Are you mailed your local store’s  circulars each week?  If so, you can use these as a tool for saving your money, planning your weekly menu and helping your household run more efficiently.  Here are a few tips to getting the most out of your circulars. 

• Note the start and end date for the sale period for each store you currently visit.  Some stores begin their sales on Thursday, Friday or Sunday.  Each store has their own sale periods -be aware of them.
• Start by knowing what you typically spend on your weekly food purchases.  Look over bank statements for the past few months and add  up all of the food related costs.  You can include money spent eating out and running into convenience stores for extras.  This step will help you track your progress over time.
• Keep a small notebook as a price journal.  Write down all of the regular products that you typically purchase and write the lowest price that you find for each item.  This will become the target price you hope to find each item for. Write your prices in pencil so that you can change the price when you find it for a lower price.  You can pull this out each week when you look over the circulars coming to your house.  Add an item to your grocery list when it hits or comes close to your target price.  Create your menu using items that have hit your target price that week.
• Recognize “Loss Leaders” that are featured on the front and back pages of each store ad.  Loss leaders are the “too good to be true ” deals that a store features each week.  The store may even lose a little money offering such a big discount on these few items, but they bank on the hopes that you come for the loss leaders and leave with an overflowing cart full of full priced items.  You dont HAVE to though!
• Be aware of your store’s coupon policy.  Every store has a different coupon policy.  Some stores double coupons, some do not.  Some allow multiple copies of the same coupon and some limit the number that you can present. 
• Once you begin to master the art of matching coupons to sales and shaving money off of your grocery bill, take it a step further. Set a target $ amount that you’d like to spend for each meal.  For example, for a family of 6, your target price for each dinner could be ar0und $7 (I’d do around $5 for meat and $1 each for 2 sides).  You could allow $2 for each breakfast and $3 for lunch per day.  This would average $84 for food costs for the week.  I personally round up to $100 to include other household items like paper and cleaning products.  When you build a pantry you can reduce these costs even further.  You can also allow yourself some flexibility so that if you snag a great deal on dinner for a few nights, you can order pizza on Friday.
• Begin to track your savings and use the extra money for savings or to pay down debt. Once you start to see considerable savings on your grocery bill, consider transferring the money that you didn’t spend to either your savings account or designate it to an extra credit card payment.

It’s so easy to whip out your credit card or debit card isn’t it ? I know I am guilty of using my debit card to pay for EVERYTHING.  The truth is that we tend to spend up to 30% more when paying with a card.  It doesn’t seem like it’s real money so we tend to buy things that we wouldn’t buy when paying with cash. In doing that we reduce the amount of money we have to pay down our debt.   When using cash some people divide the money into separate categories (food, transportation etc…) and some people use envelopes.  Use whatever works for you.

I am going to do a trial next week of only paying cash.  I am going to go to the bank to take out the amount of money I have budgeted for the week and I will hide my debit card (from myself he he! ).  I want to see what the impact is on our budget.  I hope to even have a little left over at the end of the week.  I will plan a little treat for the family with the money we have leftover (hopefully).

Wanna join me ??

 When I got the mail today there were 2 HUGE toy catalogs in with the mail.  I immediately went to hand each of the girls one to look at to see what they wanted for Christmas, but then I thought “hey wait a minute”.  By doing that am I encouraging the commercialism of Christmas? You see I don’t want little girls that constantly say “I want, I want, I want” so maybe giving them a huge toy catalog and asking them to circle what they want is a really bad idea.  I ended up sticking them in the closet (the catalogs not the twins he he!). 

Am I right in not giving the catalogs to the girls or am I overthinking it ? I need some advice from you.  Also, how do you decide how many gifts to get for your kids for the holidays? Do you have a method or do you wing it ?

I have heard that a  great way to make sure you do not overbuy for your kids is to set a limit on how many presents they get. I’ve heard some families limit it to 3 presents a piece (like the Wise Men gave to Jesus). Some limit it to the age of the child. Some limit it by category, such as a thing you need, a thing you want, a thing you play with, a thing you wear, etc

How do you do it ? I’d love to hear.

