If you are just getting started couponing (or even if you’ve been couponing forever), one of the hardest parts (for me, at least) is keeping your coupons organized.

Should you cut out all the coupons in your inserts?  If so, how do you store them?  If you don’t cut out all your coupons, how do you find them and what if there is a great clearance deal at a store…and your coupon is at home?

In the past, I have kept my coupons filed by insert and had a small organizer for the loose coupons, like internet printables, coupons from the mail, Catalinas, etc.  However, I’ve been thinking lately about moving to more of a hybrid coupon system where I cut out coupons I KNOW I’ll use and file them, but still save the inserts for those free or almost free deals that I just can’t pass up.

So, I was excited to hear about MyCouponKeeper, since I thought it would be the perfect system to organize my larger collection of cut coupons.

MyCouponKeeper is a system already designed especially for couponing. The box is perfectly sized to coupons, and the dividers come with preprinted labels, or you can customize the labels to make the system work for you.

My Thoughts:

The plastic box that holds the coupons is very sturdy, and the clasp closes the box very tightly, so I don’t have to worry about the box accidentally opening and all my coupons falling out (yes…things like that just seem to happen to me!).  The size of the coupon box is big enough to hold LOTS of coupons, yet it’s still portable and fits in the seat of the cart so I can bring it into the store with me.  I can just carry it into the store inside my reusable grocery bags that I have to carry in anyway.

I also love how the dividers are also durable, since they’ll get lots of use with me thumbing through them, both to put away and find coupons.  The system comes with preprinted labels that you can use to separate coupons by category, or you can customize the system and label it however you want, since they come on a sheet of labels rather than already on the dividers.

I love the 4×6 insert boxes that are included with the system, since I use them to store coupons that are waiting to be filed.  And then, the folder is great for holding coupons for a specific shopping trip.

I definitely plan to continue use of the MyCouponKeeper system.

Special Deal for “Cents”able Momma Readers:

Right now, you can get the entire MyCouponKeeper system for $34.95.  Plus, get a FREE additional Purse Sized Shopping Folder when you purchase the kit and use coupon code CENTSABLEMOMMA.

Disclosure: I received a MyCouponKeeper system to facilitate my review. I did not receive any compensation to write this post. The opinions are all mine!

I believe that you can start over anytime during the year, but the beginning of the year is always a good time to reflect on the upcoming year. Perhaps you’ve decided that this is the year you’re going to get your financial house in order.

Last year, I wrote a series of posts on creating a budget:

• Budget 101: Track Your Expenses (and Income)
• Budget 101: Budgeting Tips
• Budget 101: 6 Steps to Create a Budget

One FREE tool that is especially helpful in creating (and keeping) your budget is Mint.com.  Basically, you create a FREE account and link your bank.  Mint.com will pull the information from your bank and you can create a budget and see how your outflow matches with your budget.  Mint.com uses bank level encryption to protect your data, so you don’t need to worry about theft or privacy issues.

I recently received an e-mail from a reader asking me how I organize my coupons.

I am a mom-to-be and have really started clipping coupons and trying to be frugal.

My question to you is, do you clip all the coupons out of the magazines or just the ones you think you will use? I’m only asking this because it seems possible to get a good deal on items that you don’t normally use – but you can’t do that if you throw the coupons away.

My second question is, how do you organize your coupons? I have a small organizer but it’s not enough for me. I forget about half the coupons I have when I get to the store and then a week later I see I had a coupon for that item.

I sent an e-mail back to the reader letting her know how I organize my coupons, but there are so many methods out there…and each method does not work for everyone.

I use the insert method, and then I have a Couponizer to hold all my loose coupons.  You can find out more about my coupon organization system here (with pictures).

I thought I would open it up to you to answer the question.  Please leave a comment with your system or, if you have a post written about your coupons organization, please feel free to leave a link directly to your post.

Now through 6/13, you can order a 1-year subscription to Better Homes & Gardens magazine for only $5.99 after you use coupon code BHGSPEC. Or, you can order a 1-year subscription to Family Fun or ESPN Magazine for only $3.75 when you use coupon code WKLYSPEC. Check below for the daily deals.

Here’s how it Works:

• Order a 1-year subscription to Better Homes & Gardens magazine – it will show up as $14.97
• When you check out, enter coupon code BHGSPEC for 60% off ($8.98)
• Your total for the magazine should be $5.99 when you pay

Best Deal Magazines also has lots of magazines priced under $10, including many at only $4.69 . Plus, you can get an additional 15% off many magazines when you coupon code PXSS6613.

Daily Deals (don’t forget to use coupon code PXSS613 for an additional 15% off):

• Today – Taste of Home – $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)
• Monday – Woman’s Day – $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)
• Tuesday – Automobile– $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)
• Wednesday – Wine Enthusiast – $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)
• Thursday – Newsweek – $24 ($20.40 after discount)
• Friday – Seventeen – $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)
• Saturday – Parents – $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)
• Sunday – Sporting News – $4.29 ($3.65 after discount)

If you make your purchase through Ebates, you’ll get 10% cash-back, plus a $5 registration bonus for new members when you make your first purchase.

Thank you to Lauren from Mama’s Laundry Talk for this great guest post on how she created her price book!

After my first child was born in 2005, I decided I needed to be more frugal with our money.  We were spending a shameful amount of money each month on groceries.  So I was determined to find a better, wiser way to spend our money.

Enter the Price Book.

I was first introduced to the concept of the Price Book from a frugal website I stumbled upon.  And I was immediately intrigued!  What a fabulous idea – to know the rock-bottom prices of items we typically buy.  And then buy our groceries when the prices were lowest.   Genius.

After scouring the internet and reading every post I could find on it, I formulated this method that has worked really well for me.  Here is the process I used to create my price book.

From Wal-Mart I purchased an 8.5×5.5” 3-ring binder and 2 packs of dividers.

Next, I created tabs for my major categories.  While the categories will vary for each family, I’ll list mine to get you started:

Baby Items, Baking, Beverages, Bread & Cereal, Canned Goods, Condiments, Cleaning, Dairy, Fruits & Veggies (fresh), Meat, Paper Goods, Toiletries, Household Misc.

