I have often been called Thrifty, Frugal and now the best term yet Frugalista! I don’t mind these terms, in fact it is almost a little like a badge of honor. I think it is in my blood (German I am!) to be a smart shopper, always looking for the deal. It definitely came to surface during my years as a single mom – stretching those pennies as far as they could go and then some.
When I knew I needed to find a way to bring in some extra money I started a little used book business in my hall closet. I would buy used books at thrift stores and then resell them on half.com and eBay. I actually made some money doing this and was able to do some extra things with my kids, like go on vacation. But that is an entirely different blog post!
I wanted to share with you some of the things I do still today to stretch our family budget and even get things for FREE. I have a lot and don’t have room to share them all, so I may have to do another post on this at a later date.
Got Swagbucks?
Swagbucks is a search engine that pays you to use their site. You register with Swagbucks and then search the Internet as you normally would; like you would Google. Ever so often when you search you will be rewarded by winning some Swagbucks! You’ll earn a different number of Swagbucks each time you win. Those randomly-awarded Swagbucks pile up in your account and you can redeem them for different items.
I personally save my Swagbucks and redeem them for Amazon gift cards. There are other prizes available too; including iTunes gift cards, Target gift cards, Disney Store gift cards, movie swag, posters, and all sorts of other things! They regularly add merchandise, so you never know what you’ll find in the Swag Store.
Fridays are Mega Swagbucks Days! You’ll earn bigger search awards, so plan to do a lot of your searching on Fridays! This is a great way to get stuff you would normally purchase for FREE.
Are you a Grouponer?
I recently discovered this site, Groupon.com – a deal of the day site which features local businesses. Each day, Groupon features an unbeatable deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in your city. The deals are incredible. I purchased a $25 gift certificate to a restaurant I had wanted to try for only $10. You can register for FREE and then you are sent an email each morning with the deal of the day. You can either purchase it or not – plus you can search other cities to see what their deals are. I did that over the weekend and got a custom 16” X 20” gallery wrapped canvas photo print that was regularly $126 for only $45 and that included shipping! Can you say awesome gift idea?
Head on over and register for FREE and see what comes your way – you might be surprised!
Shop online?
I do 80% of my shopping online, even some grocery shopping! I have a store in my area which often offers FREE delivery when you spend a certain amount, so I take advantage of that and stock up on regularly used items. What mom likes to spend 2 hours grocery shopping? I would rather be doing something else and have Mr. Delivery Man come to my door carrying my groceries or Mr. UPS Man dropping a box off from Amazon (they deliver food items too!) I get some great deals on cereal, energy bars, and so much more a tAmazon. When you combine some of their sale items with their subscribe & save discounts, you can’t beat it! You save time and money; both are sacred for busy moms! A special secret: you can buy anything with the subscribe and save rate, even if you plan to only buy it once – you just go in and cancel future deliveries!
Another site I have used to save time & money is Alice.com, an online store that carrys household items, pet food, laundry detergent and so much more. I check out their site often for sales, they even offer coupons – plus you can get $10 credit in your account when you spend $50. They have an entire set up to make shopping easier for you and will remind you when you need to order more of an item you have previously purchased, like toilet paper! Just think, you will never run out of toilet paper again!!
I do almost all of my clothes shopping for my family online. Whenever I am about to order online from ANY company, I check the website Ebates to see if the site I am ordering from is listed. Ebates is a shopping site that gives you up to 26% Cash Back every time you shop online, plus when you make your first purchase on any store listed on Ebates you get a $5 bonus. Each quarter you will receive a check in the mail with the amount you have accumulated in your normal shopping you do online. There are over 1000 stores including eBay, JCPenny, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Overstock.com and a ton more! They even offer special discounts and free shipping offers exclusive to this site. I have earned $134 in the 9 months since I started using Ebates. This is all on items I normally would have bought, not extra things! That is they key.
So here you have it, the confessions of a Frugalista. I love to help others save time and money so am happy to share some of my secrets. We are all in need of stretching our family budgets and it isn’t as hard or as painful as eating Top Raman for weeks in order to afford a dinner out.
(photo source)
I’ll have to check out some of those sites!
I am glad you found something interesting!! I can tell you, these will make a difference in your budget, plus it is fun seeing the savings!
Thank you very much this is great for a newlywed on a major budget!
