Finding Ways to Save

Picture Credit: Microsoft Clip Art

I always love a great sale. In fact, I've become pretty good at finding different ways to get good deals on the things we buy. 

Here are a few things we have done:

We gave up our family plan cell phone package and I now have a pay-as-you-go TracFone. I barely used my cell phone once we got free long distance with our land line, so we made the switch (with my husband keeping his cell) and now we're saving about $150 a year.

We don't have cable, Dish or Netflix or any other TV service we pay for. We get tons of DVDs from the library and if we really want to see something that will take too long to wait for, we use Redbox for $1 or our local Family Video for $2 to $3. This saves us somewhere between $300-600 per year.

We do all our clothes shopping second hand. I've actually done this for years and stopped telling others about it because some people felt sorry for me! I love shopping secondhand. I can often find name-brand items for tons less than department store prices. We happen to have a great thrift store with a lot of variety and good quality items. This year, I've bought many houseware items from there as well.

Our grocery store has something called Fuel Perks where our purchases earn us money off gas at the BP gas station. We are saving about $20-25 per month when we use the Fuel Perks to buy gas. In March, I filled up for $1.77/gallon (saving a total of $29.45) and this month for $2.39/gallon (saving $19.37).

We pay for mostly everything with our credit cards and pay them off every month when the bill comes. Doing it this way, we don't pay any interest and we don't carry any debt forward. The perk we like is getting reward dollars. We purchased an aluminum backpack/child carrier and a steam cleaner. I now use Amazon's credit card so the reward dollars go towards anything on Amazon's website. I got $40 cash back right away. This makes a lot of sense for us since the bulk of my shopping is now done online. Then I don't have to spend a lot of time or gas money driving around town for deals.

I was able to find a great deal from my affiliate Sneak Peeq and made my first purchase there. They had a sale on an olive oil set (garlic and basil) and I ended up with two 8.5 ounce bottles for only $4.00 and free shipping. They came as promised and I can't wait to use them.

The newest place I found is called NoMoreRack. I just signed up tonight but the site sounds like another fun place to try out. The Giveaway Lady has a great write up on it Here. I went through the website and looked at their deal categories and found many I'd be interested in like computer notebooks/tablets, electronics, kitchen storage items and gadgets and bedding. The offers change every day and the deals are for one day only, so that's something to keep in mind.

They also have something called Insanity Deals where the products may be reduced by 85-95% off retail. One catch I always run into with internet shopping is shipping costs. The neat part with this site is they have a $2 flat rate for shipping per product. I like that a lot. This link also has good info about the site and how it works. I'd love to hear if you end up finding any neat deals there.

I'm always looking for new ways to save and be a good steward of our income, so I'll continue to share what I discover.

I just found a cool place to link up this post - Thrifty Thursday! Click the picture below for more neat ways to save. This linkup is hosted by Jenn from The Purposeful Mom and Anna at Feminine Adventures.

Thanks for visiting!