Tell us how you save money!!!

[Dale]

Do any of you have Roses, Super 10 Dollar Store, or Maxway. They are discount department stores more like an old timey dime store. Well they have been getting closeout clothes brands like Lands End, Cabin Creek (Penney's) and others. I was there today since Wed. is senior citizen's day, an extra 10% off entire purchase. I got a Lands End cotton sleeveless top for $3.33 and some Cabin Creek cotton bermudas for $3.33 then got 10% off that. They had beautiful hanging baskets of Million Bells that were $6.75 after my discount, I bought 2 baskets.

 

[SassyWVGirl]

None of the above....

But it sounds like I wish we did!!! We have Gabriel Brothers. It's similar it sounds like but I rarely find those kind of prices. Excellent deals it sounds like. Congrats on the bargains. I love a good sale, don't you?

 

[sfishergirl]

I always think that we could be saving money somehow.
We have converted to all spiral light bulbs, all of our appliances are energy star (we do have to check out the furance and water heater better) We keep the water heater on 120 and the furance is on 50 year round til January then we turn it up to 60 til March We use the pellet stove and hoodies and blankets.
We started the power strip thing for everything except the fishtank which has to keep running.
We are starting to switch to rechargeable batteries. We use the clothes line (I am looking for clothes bars for winter next to the stove.
Bill is building me 2 4' x 4' compost bins and a rainbarrel system. I have a 40' x 20' veggie garden.
Next year we are getting a solar hot water heater and solar panels for the house.
We love thrift stores, ebay, amazon, garage sales and freecycle.
I use coupons and check the flyers every sunday I love my P&C wild card better then walmart. There are great mennonite stores for bulk items I grow my own herbs and spices.
We pay all but 2 bills on line.
My biggest money saver is .... I buy clearance houseplants in Lowes bring them back to full awesome pothos and hoyas and use them as hanging baskets on my porch instead of buying new pots of trailing petunias every year. Buy it once and have it for life.

 

[Kya D]

Seal drafts around windows and doors
I always put foam pads behind all of my exterior wall outlets and light switches.
Use water saver shower heads
Take shorter showers
Use low flush toilet
Use a broom instead of a hose to clean off the driveway, patio or deck –

 

[latebloomer]

O.k. this is hardly the scope of everbody's tips but I find it saves me a bit of change.
Take a cup of milk chocolate chips and mix it with a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Melt in a microwave for a minute and a half to two minutes. Dip sugar wafers in chocolate to cover. Place on waxed paper lined cookie sheet and chill until set.
Wa...lah! Homemade Faux KitKat bars!
36 bars for 22 cents each.
Compare to 80 cents a bar for the real thing. Oh, and the chocolate is better when you do it at home because candy companies can now used shortening legally instead of cocoa butter and still call it chocolate!
Leftover chocolate? Dip frozen over-ripe bananas in it....yum. Not for those watching the waistline tho.

 

[Kya D]

What a great idea LB

 

[myfedora]

I completely changed all my light bulbs to the funny looking sprials last year. When we put new siding on the house last year, we also put house wrap on. Have seen a big difference in our heating bill over the winter. We took out a really drafty sliding glass door in the bedroom and put in a window. A lot warmer in the bedroom now. We stuffed insulation up in the fireplace since we don't use it. Had a draft coming down it. Last winter our gas bill was around $300 a month and electric somewhere around $90. This winter gas bill averaged $160 and electric $60. So the changes we made saved us!

 

[Crabbergirl]

Do any of you have Roses, Super 10 Dollar Store, or Maxway. They are discount department stores more like an old timey dime store. Well they have been getting closeout clothes brands like Lands End, Cabin Creek (Penney's) and others. I was there today since Wed. is senior citizen's day, an extra 10% off entire purchase. I got a Lands End cotton sleeveless top for $3.33 and some Cabin Creek cotton bermudas for $3.33 then got 10% off that. They had beautiful hanging baskets of Million Bells that were $6.75 after my discount, I bought 2 baskets.

We had a Roses, I haven't thought of them in years. I shop Beals Outlets they have senior days and under 50 days where you get an extra 15% off. Really nice stuff too! We had Goody's but they closed.
Would love to get a deal on the bermudas that sounds great!

 

[Dor]

We don't have Roses. I went to Khohl's yesterday to use my Khohl's cash I had earned $10 for every $50. I bought some jeans $4.60 on clearance regular $46, a while cotton top I needed $6.40 reg $32, and some black casual slacks reg $44 for $4.40. I had $30 in cash to use. I used the rest and more on my granddaughter Mya and my youngest daughter's friends one year old baby girl Peyton. Her birthday is this month. I got Peyton 2 outfits and an extra top and Mya 2 outfits and 2 extra tops and it was $22.

 

[SassyWVGirl]

Sounds like you got some good deals Dor. I hear about folks saving a fortune like that at Kohl's but every time I walk in the place, I can't find a thing that's marked down and the service at our local Kohl's is horrible. I stood in line for almost 45 min. for a pair of jeans my daughter "just had to have" and vowed that was gonna be my last time to subject myself to that. I haven't been back.