My biggest budget stretching tip – and I am stretching dollars until they nearly snap – is “No Impulse Shopping.” This applies to groceries, coffees, clothing, and everything in between. It is so easy to fall for a bargain, or to think “I’ll just get a little pick-me-up” at a coffee shop or elsewhere, and those things rarely give me the pick-me-up that I desire. For those bargains that I wasn’t looking for, but look so appealing, I tell myself “I’ll go home and think about it. If I really want it, I’ll come back.” It’s shockign to me how little I even think about it once I leave the store – with the merchandizing out of my face I rarely even spare it a thought again, so how much did I really want it?! And of course, if I do find myself thinking ‘Hmm it would be relaly great for xyz, or I need it for abc” then I return to buy it….but I swear that must be only 5% of the time. My seven year old even reminds me – “No impulse shopping, Mom!”
Another tip? Find friends with bigger and smaller kids, and pass up/down clothing. My daughter gets fabulous hand me downs from friends, and gives away fabulous hand me downs as well. This has cut our clothing budget substantially…and what comes around goes around.
Cook from scratch. That photo of baked bread wasn’t mentioned in the article, but I bake my own bread. I found fabulous recipes in “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” and in the not-so-hot months I bake. Organic bread for $1.50/loaf – and my house smells fantastic.
Buy memberships to attractions you like. I’m a member at the Seattle Art Museum, and I use it at least once a month when I wish to treat myself to a couple of hours of adult time (sometimes with a friend, sometimes solo). If I paid each time, this would be horribly cost prohibitive, but with the pass it is VERY reasonable. We have a zoo membership for the family, too, and it pays for itself if we only visit 2.5 times, and we usually go on average once a month, so we’re getting a bargain. When a friend wants to do an activity, I’ll suggest one of my memberships, and then we get a fun day for free.
Picnics. I am a huge fan of picnics. Whenever the weather is good, we have picnics instead of buying our lunch, and this saves us a lot of money.
I’ve just about eliminated coffee away from home – I make it in the morning and that’s it. But if I do get a coffee, I have switched back from mochas to drip coffee; it saves 2/3 of the price, and a heck of a lot of calories.
My latest budget trick was to buy movie tickets from Costco! They sell them at a discount, so my next date night will be at the movies.
We dropped our gym membership now that our daughter is older and in school, because we don’t need childcare to go to the gym any more. Walking, running, hiking, and biking require only equipment that we already own, and they get us outdoors. I’m happier when I’m not on a treadmill, but when I feel pine needles under my feet, anyway.
I have stopped delivery of almost every catalog that comes to the door. When I look at the lovely clothes in Title Nine or Athleta, I practically salivate, and I start to feel a “need” that is really just a want (before I saw the catalog I had no idea I wanted anything!). Eliminating the visual cues to buy has been incredibly helpful in eliminating my desire to shop.
We shop used a lot. Used book stores offer the same items at half the cost, for example. And I picked up the cutest little appetizer plates from Crate and Barrel – except mine were from a thrift store and cost me $8 for 8 plates. Shopping this way, you pay pennies on the dollar.
I’d love to see more on this subject – money is tight and I am always happy to learn. I hope other readers will submit their tips, too.
OH MY Gosh Kristina – you have excellent tips! I think you are up in the frugalista category too! You brought up so many things that I do as well that didn’t appear in the article, so perhaps my next edition will be a continuation of how to stretch the budget further. I just took a slow walk through Costco as I did my shopping and wrote down all the prices for main items we normally use as a family and now I can have easy access to know what the prices are there for items, versus “special” at other stores. I hope this helps me in the long run. We have a larger family – 2 teen boys, so go through a lot of food, so Costco makes complete sense for us.
Thanks for the great ideas – I love how we can all share and help each other!
Susan,
Great ideas on how to be thrifty! Years ago, when I was first married, my husband & I were both going to school, so money was downright scarce. I went grocery shopping once a week and only took $10 with me — remember, I said it was a long time ago.
I always went to the same grocery store & tried to get the same casier, a fellow cash-strapped student. We’d have a friendly bet to see if my shopping cart held more or less than the $10 limit. If I was over, of course I had to remove something, but on the rare occassions that I was under, she’d let me run back for a “treat” of some kind.
Although our financial situation is better now, it still makes perfect sense to take advantage of thrifty tips. Thanks so much for the great ideas!
Susan, thanks. “Frugalista” does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?!
Okay, some more tips:
For special occassion events like a wedding, special date, etc., where you want to wear something new and, well, special, call up your girlfriends. I recently went to a wedding, and borrowed a fabulous dress from a friend. It was just hanging in her closet, unusued, from when SHE went to a wedding, and she was happy to borrow it. (The same friend borrowed a cocktail dress from me for her husband’s holiday party last year. Together, we double each other’s wardrobes!) There is not a lot of sense in buying dresses that we only wear once, so shop your friends’ closets, too.