After each shopping trip, I use my receipt to enter my data onto my form.  I have one sheet that corresponds for each type of item:  Diapers, Canned Tomatoes, Milk, Yogurt, etc.  Here’s an example:

So in my Price Book, ‘Diapers’ goes behind the ‘Baby Items’ tab.  All of the Items are listed in alphabetical order behind the tabs so I can quickly flip through to the page I need.  It takes me about 5-8 minutes to enter a receipt of a typical weekly shopping trip.

On the form, I have my own abbreviations for ‘Store.’ Wags=Walgreens, Kr=Kroger, WM=Walmart.

Under the ‘Size/Price’ column, I write the quantity or size of the item and what the listed price is.  So in my above example, the pack contained 35 diapers and the listed price was $9.99.  If I was entering cheese, the Size/Price could be 8oz./$1.50.  If the item were toilet paper, I would list it as 6 Mega Rolls/$5.99.

The ‘Unit Price’ is the price divided by the size.  In my diaper example, the cost of each diaper comes to $0.29.

Under the ‘Sale’ column, I note if the published price was a sale price or the normal non-sale price.

Tips:

• It is better to over-categorize than under-categorize.  It is easier to find the right page to enter data if your book is more detailed.
• Print out more forms than you think you’ll need.  The longer you utilize your price book, the more items you’ll want to record.  I keep a stack of blank forms in the back of my book for this reason.
• I use the front pocket on the inside cover of my binder to store my receipts until I can get them recorded.
• I record my items in pencil.  It just seems neater and I’d much rather erase than scratch something out on my beautiful new form!

I’d love to share my form with you!  My husband tweaked it to make it even more user-friendly.  So you are welcome to download the price book form to help you get started in making your own!

Simply print on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper.  Cut on the dotted line and 3-hole punch…and you’re ready to get started!

Lauren Hill is the mama behind Mama’s Laundry Talk. She loves all things laundry, including keeping track of laundry detergent prices! Lauren is proud to be a wife, mama to 3 fantastic little people and a Child of God.

Last week I shared how you can save on your groceries by matching store sales with coupons.  However, there still great ways to save even if you don’t use coupons.  Here are a few tips:

• Purchase items on Sale – check store flyers for weekly sale items and plan dinners for the week based on those sale items.  If you have time, shop the sales at a couple of grocery stores.

• Make a List – keep a store list available so that you can add items as you notice that you are running low on them.  If you give yourself enough time, you can pick up that item on a week when it’s on sale.  Also, add needed groceries for the entire week so they you only have to make one trip each week.  Making multiple trips can add up or you may make a convenience purchase will will likely cost more.

• Only Purchase Items on Your Shopping List – make sure you bring your list with you to the store and ONLY purchase those items.  Impulse buys are sure to blow your budget.

• Don’t Go Grocery Shopping When Hungry – if you are hungry, you are much more likely to make impulse purchases

• Compare Prices across Brands – Many times store brand items cost less than name brand items.  Do you think you’re going to taste the difference between tomatoes that are not a main ingredient of a recipe?

• Compare Unit Prices - Often you can choose several sizes of the same item.  Many grocery stores break down the unit prices (if not, use a calculator).  See which size has the lowest cost per unit and purchase that size.  Of course, if you only need a tsp. and you don’t see another use for the item, it doesn’t make sense to purchase a pound when the rest of it will go to waste.

• Check the Shelves Above and Below Eye Level – Often stores place the most expensive food at eye level so make sure you look everywhere on the shelf for the best deal

• Don’t Waste Food – You can get a great deal on an item, but if you end up throwing it away because it went bad, you still wasted money.

What about you?  How do you save money when you don’t feel like using coupons?  For more frugal ideas, please visit Life As Mom.

So, you’ve created your budget. If you’re like many people, your expenses may be higher or very close to your income leaving no breathing room for savings.

The goal is to reduce your spending on the “variable” categories such as groceries, household goods, utilities, etc.  Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to share some tips on reducing spending on groceries/household goods:

Match Store Sales with Coupons

Perhaps you’ve tried using coupons in the past, but quit because you ended up spending more with the coupon than without it on a store-brand item.  Or you felt like since you had a coupon you needed to use it.  So, you ended up spending more money than before you used coupons, since you purchased more items that you didn’t really need (just because you had a coupon for it).

The key to saving money with coupons is to match the store sales with your coupons.  You want to hold your coupon until the store has reduced the price and then save even more money off that price with your coupon.  Sometimes you’ll use your coupon the week it comes in the paper, and sometimes you’ll hold it for months before you use it since store sales are cyclical.

How to Match Sales with Coupons?

• You’re in luck…there are many bloggers that work hard to provide sale and coupon matchups each week.  Each week, I list the CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and highlights of Meijer and Kroger sales with the coupon matchups listed for you (both printable coupons and newspaper insert coupons).  Plus, you can visit the Frugal Map to find bloggers from your area.
• Use a service like The Grocery Game (there’s a fee, but you can get a FREE 4 week trial) or Coupon Mom to match the sales and coupons for you.

What to expect the next couple of weeks?  I’ll give tips on creating a price book, stockpiling, coupon organization, and menu planning.

Check out the rest of the Centsable Savings Plan posts or learn more about Centsable Earnings (how to earn some extra money from home).

So, you’ve kept track of all your expenses and income for the last month…now you’re ready to create your budget.

Create Budget Categories – divide each expense into a category such as rent/mortgage, groceries, household goods/toiletries, gas, etc.  Split them up however it works for you.  Some people combine groceries and household goods into one category, since they don’t want to have to split receipts from a store like Walmart.

Don’t Forget about Fun – you don’t want to have fun at the expense of your savings, but if your income allows for it, you also want to factor in some fun money for entertainment or spending money for you and your spouse.  A budget can still be fun .

Account for Every Dollar – every dollar should have a job.  That doesn’t mean that you need to SPEND every dollar, but you need to allocate any extra money to saving for the emergency fund, retirement, college, etc rather than letting it sit in your account.  It will probably get spent if it’s not allocated.

Balance Your Budget – on paper this is the easy one…your expenses and income should equal each other.  However, sometimes it just doesn’t work that way.  Get creative and think of things that you can do to trim the variable expenses like groceries/toiletries, etc or brainstorm ways that you can make extra money.

