salad with the leftovers, that coupled with the homemade turkey soup was supper last night. Today I used up the last of the ham and ended up with a tasty pea soup - thickened with some leftover mashed potatoes - it turned out as thick as I would have normally made it and it used up the leftover potatoes. Besides the soup, I flaked some of the ham in the food processer and froze it for "flakes of ham" sandwiches at a later date. I did not cook the usual meat, potatoes and vegetables for two nights and saved money by using what I had sitting in containers in the fridge.

Instead of paying $25,000.00 or so for a new car ...

... I bought an old one - for $2,500.00.

No loans - paid cash.

As the former car was an old one, I'd saved money by not carrying collision insurance: haven't carried collision insurance for years.

As I had no collision insurance, the insurance co. wouldn't pay for a rental car.

My friend loaned me a car, I offered him $100.00 when I took it back almost a week later, he refused it.

He loaned me another for about ten days ... but he thought he'd sell me one, but didn't, as he sold one to a friend of his and told me about the one that the friend had for sale, just about what I wanted.

So I guess I'll owe him some more than $100.00.

It's nice to have my own wheels again.

Hope you all have a great week.

ole joyful

I bought a replacement TV.
About $350 everywhere, on sale for 279 at CC, but when i got there asked if they had any open boxed specials,, they had four. Lowest priced one was display model $209 .. date code Sept06.
Just barely fit in my passenger seat door and only 112 pounds(51kg) bear hug and some huffin and puffin to carry into the house.

I bucked and kicked and dragged my feet so long about upgrading my computer, that had minimal storage and operating space, using Windows 95, that I succeeded in conning my kids into deciding to get me one for Christmas.

Took several old units in to computer shop today, picked one up for son's friend this afternoon, we're to get the others tomorrow.

Son came out a few days ago and got my computer here lined up so tha I can go online again, but loading is slower than before and I get a lot of dialog boxes saying that something's not quite right, that I must click on to continue.

Sort of like using a crutch/cane to hobble along when one has a gimpy leg.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

ole joyful

We hired someone to tint our windows in our home. Here in Phoenix our electric bill in the summer is over $300/month, so this will lower it substantially.

Howdy all, Just joined this forum today. Here in So Cal you can find some really great deals at Garage Sales and Estate Sales but you need to be careful since some things are sometimes high priced. My family has been in the Estate Sale business for over 45 years now so I grew up learning ways to save money. I buy all my furniture used or antique. I bought dishes for 49 cents at Ikea (their furniture sucks). I buy clothing off the discount rack at Target at no less then 75% off. I found some nice stuff there. I got about 30 brand new t-shirts and 20 sweat pants and a pair of shoes for free from a friend of mine who works at the K-Swiss factory. A friend of mine helped me build my computer for nearly free. My partners cousin gave me his old laptop. It's in perfect shape! I found my patio furniture for $30 for 11 pieces in very good shape at a garage sale. I paid about $20 for our antique couch and chair for the family room and $30 for the two couches in the living room from an Estate Sale. Things are usually 1/2 price at Estate Sales on Sundays here in So Cal. I have a long list of places to get deals now. This forum helps alot also.

Paul

Shop the Bent and Dent grocery stores. Have a lot of canned, and hard goods, at probably half the price of regular, and lots of good stuff just cartons are bent.
Check your expiration dates, and your're ready to go.
Lots of times, I buy what I see, just to have it when I want it, not necessaryily that I "need" it at the particular time, next time, it won't be there@
I shop resale shops for clothing, after the first washing of new clothes, who can tell the diff anyway? Lots of times there are new items with the hang tags still attached.
I probably only buy new underwear, and jeans, and shoes, rest is brand new second hand, and I am proud to say I have a lot of things for the garden/yard, that were pricey at one time, and friends have paid dearly for, when I ran across them at the resale shop, they were a fraction of what they were new.
I am not wealthy by any means, but feel so because I work at saving money, don't buy something just cuz I hafta have it, do I really need it, and further, never buy anything that isn't on "sale".

