Written by Carol, one of our readers:

We’d all like to save money each month, but how to go about it is another story. Start by making a budget; that scary, imposing, restrictive plan that keeps you in line. Only it doesn’t have to be that way, a budget is really only putting down on paper your priorities and recognizing you absolutely cannot spend more than you make in any given time period. It also, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t have to come together in one sitting, start the first month with just writing down general categories and amounts. Over time you can refine and fill it out more completely. It took us three months to get a good handle on our budget, each month getting more and more detailed, even today we are constantly adjusting the numbers.

Once you know where you money is going it is now time to start trimming the fat. If you look at your monthly expenses, looking to saving $500 it will seem overwhelming and impossible. But what if instead you looked at shaving a few dollars off each item? As we began looking at our budget we decided to go through and renegotiate each item we could. After knocking out the cable and downgrade our cellphone plan – saving $65, reviewing our car insurance and changing our coverage – $25 less and changing our restaurant habits to only twice a week. This all totaled approximately $125 a month in savings. Besides the mortgage payment, food and general merchandise are our biggest expenditures.

Even with the constant coupon clipping and avoiding the pricier groceries stores we couldn’t make the budget numbers and the real world numbers agree. That’s where web surfing finally began to payoff. There are plenty of websites out there that can multiply you efforts. The blogs that track specific stores rewards programs, letting you know what items are free or worth the most rewards points/bucks, will give you an edge. Lots of promotional programs let you trade your name and email address for free samples and /or coupons.

Also look to farmer’s markets and co-ops, we spend $17 every two weeks for $50 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables. Little by little we have shaved almost $200 off our monthly grocery bill.

Try once a week cooking, or once a month cooking if you’re ambitious! There are so many tasty once a week cooking recipes out there that you’re bound to find some that you like.

Due to the fact that we didn’t start our marriage with the financial acumen that we now possess there is a tidy sum sitting on credit card balances. This can be a dangerous lever, waiting to dump us over the edge at a moments notice. We headed it off by finding a low APR, zero interest on balance transfer offer and moved everything we could onto that card. Then we proceeded to cut up our physical cards except for one emergency card and have begun applying the snow ball methodology. The snow ball theory has you paying off the lowest balance card while making minimum monthly payments on the others, as you pay off a card you roll what you had been paying on it into you payment on the next one. With this consolidation we erased about $50 a month in additional interest fees.

Lastly, we began looking at efficiency around the house and in our travel habits. By lowering the thermostat by 3 degrees and running only full loads in the dryer, we cut $15 off the electric bill. Using public transportation and walking for quick trips to the nearby store translated into more than half a tank of gas saved every two weeks; which at today’s price means $50 a month left in our pockets. Together we have identified our spending priorities, changed our spending habits and challenged ourselves to find fun and rewarding ways to save a little bit in each category on our budget. This has tallied up to savings of almost $400 a month, which comes in handy when saving for the next rain day.

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Written by Trent who blogs at The Simple Dollar

Recently, my wife and I had some guests over to visit. While here, one of the guests used the restroom on the main floor of our home, where we have a large closet where we store supplies over the long haul. She observed that there were about twenty bars of soap, several bottles of Old Spice body wash, several large bottles of shampoo, and six boxes of our son’s favorite breakfast cereal (Yogurt Burst Cheerios) stowed away in there, and when she came out, she made a half-curious and half-sarcastic comment about them.

Here’s the real scoop: every item listed above cost us less than a dime. In each case, we saw a tremendous buying opportunity matching coupons to a sale and we simply stocked up big time on those items, leaving us with a large closet stuffed full with unusual items. I like to call it anticipation buying.

Anticipation buying revolves around four distinct principles.

First, there are some items that we will continually use over time. Soap, shampoo, oatmeal, Yogurt Burst Cheerios (without them, our son would riot), flour, sugar, some fruit juices, milk, coffee, razor blades, toilet paper – these are items that we use over and over again and continually need to stock up on. Because we’re aware of this, we can use a specific plan of attack for these items to get low prices on them.

Second, there are irregular opportunities to find such items on sale. These items pop up on sale on a completely irregular basis. Brand A shampoo might be on sale one week, then two weeks later Brand B will be on sale. Not only might national brands be running a promotion where items are on sale in stores, but individual stores might select different loss leaders to get people in the door.

In order to keep up on these individual sales, we just follow the grocery flyers in our Sunday paper (and in other flyers we get in the mail throughout the week). I usually have flyers for all of the local grocery stores and I keep an eye out for their big sales by reading their flyers each Sunday over breakfast.

Third, there are irregular opportunities to find strong coupons on such items. I clip every coupon for items in the above categories that are of acceptable brands from the Sunday paper, and if I see a very good coupon, I’ll stop at the local convenience store early on Monday morning and ask for the inserts out of the old Sunday papers (the cashier always says “Sure” and I start scavenging for coupon inserts). Sometimes, I can get as many as fifteen of the good coupons – if they’re for $1.50 off an item I know we’ll use frequently, it’s like cash in the pocket.