Follow Your Budget – once you have created your budget, you need to make sure that your spending stays within the category limits.  If you overspend in a category, you need to either spend less on that category the next month or spend less in another category  to make up for it.

Periodically Adjust Your Budget – your needs will probably change over time, so make sure that you reevaluate your budget every once in awhile.  If your child becomes potty trained, you can probably lower your household goods/toiletry budget

What about you?  How do you budget?  Do you have any budgeting tips you’d like to share?

More about Budgeting:

• Track Your Expenses and Income
• Budgeting Tips

Next week, I’ll bring more about the various tools you can use to help you budget.  For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

Thanks to Emily @ Bloom for her excellent guest post on budgeting!

Emily Williams likes her husband, her kids, and (believe it or not) her budget.  She also likes to write and does quite a bit of it at her blog, BLOOM.  In this season of resolution making lots of people commit to live on a budget.  Today Emily’s sharing some suggestions to help you stick to that resolution.

In a recent conversation with my husband, a CPA who does financial planning for high net-worth individuals, I asked what advice he would give that, if followed, would make the biggest impact for the most people.  He said simply, “live on an effective budget.”  This advice comes partly from what he sees with his own clients, and partly from our own personal experience.  I agree; we have always been frugal and careful with money, but in the four years that we’ve been diligently living on a budget we have made more accelerated progress toward our goals than ever before.

Here are some tips to help you be more successful and effective in your budgeting:

Remember What Budgeting Is and Is Not:
Budgeting is planning in advance what to do with your money (then tracking it) instead of wondering afterward where it all went.  It’s not just expense-tracking.  It is pro-active and forward-looking.  It’s also not a kill-joy.  People who budget have fun — they just pay for it with cash instead of going into debt for it.

Get it All In:
In order to plan ahead, you’ll need accurate numbers at the outset.  Make sure you’re accounting for all your income and expenses.  Your paychecks may not be your only source – do you have any supplemental income?  Surplus from last month?  As for your expenses, you’ll need to create a system to ensure that each expense is recorded – fix the leaks in your boat.

*A word to the wise: if you’re a budgeting novice, don’t give yourself a miscellaneous category.  Break your categories down as specifically as you can in anticipation of your spending.  And give every dollar a job!

Check Back Often: Especially if you’re new to budgeting, come back to your budget often (weekly) and reconcile.  Get a pulse on your spending.  Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you’ll just sort of develop a sixth sense for your spending and you’ll be able to reconcile less frequently (monthly) and still stay on track.

Anticipate the unexpected: It’s the unexpected expenses that side-swipe the most well-intentioned budgeters.  Anticipate and accumulate for things that typically knock people off their financial feet – car repairs, health related expenses, gifts, job-loss/salary change.  Build funds through gradual savings for each of these things so you’re not scrambling and reaching for your high-interest credit card when crisis hits.

Go With The Flow: If you over spend in a few categories — don’t worry about it.  Make adjustments and start fresh next month.  Don’t get frustrated and give up.  Keep at it.  You may not get it all right the first time, but there will be a trend of improvement.  Discipline breeds discipline.  And eventually you’ll surprise yourself with how accurate you become in your financial management.

Pay Yourself First:
Make your savings allotments before your other outflows.  This is how you build those cushion funds for things like car repairs and health incidents.  This may mean a few lean months in your “restaurant” category.  This may not sound fun, but it brings peace of mind.

Save first.  Make the rest of your budget work with what’s left.  My husband often says, “I’ve never met anyone who regretted having saved so much money.”

Find a tool that works: There are many budgeting programs out there. My husband and I use YNAB and really love it.  We’ve always tried to be careful with our money, but in the four years that we’ve been using YNAB, we argue A LOT less about money, we progress towards our goals, and we don’t worry about money (and that’s not because we don’t think about it).

For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

Before you can create a budget, you need to know how much you are spending (your expenses) and how much you are making (your income).

Some categories are easy to determine, such as a fixed rent/mortgage payments or an automobile loan, and some categories can vary greatly from month to month, such as your natural gas bill in the winter vs. the summer, or your grocery/dining out expenses.

For the variable categories, you need to track your expenses over a period of at least 1 month to determine how much to budget for each category going forward.  Not only do you need to keep track of items paid for by check, debit card, or credit card, but you also need to keep receipts for all cash purchases and write down how exactly your cash is spent.

Tracking expenses will help you in two ways – you’ll have a better idea of spending to create a budget, and you may be surprised when you add up all the little discretionary purchases and where your money is going.  If your income is variable, you will also need to track the amount each month.

How to Track Expenses?

• Write it Down on a Piece of Paper – one of the easiest ways to keep track of your expenses is by writing it all down on a piece of paper.
• Track expenses in a spreadsheet
• Use Free Online Software like Mint.com
• Install a Computer Program like Quicken or You Need a Budget – these programs do cost money, but if they work for helping you maintain your budget, they can worth it.

How We Do It

I currently use Microsoft Money (similar to Quicken…but no longer available) to keep track of our expenses.  I have it set up where the program downloads the transactions from the financial institutions and then I code each transaction to a category.  I can also split transactions to several categories.

Do you keep track of your expenses?  What is your method to keep track?  Is it working well to help you create/maintain a budget?

For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

To help you save money, each week I show the freebies that I received that week along with a list of other freebies that you can sign up for.  However, there are some things to watch out for when you sign up for freebies.

• Consider using a separate e-mail address that you use just for signing up for freebies.  Sometimes the freebie site may not be legitimate and they may just be getting your e-mail address to sell to spammers.  I try my hardest to only post legitimate freebies, but every once in awhile a site may get through and your spam e-mail may increase.  If you use a separate e-mail address (like freebies4corrie@gmail.com), you could just check it every so often to make sure there are no legitimate e-mails coming through.

• Never sign up for a freebie that requires a credit card.  A true freebie will not require payment of any kind.  If you do need to require a credit card, it is often a free trial of a product, and then you need to remember to cancel the account.  I don’t post those kinds of “freebies” because I am not very good at remembering to cancel (so I’m assuming others  are too) and sometimes companies will continue to charge you even once you’ve canceled your account.