Skip trends. That color that you hated last year but is so hot this year? You’ll hate it next year again. Skip it. Stick to things that you really love, not what some magazine tells you that you ought to love.
Know your grocery prices – an amazing amount of our budget is spent on groceries, as all those little things add up. I’ve learned where to buy my coffee (Costco: shade grown organic fair trade, $13 for 3 pounds!), my shampoo (Trader Joe’s, non-toxic and about $4/bottle), and everything in between. I shop at PCC, Costco, and Trader Joe’s, but I’ve got it to the point where I don’t need to do all three stores at once to keep the pantry stocked.
Have a plan for those “I just can’t deal with cooking” nights, because take-out can be expensive and isn’t all that satisfying. I keep a pack of ravioli in the freezer,a nd a jar of marinara sauce in the cupboard, for those “I can’t deal” days. It’s not “real” cooking but it’s inexpensive and very simple.
Keep snacks on hand. I carry a little container of almonds in my purse, because it keeps me out of coffee shops when I’m hungry (and that scone plus a coffee can add up to $6 of empty calories).
Find free activities that you love. This summer, when my daughter is out of school, we’ve gone to the tidepools, to the sandy beach, to wading pools, to parks, on hikes, on bike rides, to friends’ houses, to free concerts, to library programs….all free. She doesn’t know we’re being frugal, she just knows we’re having fun.
Entertain. Sure, it’s expensive to feed your friends…but not nearly as expensive as a nice meal at a resturant. Usually my friends say “What can i bring?” and show up with a bottle of wine and a side dish or dessert – it all works out. This way the babysitting is free, too – the kids play, the adults talk, everyone has fun….and it’s all on the cheap.
Speaking of wine – cut back. I don’t plan on eliminating it, but a glass here or there is much cheaper than a bottle here or there!
Skip the junk. This started as a “keep things out of landfills” idea for me, but is really quite frugal. Cheap toys that satisfy your child for only one day until they break…household gadgets that aren’t made well and break after a few uses…items that come free with something else…well, it’s junk, not made to last, and therefore really expensive on a use-by-use basis. I’d rather have one great item that lasts than a dozen that really don’t work well.
Don’t buy it unless you LOVE it. Often I in the past I purchased something because it was ‘good enough’ and because I thought I was saving money, but the truth is that those ‘good enough’ items weren’t satisfying, and didn’t always work the way I wanted them to, so in the end, I would replace them. Skip anything that isn’t perfect – the pants are the right color, but just a bit too long/short/tight/loose? Skip them. Hold out until you get the ones you love, that you will keep until they are threadbare.
Fix it. And buy things that can be fixed. Planned obselesence makes me crazy, and I’m not buying it. I try to find items that, should they break, can be repaired. This means simplifying – gadgets with mini-computers running them are difficult to repair, whereas their old fashioned equivalents tended to last for decades. Reminds me – I need to pick up my shoes from the shoe-repair place. It was a lot cheaper to have them professionally repaired than to replace them.
Don’t fall for the technology. When you do buy technology, buy the best you can afford….and know that it will be obsolete next week. I am happy with my old equipment tht does half of what the new equipment does (computers, phones, iPods…) because it still works perfectly well and I don’t miss features that i don’t even know about. I have lived my entire life without a GPS, and it hasn’t killed me tht I don’t have one now. Maybe when I get my free cellphone update I’ll get one, maybe not, but I’m certainly not going to go get it just because all my friends have it.
Keep your car. If your friends are judging you by the age of your car, you need new friends. That car that has no carpayment? Priceless.
Get outside. Beaches, sculpture gardens, parks…even walks around the neighborhood are free.
Go out for dessert instead of dinner. Our family can walk to the local ice cream store from our home, and it’s a wonderful treat….and cheap!
Share tools. We have a tablesaw, and our neighbor has a chop saw – no need to buy! Swap as needed.
Cut the cable. Do you really want to spend that much time watching TV? Really, is this what you wish to do with your one wild and precious life? Plus, with Hulu, Netflix, streaming media, the library…you can get the same stuff, often for free.
Okay, I’ll stop – I’m already carried away. I am rather passionate about this subject!
Kristina – have you ever thought of writing a book? You are very good at sharing great ideas! Love your way to using your resources wisely!! Thanks again for sharing!