Shopping

Save Money On Food

July 16, 2018 by Twila Van Leer

The typical American family of four spends $8,513 per year on groceries. And many families add to that amount by eating out regularly. If you are interested in cutting the amount you spend at the grocery store, file these tips away and follow the advice they offer:

Learn To Eat At Home

Learn to cook. Cooking you own meals can significantly cut the costs of eating. Even fast-food eating out in enormously expensive. You’ll also save if you cook from scratch and avoid the higher-priced frozen and pre-prepared meals. Not only that, it is likely that you will eat healthier. Book stores have dozens of cookbooks, many of them focused on inexpensive and easy-to-fix meals.

Plan Meals For A Week

Take fewer trips to the grocery store. Typical American food shoppers go to a store three or four times a week. This means they triple or quadruple the temptation to pick up things they don’t really need. Studies say the frequent shoppers spend up to 54 percent more than those who stock up for a month or more at a time.

Homemade Lunches

Take sack lunches to work. Compare the cost of a $2 brown bag lunch to the average $6 trip to a sandwich shop and you can see how fast you could save yourself some serious money. In this comparison, the savings are about $80 a month or $960 in a year.

Write Down What You Need

Make a list. Impulse buying is sharply curtailed when you have it written down. Sketch out a week’s meals and see that all the ingredients are on hand. Add a few goodies to the list for the occasional treat, but otherwise, stick with the list.

Use The Brands That Are Cheapest

Buy generic. No-name brands are almost invariably less expensive than those that you recognize right off the bat and the quality is likely to be comparable. The experts say you can pocket big savings on such items as canned goods, cereals, frozen vegetables and even baby products such as diapers and prepared formulas. When buying prescription drugs, compare labels so you are sure you are getting the same dose of the active ingredients.

Discount Coupons Help Save Money

Use coupons. Coupons are good money-savers only if you look for items that don’t cost more than you would find in another brand. Store brands usually cost less. Eateries also offer coupons and you’ll find them online.

Consider Buying In Bulk Quantities

Many stores offer information on their shelves or price tags that gives a unit price. Comparison shop using the unit price. Buying in quantity is a good idea for some items. For instance, a pack of 40 diapers may cost f$13. or 33 cents per diaper. A box of 144 diapers at $35 is just 24 cents per diaper. (A word of caution: Although buying in bulk is usually less expensive, it’s a waste if you cannot use the product within a reasonable time. A good deal is not a good deal if it goes to waste.)

Wise Shopping For Groceries

June 19, 2018 by Twila Van Leer

Grocery Shopping — Essential ingredients are placed at opposite ends of the store so you must pass through the inner aisles to reach the dairy products at one end and produce at the other

Grocery stores are strategically designed to tempt the shopper into spending more money. Try to avoid some of the pitfalls by following these tips:

Avoid Impulse Buying At The Grocery Store

Essential ingredients are placed at opposite ends of the store so you must pass through the inner aisles to reach the dairy products at one end and produce at the other. Try to focus on what you need and don’t spend unnecessary time in the central aisles.

Coupons Really Do Save You Money

Don’t shun coupons. You can save serious cash if you are willing to spend a little time and effort to accumulate coupons for items you routinely buy. Watch the store’s ads to magnify the benefit of coupons. Staying current with sales will save you money. Be aware, however, that coupons are most likely to give you a break on brand-name products when there may be cheaper alternatives. Don’t buy something you don’t need because there is a coupon.

Toiletries generally are cheaper at a pharmacy than in the grocery store. Stock up with an occasional trip to the pharmacy.

Brand Names Are Not Always The Best For You?

Don’t become addicted to brand names. Often, a generic or house brand is of comparable quality and costs less. Often, they are the same product under a different label. Check the ingredients to be certain you are not sacrificing anything.

Remember that the eye-level shelves are likely to contain the more expensive items. Grocery store managers know that what the shopper sees at eye-level is most likely to catch their attention. Look up or down before buying the first version you see.

If an item you have seen that is currently discounted, but you can’t find it one the shelves, don’t hesitate to ask for a rain check. Some stores offer the option of getting an extension on sold-out sale items.

Don’t go to the grocery store hungry. You’ve heard it before. After work or before dinner is the worst time to go. If it’s possible, shop on weekends.

Eat with the seasons. Not only will fresh products taste better, they’ll be mulch more reasonable priced. If you opt for fruits and veggies that are out of season, you pay for the transportation costs that get them to your store.

T.J. Maxx, Marshalls Offer Deals

May 12, 2018 by Twila Van Leer

There are good reasons that bargain-seekers shop with T.J. Maxx and Marshalls outlets. The two stores are affiliated with Marmaxx Group, the largest retailer of clothing and home décor in the country, so they are able to negotiate what they pay for goods and what savings they can offer to customers. Their usual discounts are 20 to 60 percent off original retail prices.

They keep prices low by bypassing agreements with their providers to buy back a percentage of the merchandise if it doesn’t sell within a certain period of time. So they can offer customers a lower price than retailers that agree to the “buy-back.”

T.J. Maxx and Marshalls hire aggressive buyers who pay attention to more than seasonal factors. If a product meets the quality standards and they can get it at a good price, they buy it. The practice ensures an ongoing flow of merchandise.

Marmaxx works with thousands of vendors around the world and they use past experience to make quick purchases on bargain items. They may buy what other retailers might consider “odds and ends.” They are not as fussy about such things as size ranges, etc. If they think they can sell the item, they buy it.

Different shoppers have different opinions about the two retail outlets, depending on what they are shopping for. T.J. Maxx offers fine jewelry and accessories and in some of its stores, The Runway is a high-end discount designer. Marshalls has a full line of family footwear and a junior department called The CUBE.