• If a freebie sounds too good to be true…it likely is.  Do you ever get the e-mails that tell you that you can get a $500 gift card for free?  What you may not see in tiny letters are the words, “Participation required”.  Some people are able to make money by doing those offers (Nicole’s Nickels has whole posts explaining how to do those deals), but you need to know that you are getting into a process…not just getting a freebie.

• When in doubt…do more research.  You can check a site’s IP address to make sure that the freebie site is not based in Nigeria, etc.  You can also check who has registered the Domain Name to make sure it matches.  For example, if you see a P&G freebie being offered by Joe Schmo, it’s probably not legitimate.  Or, you can search using Swagbucks to see if anyone has blogged or written about a freebie being a scam.

• If you’re nervous about spam, etc stick to the tried and true freebie sites.  I always receive my freebies from Walmart, Right @ Home (when I qualify for the monthly freebie), All You, Costco, and P&G brandSampler.  Also, if you sign up for a freebie directly from a reputable manufacturer, it’s also likely to be good.  Sometimes if you don’t receive a freebie, it’s simply because they ran out of samples and never took down the sign up form.

Do you use freebies to save money?  Do you have any other criteria that you use when you sign up for a freebie?  For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

Since I use the coupon insert method for storing most of my coupons, I need a method to match my coupons with my grocery list.  Plus, there are so many sources for printable coupons out there.  How do match my coupons so that I can get the best deal?

• Coupon Database – I host a coupon database on my site that includes the insert coupons, as well as many printable and store coupons available.  You can search by a brand, product, coupon source, etc.
• My Personal Couponizer – I always have loose coupons that I need to file…either I printed them from online (since online coupons tend to come and go), cut them out of an insert and ended up not using it, or I received a freebie in the mail with a free coupon.  So, I’ll search my Couponizer to make sure I’m not missing a coupon there.

With all my sources, sometimes it’s difficult to determine just from the listings whether a coupon is valid for the exact item that I plan on purchasing without looking at the actual coupon.  When I’m doing my coupon matchups, sometimes I’ll pull out a coupon (if I’ve not already used it) just to make sure that the coupon requirements match the item on sale, because sometimes it’s not clear just from the listing.

How do you match your coupons with your grocery list or store sales?  Do you have a favorite online source that I don’t use?  Please share…I’d love to find the “perfect” source. For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom for a linky with more Frugal Friday posts.

Even though I’m an avid couponer, I don’t always have time to plan my shopping trips to get the best deals and cut out my coupons (although I’ll still have a grocery list).  And sometimes, I’m just plain tired of dealing with coupons.  However, my family still has a grocery budget that I need to meet.  What can I do?

• Eat from your pantry – If you’re an avid couponer, you probably have a stockpile of items on hand.  Plan your meals around the items you already have, and you won’t need to purchase much at the grocery store that week for meals.

• Only purchase items for use that week – Many of the items where I use a coupon are for my stockpile, because they are at rock-bottom prices with a sale and a coupon.  If you’re getting burned out on couponing, take a week (or a couple of weeks off from adding to your stockpile).

• Purchase store brand items – Without a coupon, store brand items are usually cheaper than the name brand items.  Most of the time, the store brand items taste similar to the national brand…especially if it’s an item that will be used in a recipe with other ingredients.

• Check your grocery store’s sale flyer - You can take a cursory glance through your sale flyer to see if any staple items are on sale that you don’t normally have coupons for anyway, like flour, sugar, eggs, meat, etc.  You can still stock-up on those items if they are your target price without coupons.

• Use eCoupons - If you don’t have time to mess with clipping coupons, you can always just load eCoupons onto your store loyalty card.  There are several eCoupon programs – Cellfire, Shortcuts, P&G eSaver, and Upromise (click here for more information about Upromise and how to add the eCoupons). The disadvantage with the ecoupons is that they don’t double, and you can only use them once (so if you have multiple identical items, you would only get a coupon for one of the items).  But, they are easy to use.

• Use Printable Coupons – You’re still using coupons, but you won’t have to mess with organizing your coupons if you print out your coupons right before you head to the grocery store.  Only print those coupons that you will use on that shopping trip, and you will save time on filing your coupons.  Some printable coupon sources include: Coupons.com and Red Plum.

What about you?  Do you always use coupons or are there times that you slack off a bit?  How do you save money if you’re not using coupons?  For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

Photo by zbyszek80

Have you signed up for the many free item coupons lately? I have…so I have several free candy bar coupons, a coupon for a free jumbo pack of beef hot dogs, and a coupon for a free Burt’s Bees lip product.

So even though the item is technically free, is it possible to make the coupon worth more than free? Yes, it is. You just have to use the coupon in conjunction with other offers such as:

• Coupon for buy $$, get $$ off your order. This week when I visited my local CVS, I scanned my CVS ECB card as I walked in. A coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase printed out. CVS was having a lot of good deals, I had several free item coupons, and I had about $12 in ECB’s to spend. So I thought I would at least see if I could make it up to the $50 with very little out of pocket (OOP). Remember, the $50 (at least at CVS) is before all coupons and ECB’s are applied to your order. I was able to make it to $50 (just barely), and I spent almost nothing out of pocket. The free item coupons helped me get there.

• Extra Care Bucks (ECB’s) Deal at CVS – If you can use your free item coupon plus earn ECB’s, you are making money that you can use to spend on other items that you need, such as milk or diapers.

• Buy 1 Get 1 (B1G1) Free Sale – If you can use your coupon with a B1G1 free sale, then you can get 2 items for free.

How do you make your free coupons stretch even further? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

Photo by mrceviz

What happens when you have the perfect plan to score a free item at the store, but when you arrive at the store they are all out of stock?

There are actually several things you can do. 1) You can ask a store employee if there are any items in the back or if the item is on an endcap somewhere. 2) You can ask the cashier when the store receives their shipment each week (and when the shipment actually makes it to the shelves) and then go back to the store then, hoping that the item is now in stock. OR 3) Ask the cashier for a rain check to purchase the item at a later time.