I bought my whole week's shopping for £17.10, which is much cheaper than normal as I average about £25-30 recently. I actually filled a whole trolley, the people in line behind me were like "how does that work, he has loads of shopping?!"

I'm trying to pay more attention to in store offers, the majority of what I bought was half price or buy one get one free stuff, plus a few items from the reduced counter. I also used a couple of coupons, but they only came to £1.50 together. Shopping like this means you have to be more flexible what you buy, but it does save a lot of money. I also got a further 3% off as I used a club card that gives points equalling 3%, but you can only use them later when they reach a certain limit.

I had to read the shelf labels closely, it seems many things are on offer, but not always with big tags to tell you about it.

Hopefully I'll find plenty more offers next week. Ironically, everyone tells me that I shop at an expensive store. However, I find some seemingly expensive stores have more sales and offers, thus if you buy a greater proportion of these items you end up with better value for money. Bigger stores which have more products give you better access to all the different brands and thus more of their promotions.

When we lived in Califonia there were stores with memberships.And yes they did have a lot of buy one get one free deals. But I have to say that most of the food that was on sale were not healthy foods. A lot of chips and salsas(somewhat healthy) And top ramen,cup of soups..... There were a few good choices though.Like yogurt and cheese and some lunch meats. At the time I would use their loss leaders and only purchase what was on sale.That is what our menus consisted of. But now I buy things that are on sale, but I don't buy a lot of chips,crackers and junk food. I guess that is one way to save money this week and here on out.

A lot of European stores have club cards. You don't pay for them or even have to have a card to shop there, but they offer you small savings (which add up over the year) and often send you promotions and vouchers. I save about £40-50 a year by using them, so it's not big money, but it's hardly any effort for me to present an extra card when I shop and to open a few letters with vouchers in every month.

I'm also fortunate as my local store is a generally healthy place. I was buying fruit juice on sale and pasta sauce at half price. No junk food in my basket, but I did buy a few fresh pastries that were on sale...

This week we had my son's 5th bday party. Instead of having the movie theater "package", I treated the guests to the movie and out to lunch at Wendy's (my son's fave restaurant, lol). The package at the theater would have been $300 plus I would have had to pay for any adults past the first 2 (dh & I). I would have had to supply the cake and they would supply popcorn, soda & candy and a souvenier (sp?) for my son and we would have had to tip the party hostess and pay 8.75% tax.
Instead I spent a total of $225 and that included:
the movie tix for 10 kids & 9 adults (plus 1 toddler), Cheez-its snack packs for during the movie (smuggled in, another 5 y.o. fave), lunch for all, cake (we called ahead and asked permission), party supplies (i.e. tablecloth, forks, candles, cake plates, etc), and favors for the kids. Everyone had so much fun and the whole party lasted 3 hours. The theater package would have been the 1.5 hr movie and 1/2 hour after for cake & play. I am in NY and childrens parties are big business. I have 2 sons and am proud that I have been able to come up with creative ways to celebrate, that are enjoyable and at a savings. I hope I never have to do a "package" party.
My other great savings was I received a free vintage sink on freecycle.org. I am a member and frequently offer out and also frequently receive items. We are renovating in the summer and I have been shopping out fixtures. I had my heart set on an old white sink with attached drainboard, but could not find one anywhere feasible (except 200 miles away on ebay). This was free and was a 15 minute ride to pick up. It is in excellent condition and just needed a new home. I had found these new for sale online in England but the cost with shipping was beyond my budget. It would have been close to $800! I can't imagine paying that much for a sink, but I know many people do. I am just too frugal/cheap. Even if it fit my budget, I could not do it. I would rather use the money somewhere else or save it.
That's my story for savings this week! I hope to have more to cheer about next week ;)

And can I assume that, having made all these fabulous savings relative to prices that you expected to pay ...

... you're planning to give at least some of the savings to charity? Millions in the world are nowhere near as fortunate as we.

When my brother suggested such to an elderly relative that was wondering what to do with her assets, her comment was, given with a bit of a snort, "Charity begins at home!".

ole joyful