By Kim Wuenschel, Savings in Spartanberg
Last year was quite a year for my family. You can probably relate to my story... In February we found out we were pregnant - and our son had just turned 6 months old. I freaked out. And that only got worse over the next 9 months.
To add to that stress, in April, my husband’s employer had to cut his pay. In June, a bigger pay cut. Bigger still in August! And the threat of a 4th loomed over our heads in September. That, combined with the new home we’d just bought, a baby on the way, a super high insurance deductible, and knowing that I’d be leaving my part-time job when the baby came, left us stressed. To say the least. I had to find a way (and time) to save money – some how. Or we were going under.
So I started to take couponing seriously. Who know you could save so much with coupons?!?! I now average $20 for a cart FULL of groceries. It’s not uncommon for me to leave the grocery store, with 10-15 bags of groceries, having spent less than $5! And all the grocery savings led to finding savings in all areas of our family life. Even more insane – I manage to have to time to do it all with 2 under 18 months!
Here are my top 10 ways I’ve saved a couple THOUSAND dollars in the last 6 months!
1. Buy your diapers online. Diapers.com has an incredible deal for 1st time shoppers. Order a case of diapers and 1-2 jumbo packs, make sure your total is at least $49 (I get 1 case of Luvs & 2 jumbo Luvs for right at $49). At check-out, enter in the promo code “FREE-$10." That will take $10 off your order. Plus you’ll get free 2-day shipping. PLUS, as a first-time shopper you can request a $14.97 rebate instead of the free magazine. Fill out the rebate form. You’ll end up getting up to 364 diapers (how many depends on the size) for just $25. Then get your husband, mother-in-law, grandma, babysitter, etc, to all do the same for you!
2. Save on Diapers in the stores. Walgreens & CVS constantly have diapers on sale. And they often offer coupons that are worth cash in their store for buying diapers – Walgreens calls them Register Rewards. CVS calls them Extra Care Bucks. Watch for their sales, use a Walgreens coupon (ask the Pharmacist for a coupon book!) and a coupon you got from being on Pampers or Huggies mailing list. Or one from coupon.com. You can “stack” a store coupon on a manufacturer coupon for the same pack of diapers! Don’t forget to use a $/$$ coupon, too! There’s a $5/$25 coupon for Rite Aid at Redplum.com right now and CVS will honor it! I save lots on diapers at the drugstore when I combine all those coupons! Also – did you know that if you stock up on one size and your child out grows it before you open the package, you can return it to Babies R Us for a store credit?? Even if you didn’t buy it at that store!
3. Get paid to shop online. Seriously! Use Ebates or ShopAtHome every time you buy something online – like the diapers at diapers.com. They’ll refund you a certain percent of your purchase. For instance… go to Ebates, click on Old Navy – and they’ll send you to Old Navy’s website (while tracking what you spend). Buy some great-looking, cheap kids clothes and then Ebates will refund you 10% of that order! Plus they give you $5 just for signing up. You only need to reach $20 before they mail you out a check. Each store has a different cash back percentage, anywhere from 1-30%. I saved bundles over Christmas!
4. Get paid to search the web! I’m not pulling your leg! In 6 weeks, I’ve made $20 worth of gift cards to Amazon. For doing nothing more than I normally do. Searching the web. $5 more and I’ll get free shipping for some baby clothes! Or maybe I’ll splurge on myself ;-) How? It’s called Swagbucks! Randomly they’ll award you “swagbucks” for searching the internet. Then you turn around and spend those bucks on any one of hundreds of items. My fav? $5 Amazon gift cards cost 45 swagbucks. I’ll get that many in just 1-2 weeks!
5. Shop around for auto insurance. We thought we had good rates last year before I decided to shop around and see. I was surprised when a national company quoted us $500 less than we were paying! So we switched!! Even though it’s only been a year, I priced checked around again the other day. And switching carriers again, we’re going to save ANOTHER $170! No time to call a dozen different agents?? Me neither! I used a site like 2Insure4Less. It took me about 7 minutes to fill in all the information. And they sent it all securely to 7 or 8 different nationally known companies. Then the local agents called or emailed me their quotes. I love things that save so much time and money like this!
6. Use coupons. YES it really is worth the time to clip them. On average, I spend 2 hours a week planning my grocery shopping trip. And I use $60-$90 worth of COUPONS! Use sites like coupons.com. Even if you just use a few coupons per trip, you’ll save money.
7. Buy coupons on Ebay. Did you know that people sell coupons for diapers, formula, etc, on Ebay? Well… technically it’s illegal. But they’ll gladly sell you an envelope that just happens to be full of coupons for $5… $7….$10 off baby stuff! For just pennies! Don’t just look for baby stuff. The other day I bought 10 All Detergent coupons for $1.99… I used them at Target and got 10 things of All for just $6.50 total!! Don’t clip and search for coupons… too time consuming. Look on e-bay! Be sure to go to Ebay through Ebates or ShopAtHome in order to get a percentage back, too.
8. Sell coupons on Ebay. Do you get all those formula coupons and free samples in the mail, too?? Even if your kids are out of that stage?? Sell them on Ebay. I sold 7 coupons for Similac on Ebay the other day… made $17! And I got the coupons free in the mail. Woo hoo.
9. Maximize your coupons. The best way to make the most out of your coupons is to use them when the product is on sale. But that’s a lot of planning… I know! So CHEAT! See the next item for how…
10. Let a blogger do your planning for you. Head over to Be Centsable and click on “Grocery Store Deals”. Find your state, then the store you shop at. And you’ll see links to websites that share the deals from your store. Each week the websites post the sale ads along with direct links on where to find coupons that match the sales. You can get name brand products for FREE every week, or just pennies on the dollar. And the best part is, the website you’re on does all the work for you. No planning needed! MAJOR time saver! I’ve more than cut my grocery budget in half using this method! In fact, if you follow the blogger who writes about your store’s deals & coupons, she’ll probably let you in all sorts of other deals online, too.
I hope these ideas have helped give you some new and creative ways to save money – and to do it without sacrificing the little “me time” you have when your bunch is napping or happily playing on their own. Our time is so precious, but it really can be easy to save big money with a little time.
Kim is a money-saving-tips blogger at Savings in Spartanberg.
Another great grocery budget website is www.couponmom.com, it has saved me a lot of money!!!
Posted by: Sara | Apr 26, 2010 at 09:18 PM
This is one of the best posts I have seen on this sight in a while. Thanks for all the great $$ saving info! Keep up the great work and thanks to the original baby bunchers for allowing such quality guest posters weekly for some variety!
Posted by: Brenda | Apr 28, 2010 at 01:06 AM
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
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