What is a raincheck? It is a voucher which will allow you to purchase the item at the advertised price after the store has restocked it. There are several things to be aware of regarding rainchecks:

• Check the expiration date – many times the raincheck if only valid for several weeks. Plus, you want to make sure that your coupon (you are using a coupon, right?) is still valid when you redeem the raincheck. However, sometimes it works to your advantage, because additional coupons become available for the item or it gives you time to order additional coupons from Ebay or the Coupon Clippers.
• Check the quantity limits – sometimes there is a limit on the number of items you can purchase and sometimes the cashier will ask you how many you plan to purchase. I would err on the side of requesting more than you think you’ll use, just in case you get an awesome coupon to go with the raincheck.
• Grocery stores are required to give out rainchecks for advertised items that have sold out, unless the ad states “limited quantities per store or only in certain stores. No rainchecks.” Other stores are not required to give out rainchecks, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Here are some of the ins and outs of obtaining and using rainchecks at the drugstores:

• CVS – the raincheck is written and includes both the sale price and the extra buck amount. When you redeem the raincheck, the price should be adjusted to the sale price, and the extra care bucks should print based on the event code (an 8 digit number found in the ad). However, the cashier should be able to force the ECB’s to print. To be safe, I would also cut out the flyer with the information and attach it to the raincheck. Also, CVS rainchecks don’t expire.
• Walgreens – it appears that many of the raincheck policies at Walgreens stores are different for each store. Some stores will give rainchecks on items where you would earn a Register Reward and some will not. It’s best to get to know your cashier and ask him/her.
• Rite Aid – here’s a great tutorial on how to do a Rite Aid rebate and still get the SCR’s back after the SCR time period has passed.

Do you use rainchecks? Do you have any additional tips that you’ve found when you ask for/redeem rainchecks? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.

After I graduated from college, I started having to make toiletry and cleaning product purchases for myself. I usually made my purchase decision based on either which item had the lowest price, or I was brand loyal.

If I didn’t really care about the product, I would purchase the lowest priced item, which was usually the private (or store) brand item, or I would pick a product I liked and always purchase that brand every time I made a purchase. To my credit, I did usually keep an eye out for sales and try to stock up then.

That strategy worked for me, because I would save a little money, and it would diminish the amount of time that I had to spend thinking about every item I was going to purchase. Who wants to spend 10 minutes deciding what to buy for every item they place in their cart?

However, once I started playing the CVS game, I discovered that the best way to save the most money was to drop most brand loyalties. Once I decided to go after the best deals regardless of the brand, I was able to get many items for free or almost free. Many times, when manufacturers introduce new products (or product improvements), they’ll often have great promotions and coupons that allow consumers to try to product for “free”. The goal is to get the consumer “hooked” on the product, so they’ll pay full price in the future.

For example, I have always used Tide detergent, since that’s what my mom used when I was growing up. I loved the smell of it. But, would other detergents clean my clothes just as well and still smell good? I have recently purchased Arm & Hammer detergent as well as All, and they have both worked out well for me. Plus, I was able to get a much better deal than trying to get Tide on sale with my usual $0.25 coupon.

By relaxing your brand loyalties and shopping the drugstores at “rock-bottom” prices, you are also able to try out many different brands that you might not have experienced. If you hate it, you just don’t purchase it again (I know not to buy any more Soy Joy bars for my husband!), but I have discovered some great shampoos and deodorants that I might not have normally tried.

Even if you (or your family members) have some items that you are very brand loyal, by saving money on the other items that you don’t care so much about, you free up money to make your brand-loyal purchases. And, you can still pair sales and coupons on those items and stock up.

But, most importantly, I have been able to decrease my family’s toiletry and household goods budget dramatically. By shopping at the drugstores and having very little out-of-pocket expenses, I probably spend about $20 per month on these expenses vs. a much higher amount previously.

Have you decreased your brand loyalties to save expenses? If not, what’s holding you back? For more frugal ideas, please visit Being Frugal.

Do you have an emergency fund that you can draw against in case of an unexpected layoff or home/auto/medical expenses? If not, you should.

What is an Emergency Fund?

According to the Financial Dictionary, an emergency fund is a reserve of cash kept available to meet the costs of any unexpected financial emergencies. It is designed to provide financial back-up for unexpected expenses or for a period when you aren’t working and need income.

An emergency fund should be used only for true emergency expenses, such as an important appliance like a fridge or stove dying, an unexpected car repair, an unexpected medical expense, or a layoff. If you have a planned big expense such as braces or a new vehicle, you should save for it rather than tapping your emergency fund. Plus, if you have to use some money from your fund, your goal should be to replace it as soon as possible.

How Much Should You Keep in Your Emergency Fund?

Most experts agree that you should save 3-6 months of living expenses. The exact number depends on your family situation…whether you have only one income supporting a family, you’re single, you have dual incomes, etc.

However, it can seem daunting to save that much money. The best way to build your emergency fund is by setting small goals. For example, Dave Ramsey suggests you should create a $1,000 emergency fund before you start doing anything else. That way you at least have a small buffer against expenses while you tackle the next step – paying down debt.

However, what do you do in a time of recession? Should you pay down debt or create a larger emergency fund? It’s really up to you, but if you really think that you will be facing a layoff soon, I would try to beef up the emergency fund as much as you can. Then, if you are not laid off, you can take the extra money and apply it towards your debt in one lump sum.

Where Should you Keep your Emergency Fund?

You want to make sure that you keep your emergency fund very liquid (meaning somewhere where you can access the money quickly without a large drop in its value). So, you do not want to put your emergency fund in real estate or even in the stock market really. We keep our fund in money markets, but other people use short-term CDs. You do want to make sure that your money is earning as good a rate as possible for those types of accounts.

Do you have an emergency fund? How did you build it up? Did you use small goals? Where do you keep your money? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life As Mom.

If you read about my CVS trip this week, you’ll remember that I had some trouble with the cashier at my CVS and the B1G1 free Children’s Throat Cooler coupon. She ultimately allowed me to use the coupon, but I wanted to make sure that I was not doing anything wrong when I argued my case for using the coupon.

So, I e-mailed CVS’ customer service. They responded with the CVS coupon policy, which I’m going to post for everyone. You might want to print it and bring it with you in case you ever run into any problems at the register.

• CVS/pharmacy will accept coupons printed from the Internet. They must have a legible barcode that scans at the register.