Knowing something about the price tags at the stores can help shoppers find the best deals. A yellow price tag indicates a deep discount; white tags are regular-priced items; purple signifies items from “The Runway” which offers desirable, high-end goods. The latter are harder to find, but there are some available.

Tuesdays through Fridays may be the best shopping days at these stores. Some shoppers regularly bet that the discounts will be more advantageous on Wednesday mornings. January and July are the months when end-of-season merchandise is offered. Prices are adjusted downward more often in these months.

If you comparison shop, be aware that T.J. Maxx and Marshalls don’t do a good job with such information. The “compare at” prices may tend to be inflated. Use the Amazon app to see comparisons.

The stores discourage haggling. Irregular items are clearly marked and the price takes it into consideration. Damaged items may give shoppers some leeway to bargain with management, but expectations should be on the conservative side.

Discounted gift cards are offered in place of coupons, category promotions or store-wide sales. Savings can vary, but shoppers can expect to shave at least another 5 percent off the price by using the gift cards, which are available through websites such as Raise.com, GiftCardGranny.com and CardPool.com. The cards can be used at T.J.Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods.

Save Money At Costco

March 19, 2018 by Twila Van Leer

Large families have obvious advantages when they shop Costco. But if you are single and haven’t much living space to store your bulk purchases, is it worthwhile?

It can be if you share the advantage with a friend. Split up bulk packages of essentials such as toilet paper, paper towels, laundry products and other items that you buy routinely and you’ll both save money.

Costco Pricing Strategies

You can learn the Costco pricing codes that will tell you if an item is specially priced, discounted or not considered for restocking. In general, according to HubPages, the codes go like this:

Price Changes

• Prices that end in $0.97 have been marked down from their original price.
• Prices ending in $0.99 indicate the original price.
• Other odd pricing such as $0.49, $0.79 or 0.89, are generally attached to regular-priced items.
• If there is an asterisk (star) in the upper right corner of the price sign, that means the item will not be reordered. Stock up if it’s one of your favorites.
• If the store manager has marked an item down to move the product faster, the price will likely end in a combination such as $0.88 or $0.00.

Costco Coupons

Watch for Costco coupons. The store issues a monthly coupon book as well as the Costco mobile APP. Don’t bother clipping coupons. The cashier has copies at the register and will scan them when you purchase the discounted item.

End Of Season Sales

Buy seasonal items before the season is over. Costco makes massive markdowns on such things as patio furniture and pool toys to free up room for the next season’s specials. After Christmas is an especially good time to look for bargains.

Things You Can Buy Without A Membership

Even if you are not a card-carrying Costco member, you can buy alcohol at Costco stores in some states, and pharmacy and immunizations are available to you., as are eye and hearing exams. You can obtain a Cash Card without signing up for an annual membership. Such a card, however, must be obtained or reloaded by a member.

Aside from the bulk goods that you have in mind when you join Costco, there are deals that go beyond groceries, such as store and restaurant gift cards, movie tickets and local theme park tickets.

Eating out, especially with a family, is a budget-buster, but there are inexpensive alternatives at the Costco food court, such as the $1.50 hot-dog-and-soda specials or the $10 pizza

Kirkland products, the Costco store brand, offer great deals for quality food and grocery goods. Many of them come from the same name-brand sources as the items you’ll find at greater cost.
Make a list before shopping. Without one, you may be tempted to fill up the cart when you had just a few items in mind. And partake freely of free samples. The companies that made them want the store to pass out as many free samples as people will eat.

Giving And Getting For Christmas

December 16, 2017 by Twila Van Leer

Even though most people subscribe to the wisdom that giving is better than receiving at Christmas, the same people also hope that the gifts they receive will be what they want.

Some assure themselves of the right gifts by buying them for themselves. Nothing wrong in that as long as they keep the costs in control.

TD Bank surveyed holiday shoppers and reported that the average amount they expected to spend for gifts was $500. But when all is said and done, one in five (one in three in the Millennial group ) admit to spending more than they had planned — $263 on average. A lot of the overage is consumed in buying items for themselves. In doing so, these shoppers may sacrifice the ability to reach other financial goals they have set., such as building emergency savings or increasing retirement funds.

Creating a budget before the holidays arrive and sticking with it is the best solution. The problem, though, is that while shopping, the shoppers see more items they would like for themselves.

Five ways to assure that you get the gifts you’d like without breaking your own bank:

Ask For Gift Cards

Ask for gift cards. That might have been a breach of holiday etiquette in years past, but it has become more common. More than half of Americans (56 percent overall, 67 percent of Millennials) say they do it. Consumers who were surveyed said they would rather get cards than traditional gifts. Be sure to use the value of the gift card to purchase what it is you want. You can convert the value of the cards into savings if that is your goal.

Create A Wish-List And Share It

Make a list and check it twice. Presenting a list of preferred gifts to your family and close friends will increase your chances of getting what you need/want.

Sell Unwanted Gifts

Sell gifts that you do not care to keep. Consider using eBay, OfferUp or Craigslist to sell non-clothing items. Shoes and clothing can be sold trough poshmark.com or thredup.com. Unused gift cards can be swapped out or exchanged via sites such as giftcardsgranny.com.

Or you can start at the beginning and include the items you want for yourself in the initial budget. That will only work if you are honest about how your self-gifts will affect your overall spending. You’ll have to decide if you will have to trim your list if you are on it.

Create A Special Christmas Account

Start early. Review what you did last holiday season. Open a separate savings account that anticipates what you are likely to spend this go-round. Automating the deposits into this account will spare you the temptation to bypass the arrangement to accommodate an immediate desire. Putting the savings into a high-yield account will increase the holiday fund and possibly allow you to shift the excess money into an emergency or retirement account when the season is over.