Saving Money
There’s a least two different ways of interpreting what someone means by saving money: one is being frugal and spending the least amount of money possible on everything you need to purchase. The other is spending money on needs and wants but looking around to get the best deal before buying. Lately, especially at Christmas time, I was in the latter category. Now that we’re in a new year and our finances have changed a bit I’m falling more into the first category. This is a difficult transition to make. I love to shop. I love to find great deals and be able to take advantage of them. I need to retrain my thinking.
At some point last year I did become more thrifty when I was shopping for groceries. We used to just go to the grocery store and buy whatever we needed, whenever we needed it. Some trips our bill would be over $200. I started reading things on the Internet that made me realize that I always look for deals when purchasing other things and I should do this with buying food too. I read some information about stockpiling and realized that it was a good idea to stock up on items when they were on sale so that you didn’t have to pay full price the next time you run out. There’s another blog that I read all of the time. Sarah has some great frugal ideas and she has a post about stockpiling. It’s definitely worth reading. Now we try to keep our weekly shopping trips to around $100. The only catch is that I did start buying food at other places (Target, WalMart, Walgreens, etc) so it’s a little harder to keep track of since I’m not buying all of my food in one store.
I’m still working on getting organized in the house and I think that once I’m better organized I will do better with keeping track of things and using coupons. I’ve organized both of my daughters’ rooms, most of my office and my kitchen. The main places I have left are my dining room, my bedroom and my laundry room. I’m making progress so I’m happy about that. It’s nice to feel a sense of accomplishment. I also think that once I’m more organized I’ll have more time to search the Internet for good deals. I’ll try to share whatever I find here with you. So, whichever way you are looking at savings, I hope you get some good deals this week. Have a good one!