• If the coupon does not scan at the register, the cashier should politely inform you that we are unable to accept your coupon. We do not allow manual overrides at the register for coupons printed from the Internet.

• Our registers are set to allow 1 CVS coupon and 1 manufacturer coupon per item. However, the staff should be allowing customers to use Extra Bucks in combination with other CVS coupons since these are coupons you have “earned.” In addition, similarly they should be allowing the use of “offer at the register” coupons which would be an open offer of $3 off of $15 or a certain dollar amount off of a specific item. Since our registers are programmed to only accept 2 coupons (1 CVS, 1 manufacturer) per item if the number of coupons exceed the items purchased a member of management will need to assist the cashier in processing the coupons. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

• You can use coupons towards a clearance item but the coupon will be adjusted if it is more than the price of the item.

• The BOGO coupon allows you to purchase 2 items and get them both for free. With the manufacturer’s coupons you can combine one with one CVS coupon. You will be responsible for any tax due.

Tia at Tia’s Saving Cents has been running a series about Couponing on her blog. I wrote a guest post today about why I use the Coupon Mom and the Grocery Game. Check it out here.

Today I was at Kohl’s buying some birthday gifts for some of my son’s friends, and I noticed that some of the toys that I bought for my own sons for Christmas were on sale for less than I had paid for them on Monday. So, I went to the customer service desk and searched for a sign with Kohl’s pricing policy. I found it, and it said that they would lower the price on any item if it went on sale for less within a 14 day period.

I stood in a small line and pulled out my receipt and asked the customer service rep to match the price. She was able to give me $2.92 back…not a huge amount, but worth the few minutes waiting in line (I was going to have to wait in line to pay for my items anyway). I wouldn’t recommend checking a store’s prices everyday just for that amount of money, but I happened to be there anyway.

Do you know the major retailer’s pricing policies? Did you know that Walmart price matched their competitor’s even on Black Friday? Just think how much time you could have saved to make one trip…not to mention the fact that since the item’s weren’t on a great special at Walmart, the inventory might have been better and easier to get. A woman who checked out ahead of me got several video games using a competitor’s ad on Black Friday.

I have checked the websites of some stores and compiled a list for you:

• Apple stores – they price match with other authorized retailers
• Bed Bath & Beyond – price match to “direct” competitors…not sure if they considered Linens N Things their only direct competitor
• Best Buy – they price match to competitors and price adjust (to 110%) within the item’s return period
• Buy.com – they price match within 3 days of purchase to a list of qualified internet retailers
• Kohl’s - they price match to competitors and price adjust within 14 days
• Office Depot – they will offer a price match within 7 days
• Overstock.com
• Sears – they price match to competitors and will do a price adjustment withing 30 days
• Staples
• Walmart – they price match to competitors
• Target – they price match to competitors as of 7/12/09

As far as I can tell, KMart does not do price matches. When you do the price matches, you might want to bring in a copy of the store’s price match policies to show the customer service rep, in case there’s any confusion.

Also, don’t forget to check out PriceProtectr online. They will keep track of the prices for you at 150 of their supported stores. Here’s the link to their compilation of stores pricing policies.

Did I miss any stores that price match on my list? Have you ever saved a lot of money from doing price matches?

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about how my microwave is broken (I think that we should be able to get it fixed under warranty…I just have to wait for my husband’s knee to heal enough to take it down). However, we came home from my in-laws house tonight to a VERY cold house. It was 49 degrees! We had turned the heat down to 62 before we left, so we were quite surprised.

I pulled out the instruction manual and tried to reset the pilot light. The furnace tried to kick on 3 times, and then the warning light flashed. So, I shut everything down, and we’ll call the heating & cooling company tomorrow (I think we can survive until tomorrow…so no need to pay for emergency service).

Of course, I worry that we’ll need a new furnace (ours is 19 years old), but I don’t need to worry too much, since we have an emergency fund in place to pay for it if we do need one.

Most professionals agree that you should keep about 3-6 months of expenses tucked away in case of an emergency (like needing a new furnace) or in case of a job loss. They would suggest that you keep this money in a liquid account where you can access the money quickly, and one that does not carry much risk (such as a savings account or a money market account rather than the stock market).

Do you have an emergency fund in place? How much do you keep in it, and where do you keep it?

One of the tools that I use to save money on groceries and household goods is to create a stockpile. Basically, I’ll purchase non-perishable items when they are at rock bottom prices even if I don’t necessarily need them at that very moment and store them in my “pantry”. Then, when I am making my menu plan and grocery list I can “shop” myself first.

How do I do this?

The key is to match store sales with my coupons. I actually have several tools that I use to achieve this:

• I check out the CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid deals on various blogs to get the best prices on household items like toothpaste, deodorant, razors, etc. Many times, I can get these items for free or almost free.
• I personally use The Grocery Game for my grocery purchases, because I don’t feel like maintaining my own price book, and I’m not very good at remembering what is a good price for an item. The Grocery Game gives me a list each week for my grocery store (although you can pick multiple stores) for items along with the coupon that matches the item, and whether the item is at a price good enough to stock up or only to get if you really need it. Lately, I’ve been saving about 50% off my grocery bill by matching sales and coupons. There is a cost to the Grocery Game, though. It’s about $1.25 a week for one store. If you want to try it out, you can get a free 4 week tria.
• Another free method is through the Coupon Mom. She lists the sales at many different stores along with the matching coupons. You can sort the list by item, OOP price, or % savings to come up with different items to purchase.

Some things to watch out for:

• Make sure your “pantry” is organized so you can see what items you are currently well stocked in. I am currently way overstocked in feminine products, just because they got hidden.
• You’ll want to organize a system of first in, first out so that you are using the oldest items first so nothing expires. It’s not saving money if you have to throw it away.
• You don’t need to create a stockpile all at once and ruin your budget. Work within your current grocery budget to add a few items at a time to your stockpile.
• You don’t need to have a pantry in your kitchen to store your items. Use whatever works for you. I use shelves down in the basement. Of course, you need to pay attention to the storage conditions for your items (like a garage in FL in the summer might not be the best idea).
• Don’t let your stockpile get out of control (I know…mine almost is). If you have extra items that you purchased because they were free or almost free, you can donate them to charity.

