couponqueenofcorning

I was  thinking about how everyone is trying to become frugal nowadays. It has become acceptable now to be frugal, whereas just a year ago, many frugalistas (that’s the name I made up for us gals who love frugality) would have been called cheap. People are just now starting to understand that saving money isn’t being cheap. Why pay more than you have to for something? I have heard (I don’t know any in person… darn.) that many millionaires won’t pay full price for anything either. They became millionaires by being smart with their money.

So, today I want to start sharing with you the many frugal things I do. I am sure it will be rather long because I want to share everything I do to save money. I believe that with the economy the way it is we all need to help each other. And this is the way I can help. By sharing with others the knowledge that I have gained in the last two years. I hope you can use these tips to help you save money.

• Buy a programmable thermostat. These can be bought for around $30-$40. They are really nice because you set it so it is cooler at night and in the day when no one comes home. Then around the time you are scheduled to be home, you have it so it is higher. It works really nicely and helps you save money on your heating bill.
• Use coupons. Coupons are great. Coupons are our friends!! LOL. I really like coupons, can you tell? LOL. If you can combine sales with coupons, all the more better. You can get coupons from newspapers, print them from the Internet or buy them from ebay or some other seller. I buy a paper, but I also get extra ones from hubby’s grandma (that is when they are not in Florida for the winter ). The other day I was able to get Ragu for $1.50 each and I had a coupon for $1 off 3. So, they ended up being just a little over $1 each.
• Cook at home and don’t buy a lot of convenience food. Learning to cook will save you lots of money in the long run. Find recipes online and try them. Some will turn out great, others will be a disaster. My cooking in the last 2 years has become tremendously better, but I still have some flops. If you are an extremely bad cook or really don’t know anything about cooking, take a class or ask someone to teach you.
• Make a list when grocery shopping and stick to it. To make sure you don’t go over your budgeted amount, take cash with you and leave the debit and credit cards at home to resist temptation. This means you will need to keep track of how much you are spending while you are putting groceries in the cart. Either bring a calculator or a small notepad to keep track of how much you have spent so far. What I do is I use a scratch piece of paper and just write down a rounded number of what each thing cost. I keep a running total going so I always know how much i have spent so far. For example, this is sort of what mine looks like: 3 boxes of crackers cost $1.25 each, 5 boxes of oatmeal at $1.76 each, 2 dozen eggs at $3.10, 2 gallons of milk at 2.45 each,:
  4.00
  1.76
  5.76
  3.10
  8.86
  5.00
  8.86
  I usually try to round up most of the time, because I would rather be prepared to spend less money than more. I am usually pretty close and if I am only buying a few things, I can usually do this in my head as I am putting the stuff on the conveyor belt, as long as I know the prices (which most of the time I do).

OK. So there is part one of my best frugal tips. My next post will have more tips to share with you. Spread the frugality in 2009!