So, we patiently clip all coupons for these items and save them until there’s a sale, then stock up. I have the coupons. I have the flyers. I then just wait for them to sync up. Usually, it happens about a month or so after I clip the coupons one month coupon strategy at work).

Another tactic to note: quite often, individual store flyers will have coupons that match the manufacturer’s coupons you have. Often, you can use these coupons simultaneously. So, let’s say my local Fareway ad has a coupon letting me get Herbal Essences shampoo or conditioner for $1.99 a bottle (limit 6) and I have three “save $3 on 2 bottles” coupon from the manufacturer. I just take all of them there and walk out with good shampoo and conditioner for $0.49 a bottle.

Here’s a real-world example. Recently, I had several copies of a coupon that permitted me to save $3 on any two bottles of Old Spice body wash. I waited until I noticed a sale – and not long ago, there was one at a local Walgreen’s. The individual bottles were $1.79 on sale there. I took in my wad of coupons and picked up ten bottles, paying $0.29 a bottle. I walked out of the store with ten bottles of soap, having spent less than $4 total – and it was just a five minute stop on my normal shopping trip. That’s how you save money.

What’s the long-term effect? The result from doing this regularly is quite interesting. Our regular shopping lists almost never have these “anticipation” items on it. Instead, they almost always just list the food items we need for the week, which means that at the grocery store, we rarely even visit big sections of the store. We mostly visit the produce aisle, the meat counter, the dairy area (for milk, etc.), and a few other specific places (pasta, canned items, bread when I’ve not made any), and that’s about it. Our grocery bills are cheaper and our shopping trips are actually quite a bit shorter because we’re not going over to the far side of the store to pick up shampoo or toilet paper – the time invested in executing this strategy is partially redeemed on ordinary shopping trips.

When I first started The Simple Dollar, I had a very simple coupon strategy that didn’t save me a whole lot of money. It’s been fun to watch the strategy evolve over the years – first syncing it with a grocery list and evolving that strategy a bit, then discovering the figuring out how sales and coupons synchronized and now evolving that strategy a bit. I used to believe that perhaps coupons weren’t worth the time invested, but I’ve found more and more that if you do it intelligently, there are some serious savings to be had – and it doesn’t take as much time as you might think.

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Check out this ebook from Budget 101. It’s a great resource for for tips and ideas on how to cut your grocery bill. There’s ideas on once a month cooking, growing herbs, menu planning and more.

Cut Your Grocery Budget

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Do you have a dent and bent store near you? I recently discovered one in my area and have become a regular customer. It’s owned by a really nice family that just bought it from the previous owner and they’re working hard to update and clean it up. Just like shopping at a flea market or garage sale, when I shop at dent and bent stores, I take my time and look over each product carefully before I purchase it.

Today I spent $20.98 and this is what I bought.
1) Boxed or bagged items
Two boxes of Muellers ziti: 50 cents each
Two 6 pack boxes of Act 2 microwave popcorn: $2 each but it was buy one, get one free, so $1 each
A 10 pack box of Disney Princess Fruit Snacks: $1
A box of Hersheys Mini Cookies: $1
Two 10 pack boxes of Capri Sun Fruit Drinks: $1.50 each
One 10 pack box of Carpri Sun 100% Fruit Juice: $1.50
One 8 pack box of Back To Nature cheddar crackers: $1
4 packages of Earth’s Best Organic cookies: 25 cents each

My tips for buying boxed or bagged items:
When the item is loose and not packaged seperately inside the box or bag (like pasta is) I don’t buy them if they were opened and taped closed and I’ll only buy boxes that have slight creases in them. When the food item is packaged seperately inside the box and not loose (like everything else on the list), I’ll allow for more damage to the outer box and will buy a box that was opened and resealed.

2) Canned items
One can of Chicken of the Sea Whole Baby Clams: $1
One can of Armour Vienna Sausages: 50 cents
Five cans of Bumble Bee Solid White Albacore Tuna Fish in water: 75 cents each

My tips for buying canned items:
I only buy cans that have very small or no dents at all. Out of the five cans of tuna, only one had a very small dent.

Here’s some information I found online about buying dented cans.

Department of Agriculture (was on a page for canned fruit but would pertain to all cans) When buying canned fruit, avoid cans that show signs of bulging or swelling at the ends, or of leakage. Small dents in a can usually will not harm the contents unless the dents have pierced the metal or loosened the can seam. Badly dented cans, however, should always be avoided.

Purdue University Extension
Bulging cans — Spoiled! Throw away!
Dented cans — Do not buy cans with dents on the side seam of the can or on the rim seams at the top or bottom of the can. Check carefully for leakage, especially around the seam. Throw leaky cans away.
Rusty cans — Check for leakage. The rust may have penetrated the can.

With some common sense, shopping in a dent and bent store can save money. I try to go by there once a week because they constantly get more things in and rotate their stock.

::note:: originally written in 2007

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