Although my mom was a wonderful cook when I was growing up, I didn’t have much interest in making meals for my family. So, when I became a young(ish) wife, I didn’t have too much experience in making dinners. When I would do my grocery shopping, I would usually walk around the store and say…”Hmmm, that sounds like a good meal for dinner”. Then, I would try to remember what all the ingredients were and whether I had any of them in stock at home already. That led to many extra trips to the store for missing ingredients and extra spending due to impulse buys.

Fast forward to the present. Each week, I sit down and make a meal plan at the beginning of the week. My family is not too adventurous, so it usually doesn’t vary too much from week to week. But, at least I know what I’m going to have each and every day for dinner before 4 pm. I know when to pull meat out of the freezer several days ahead of time (I have an aversion to defrosting in the microwave or on the counter). It’s come in very handy lately, since I’m taking a tax class 2 nights a week, and have to have dinner ready right at 5 pm, so I can leave for my class. If I didn’t have a meal plan, it might be very tempting to order take-out, which could ruin my budget.

As I’m planning, I check out my wall calendar, to see what activities we have going on throughout the week to plan easy dinners, etc. when I know I won’t have much time to cook. I also plan ahead for other activities where I may need to bring a dish, such as bringing brownies to a church small group meeting or making dinner for a new mom at church, etc. to ensure that I have the ingredients in the house when needed.

I also use my menu plan to make my grocery shopping list. For each meal, I’ll shop my pantry, fridge, and freezer first to see what items I need to purchase. Often, I will have many of the items already stocked. Then, I add the items I do need to my list as well as the basic staples that we need like milk, bread, etc. and check Coupon Mom to see if there’s a coupon to go along with the item. I also compile a list, using the Grocery Game (if you sign up, please use centsablemomma at att dot net for your referral), of items that I wish to stockpile (to build up my pantry and freezer at rock-bottom prices), but I’ll write more about stockpiling next week. When I have a list at the grocery store, I can resist the urge to purchase impulse items, thus saving even more money.

For more related articles, check out:

• How I Organize My Coupons
• Recipe Binder

How do you plan your meals? Do you find that it saves you money?

I was reminded by a friend of mine today, that not everyone knows all the terms and acronyms that I use throughout some of my posts, so I thought I would try to compile a list. Please comment here or on any post if there is something else that I missed, and I’ll add it to the list. I will possibly add a quick reference guide to one of the sidebars later, too.

General Store Deal Terms:

• FAR = Free after rebate
• QP = Coupon
• OOP= Out of pocket – how much you pay in cash
• GC = Gift Card
• wyb = when you buy
• B1G1 = buy 1 get 1 free
• Overage = you make money on the transaction. Most stores don’t allow you to get overage from coupons alone on the sale price, but you can get overage if you are paying for the item with a coupon and then get ECB’s, RR’s, or a rebate back from the purchase.

Rite Aid:

• SCR = Single Check Rebate – what Rite Aid calls their monthly rebates

Walgreens:

• RR = Register Rewards – a coupon that will print at the register when you purchase a required number of advertised items. For example, last week, I purchased 2 Nabisco cookie items and a gallon of milk (as advertised) and received $3 RR when I paid for my items. These RR’s can be used on your next purchase. They usually expire within 2 weeks, and you cannot use them to pay for a purchase where you are buying the same things again (if you want to receive more RR’s). For example, I could not use the RR’s from the previous example to buy more Nabisco cookies and milk.

CVS

• CVS ECB card = CVS’s loyalty card. You need to have one of these to get the advertised savings in their ad.
• ECB = Extra Care Bucks – if you purchase certain advertised items, ECB’s will print out when you pay for your order. There is usually a limit on how many items you can purchase for ECB’s in a week/month. You can use these ECB’s to pay for future purchases at CVS. They usually don’t expire for about a month.
• CRT = coupon that prints either at the register on your receipt or at one of the machines in the store that will print coupons when you scan your ECB card

Coupon References:

• RP = Red Plum newspaper insert
• SS (or S) = Smart Source newspaper insert
• P&G = Procter & Gamble newspaper insert
• GM = General Mills newspaper insert
• Tearpad = coupons found throughout a store, most likely near the item
• Blinkie = dispersed from dispensers with blinking lights in the aisles at the grocery stores (mostly Kroger in MI, Dominicks and Jewel in Chicago).
• Printable = coupon that you print yourself on a printer
• Catalina = a coupon that prints out on the catalina machine (a small printer next to the cash register). At Walgreens, this is where the Register Rewards print. But, it can print other coupons too, usually based on the items that you purchased.

How a Coupon is Referenced:

• 8/3 RP (10/26) $1/1 = the coupon is from the 8/3 Red Plum newspaper insert. It expires on 10/26 and it’s for a $1 off 1 item.

One way that I try to earn some extra money is by using Swagbucks. It’s basically a search engine (powered by Google and Ask.com) where you can search for anything on the web, but you earn Swagbucks while you’re searching. Once you get 45 Swagbucks, you can earn a $5 Amazon gift certificate. There are other rewards that you can earn, such as a Starbucks gift card, Target.com gift card, etc. Since it takes 45 Swagbucks to earn $5, each Swagbuck is worth about $0.11. If you need to search for something anyway, you might as well use Swagbucks and earn something .

Here are some things that I’ve learned from searching.

• You can earn between 1 and 5 Swagbucks when you do a search. I don’t believe that I’ve ever earned 4 or 5, but I have gotten 2 or 3 a couple of times before. 1 Swagbuck is the norm.
• You can earn Swagbucks multiple times per day. I think I’ve won twice per day at the most (but I’ve read of others winning up to 4-5 times per day). I usually can win once in the morning and once in the afternoon/evening. So, once you’ve won once in the morning, and you have another search engine that you can also use to earn money, you might want to switch to that and then come back to Swagbucks in the afternoon.
• You are also limited to up to 20 searches per day that are eligible for Swagbucks. So, once you’ve searched 20 times, you can switch to another search engine where you can earn some more prizes.
• Just a note…most of the gift cards are delivered electronically via e-mail…which is great for a company like Amazon. You can just load the gift amount as a balance in your account. But…you want to be aware of it for a company like Target, where you might not necessarily be shopping online.
• You can also earn Swagbucks by shopping through the site, but I have never done that. I would prefer to get money in my UPromise account or cash through Ebates instead.