 

[Dale]

Dor those were great prices. Kohl's almost gave you the merchandise.

 

[Dor]

Yes they did Dale.

 

[Bernie]

Bob is right. You must do the math. A market here gave away a free frozen Thanksgiving Turkey to anyone who spent $300 between the end of Sept. and TGD. Just for the heck of it I kept a running total of how much it would have cost me to shop at that market during that period. Turns out that free turkey would have cost me $54. In the end I got a two frozen turkeys there after the holiday for five cents a pound because they were desperate to get rid of them. $1.25 for a 25 pound bird! They went out of business.

Check the per ounce price. I only have a few brand name items that I can’t do without. One is Best Food mayo. I was quite upset when I realized they had cut the contents of their jars from 32 to 30 oz. The jars look the same but there is a big dimple in the bottom. Depending on the brand you get there is a big difference in how much TP you actually get in a roll. I always check the square foot or is it inches. Some store brand bags of sugar only have 4# when you would expect it to have 5#.

Know your state laws. In WA they must sell you the item for the price on the label no matter how wrong it is. I got a 10# roast for thirty eight cents once & ground beef for 99 cents a pound when it should have been $1.99 a pound.

Before I leave the house I plan out my route so I don’t back track and use gas I don’t need to. Never go out of my way for only one or two items.

When pumping your gas stop the pump at 1 gallon it should read exactly what the advertise price is. There have been a lot of stations rigging their pumps so you are paying more then you should. Also if you know your tank can only hold ten gallons but suddenly you are pumping 12 or 15 gallons into your tank then chances are the pump is rigged. They are charging you for a full gallon but giving you far less. Report the station to the state. The number is always on the pump.

When I make out my grocery list I write down the store name and the sale price of each item. I look for each item in each market. Sometimes I can find unadvertised specials for less then the sale price elsewhere.

Whenever a market has a big sale on meats I will go the day after the sale is over. Not always but quite often they will have over stocked and I can get meat, pork or chicken for less then it was during the sale. Look for corned beef the day after St. Patrick’s day, ham after Easter etc.

I get all my bread at bakery outlets. Oroweat, Hostess ect. have found it’s cheaper for them to run an outlet then to pay for gas delivery drivers and the shelf space at every market in town. Actually I can only get Hostess breads at their outlet here. Oroweat costs nearly $5 a loaf in the market but only $1.69 at the outlet and even cheaper in the day old section.

When my freezer gets low I fill milk jugs with water and fill the empty spaces. That keeps the freezer from running so much.

Before going to the hardware store, Lowe’s or Home Depot I go to the ReStore. It’s run by Habitat For Humanity. Most items are used but they also have a lot of new items. Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace and other stores will donate items that have been discontinued.

 

[Dale]

Bernie what a lot of great money saving tips you shared with us. About the wrong pricing on the meat. I don't feel bad about buying the meat that has been miss marked. A meat market manager told me that often the person marking the meat knows family is coming in to the store to buy meet and they "accidently" mark some prices wrong. If anything is said to that person they can say they made a mistake.

 

[Randy]

Bernie, you mentione one item there that is absolutely right on. That think about milk jugs in the freezer is true. I did refrigeration service for years and actually made service calls on runtime complaints. Sometimes it was just because there was not enough stuff in the freezer. The jugs of water prevent the freezer from short-cycling and running the electricity usage up.

 

[Dale]

Randy you sound like my husband. He says it takes less electricity when a freezer is full.

 

[Randy]

He's right, Dale. That extra load (water jugs) acts as a heat sink and helps keep the food colder longer before a new running cycle starts again. An empty refrigerator or freezer runs a little, stops, off a little, starts, stops, ad infinitum. Each time it starts, it requires more power that it does to just maintain a running cycle. It takes several minutes of running time for the refrigerant to equilibrate and run at peak efficiency.

 

[Jade]

I am glad that we have some guys that give their input. Sometimes us gals don't get the gest of it. I have been trying to empty out our downstairs chest freezer because after 3 weeks in the Best Western we were really happy about cooking again, so loaded the freezer up with all kinds of leftovers. I will start saving my milk jugs to make the freezer more efficient.

 

[Mainegal]

I've done that in my freezer before. I have my grammie's old stand up freezer. It does not use much electrcity as my light bill is only 50 a month on the average.
the freezer is stocked with flour, cococut, walnuts that i got on clearance after the holidays.
when i need ice for a cooler, i freeze it in water bottles so it doesnt melt everywhere, we would use the water to drink yrs ago when we went camping after it thawed

 

[Mainegal]

Bernie
thanks for all the tips, i'll have to check to see if we have one of those hardware type parts store around here,
i always look at goodwill here but ours are so small compared to the one that i went to out in orgeon, it was about 5 times the size of ours i have found some good deals