I did a little freezer cooking this week over a few days using my handy, dandy crock pot in addition to the oven and stovetop.  I was able to make 3 family size meals of BBQ chicken, 3 family size meals of Chili, 2 bags of “cheese sauce” and 2 loaves of banana bread (*note, one loaf was eaten almost immediately after coming out of the oven).

• I used the crock pot to make all of the BBQ chicken and chili.  One day I put a crockpot liner in the crockpot with a HUGE amount of boneless skinless chicken and two bottles of BBQ sauce.  I put it on low and out the door I went.  When I came home at 3pm -voila- three family size meals of BBQ chicken.  We had one serving that day and boy,  was it tender and delicious.  I froze the other 2 family size portions in freezer bags for a day that I don’t feel like cooking.  I did the same routine the next day with the chili.  I assembled the ingredients before heading out the door and …
• I made the two loaves of banana bread and the cheese sauce at the same time.  I mixed up the banana batter and stuck it in the oven and while it baked I made up the cheese sauce on the stove top.  I can thaw out the cheese sauce and mix it with pasta for homemade mac & cheese or bake it with pasta and bread crumbs in the oven for a nice mac & cheese casserole.

For those of you who want to try freezer cooking but are intimidated, consider doing a mini freezer cooking session.  Try making a double or triple batch of one of your favorite recipes.  It’s not much more work and it saves you tons of time in the long run!

Here’s my banana bread recipe if you’re interested:  

Very Yummy Banana Bread

• 1& 1/4 c. of sugar
• 1/2 c. butter softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 & 1/2 c. mashed ripe bananas
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 & 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 & 1/2 c. flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350, grease bottoms of 2 loaf pans, mix sugar and butter, stir in eggs and blend well, add bananas, milk and vanilla, stir in rest of ingredients.  Bake for 50-60minutes or until you can stick a butter knife in the middle and have the knife come out clean.

I love the way clothes smell coming out of the dryer, but I hate paying for dryer sheets.  They can cost up to $5 for a box of them.  Here are two ways to cut down the cost:

Option 1

• Get a spray bottle and pour 1/4 cup of liquid fabric softener in it. 
• Fill it to the top with water.
• Take a washcloth and spray it with your mixture.
• Throw it it the dryer with your clothes.

Option 2

• Fill a small pail with a lid with one gallon of water.
• Add 1 cup of liquid fabric softener.
• Dip a washcloth in your pail and squeeze out the excess liquid.
• Put your washcloth in the dryer with your laundry.
• Store your pail for future use.

If you can snag Bounty paper towels on sale, here is a great DIY recipe to make your own baby wipes:

• Cut a roll of Bounty paper towels in half (apparently they are the best for this)
• Place the half in a round container with a good lid
• In a separate bowl, mix 2cups of water, 1tbs of baby oil, and 1 tbs of baby wash
• Pour over paper towels, close the lid and they’ll be ready in 10 minutes
• You can play with the amounts of water, baby oil and baby wash if you want

*If you have a money saving tip or recipe, contact me and I will post it to share with everyone.

(Thanks, Jessica!)

Here are some more money saving tips to help you streeeeecccchhhh your budget. Feel free leave a comment below to share some of your money saving tips so that we can all learn from one another.

1. Recycle grocery bags by using them as trash liners for the small cans in your house like bathroom cans.
2. Open your dishwasher during the dry cycle. It takes alot of energy to dry your dishes in the dishwasher.
3. Use scrap paper or extra paper that the kids bring home from school (flyers or other unnecessary paper) to print your coupons.
4. Use your crock pot.  It saves energy and time.  It also makes the house smell good and keeps the house cooler in the warm weather.
5. Instead of buying costly Swiffer refill pads cut a cloth to the needed size and insert over cleaning area OR if you like to throw it out instead of washing -use dryer sheets.  They are much cheaper that the Swiffer pads and work just as well.
6. If you are a little bit handy with a sewing machine, don’t throw out your children’s jeans because they are too short, cut them, add a ruffle or section of adorable material and you have capris!

What tips do you have for saving money for your household? Leave a comment below and share, share, share