UPromise has a new e-coupon program. If you’ve ever done the Shortcuts or P&G program where you can load coupons onto your grocery store loyalty card (like at Kroger), this is very similar, except the savings are deposited directly into your UPromise account. There are no coupons to print, you just have to use your store loyalty card associated with your UPromise account.

For those who have never used the above programs, let me tell you how they work.

• You need to load the coupons onto your registered grocery store loyalty cards through the UPromise website (see below for detailed instructions).
• While shopping at one of those stores, purchase the product. You may use manufacturers coupons in addition to the UPromise ecoupons.
• The ecoupon amount will be deposited into your UPromise account (in addition to any normal rewards for purchasing the product).

How to load the Coupons

• If you don’t have a UPromise account, you need to sign up by clicking on one of the UPromise links. If you do have an account, you need to sign in.
• Click on Earn Rewards on the top toolbar.
• Then click on ECoupons.
• You can scroll through the 3 pages of coupons and choose which coupons to select.
• Then, you will need to click to activate the coupons that you have chosen. UPromise will show you all the grocery cards that you have registered (like I have CVS, Kroger and Meijer), so the coupon will automatically be applied to your account when you buy one of those items and use your registered grocery loyalty card.

For more information on UPromise, see my previous post about the program here.

One of my biggest problems with coupon organization is that I never seem to have enough time to clip every coupon and file it away.  So, I would end up with piles of coupons ready to be cut and filed.

To solve that problem, I decided to start writing the insert date on the front of the entire insert and filing it together in a page protector in my coupon binder.

But how do I find coupons in the insert?

There are 2 ways that I find the coupons when I need to use them:

• Search the Coupon Database – when I need to purchase something and I’m looking for a coupon that I can use with it, I search the coupon database.  I can search by any attribute such as brand, products, etc and the database will list various printable coupons that are available as well as the insert date and name (such as 1/27 S – or the Smart Source insert that came in the paper on 1/27)
• Store Matchups on my favorite Coupon Blogs – there’s likely a blog out there that lists the coupons with the sale products for virtually any store you visit.  Each week I list the CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens deals as well as highlights for Meijer and Kroger.  All coupon matchups list the date and insert in the matchups.

What about “Other Coupons”?

The only drawback that I see to not clipping and organizing all coupons when you get them is the lack of flexibility when I’m at the store. If I see something on clearance, I may not have a coupon with me. However, I feel like it also keeps me from making any impulse purchases, because I wouldn’t want to come home and find out that I had a coupon after the fact!

I’ve been doing several rebate offers over the past couple of months, and I discovered a website that will help you keep track of which rebates are still outstanding. It’s rebatetracker.com.

Most of the time, you don’t even have to enter any of the rebate information. You can do a search based on the product and the zip code where you need to mail the rebate and most likely someone else has already entered the information. It will tell you when you expect the receive the rebate, so if you don’t receive it, you can follow up with the company.

I think it’s a great site…if you’ve done several rebates, it’s hard to keep track of what you haven’t received yet. Be sure to keep copies of all your paperwork until you receive the rebate, in case you run into any problems.

Erin at Coupon Cravings posted a great article on ways to save money while shopping online. Most of her points are things that I already do, but there are several things that I learned from her on how to get an even better deal.

1) Check Out Shipping Charges First: I don’t usually do this, so I’ve abandoned a few shopping carts, because the “great deals” aren’t so great with shipping.

2) Shop at “Cash Back” Sites: I usually shop through upromise.com or Ebates. But, I’m going to start shopping through Evreward.com too to see which cash back site is the best to use.

3) Compare Prices: I use the sites that she lists, but I also use mysimon.com.

4) Never Shop Without a Coupon Code: I might try out the site she mentioned, but I mainly use google to search for coupon code and the store. It’s so nice when you’re already getting a great deal to find out that there’s a coupon out there for an even better savings.

5) Take Advantage of Price Protection Polices: I have never tried this before…but I’m definitely going to try it. We bought a TV at Sears, and one of the things was that you get 30 days price protection, but of course, I never really checked to see if the price dropped due to time. I could have saved even more money!

Let me know if any of these work for you…

I have been a member of UPromise since 2001, pretty soon after they first started. The company I worked for was one of the initial companies where you could earn money back by shopping in the store, so the UPromise team came to my office and explained everything. It sounded like a great program, so I signed up.

Basically, you earn money for your child’s college (or for your own student loans) by shopping either through their link online, linking a frequent shopper card (like Kroger, Meijer, CVS) to your Upromise account, or using a linked credit card to shop at places like Exxon/Mobil and Bed Bath & Beyond. You can also earn money using the Citibank Upromise credit card, which is where I’ve earned the majority of my money. Just a note…we do pay off our credit card every month…there’s no point in charging anything for “rewards” if you’re paying interest on it . You can also invite Friends and Family to help you save.

We have already earned about $1,340 for the boys college using this program. I use my Upromise credit card, I shop through UPromise, and I always use my store loyalty card (even at Meijer where there’s no benefit to using it except for UPromise). We also primarily get gas at the Exxon station near our house….of course, it does happen to usually have one of the better prices in the area. I wouldn’t shop there if it was more expensive.

Anyway, if you have not signed up already, it’s a great program. It’s free, and you accumulate money in the UPromise account, and they transfer it every 3 months into a Vanguard 529 (which you have to open up separately though the UPromise site). We’re trying to save for the boys college, but it’s hard on one income. UPromise makes it a little bit easier.

In the past, I always shopped through upromise.com (more to come about Upromise in a future post) to get money back for the boys college. However, since I’ve been visiting other frugal blogs, I’ve learned about other money-back shopping services like Ebates and Big Crumbs. However, I didn’t like visiting each site to see which one offered the best rate back. Thanks to Frugonomics 101, I no longer have to. I can visit Ev’Reward and simply type in the store that I wish to shop at, and it will list the reward for each of the money back services. For example, last night I purchased a magazine subscription. Normally, I would have received 25% back from upromise.com, but I got 70% back through Microsoft Live Cashback instead due to a back to school promotion.