Queen of the Discount

Folks, we are inches away from the holiday season.  Though, if you see the store decorations and emails about the holidays already, you might be inclined to think it's been here for a few weeks!  Anyway, I digress.  Since we are only 59 days away to Black Friday, it's time to start your shopping plan.  Yes-your shopping plan.  While there are deals to be had on Black Friday, and games to be played...without a plan, you risk spending more than you need to, buying things you don't really need, or (gasp!) spending money on things that aren't really on a good discount offer.  BUT, if you start your shopping plan now, you will roll into the holiday season knowing that you're getting a good deal.  My top three tips: Start a list of gift cards/certificates now that, if you could get them at 20% off -or with a 20% bonus-you'd purchase. Start a list of  'everyday items' that some brands consider gifts (shampoo, perfume, socks) that if, on sale would make s...

I've been a saver my entire life. I like to know that I got the best deal on the thing I just purchased.  I like knowing that I have a safety net of savings should something ever go horribly sideways.  I love to be able to afford to buy two things I love instead of one because I've found the best.price.ever. I also love to spend money.  It's probably a bit of a hobby (for better or worse).   While I do everything I can to save as much as I can, I don't always buy the cheapest thing if there's something more expensive that I know is better/will last longer.  I also don't deny myself certain items just to save a $. I should have probably confessed this in my intro post last year.  I certainly don't want to lead anyone on that all I ever do is spend as little as I can on the cheapest things I can find.  That is certainly not the case.  And, while I enjoy saving $ more than most people, I also enjoy spending $! There.  I said it. :)

 That's not a typo. :) A few weeks ago, Costco had their Charmin TP on 'sale' for $24.99. A GREAT Price! I hadn't seen it that cheap in ages.  I was so excited.  ..and then I remembered that phrase, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.  And sadly, this was the case for both Charmin & Costco. See, here's the deal:  The Charmin that I bought on 'sale' at Costco?  It was a package of 71 meters of Toilet Paper at $24.99.  The older packs of Costco Charmin that I have on the shelves are 77 meters that I bought on sale for $26.99.  This means that the new pack of Charmin is 35.2 cents per meter, but the old Charmin came in at 35.05 cents per meter. Shrinkflation strikes again.  While this pricing does work out to be about 20% cheaper than the best deal I can get at my local grocery store...it is nevertheless a less to pay attention. I'm mildly annoyed at the decrease in the package size, and generally feeling a bit salty about prices fo...

 I don't know if it's just where I live or it's national, but I've been seeing a *lot* of ads by Rocket Money the past few weeks talking about their app's ability to show you your monthly subscriptions and then cancel the subscription in the app.  Sounds pretty cool, right? Right.  Until you (ironically) realize that to get the app that allows you to cancel paid subscriptions from the app requires...yep-a paid subscription.  Insert eye roll.  The free version of their app will show you your subscriptions, but you then have to the next 'extra' step by going to the service provider and cancelling.   To be fair, I was rolling my eyes at this service even before I found out there was a charge for said service, because I've been using the same method for years, and it's never failed me.  No extra app required.  Here's what I do: Sign up for subscription of my choice and *pay attention* to the renewal date Make a note of this renewal date in my cal...

 In case it's not been screamingly obvious from my previous posts: I love a deal.  A discount.  A sale.  Anything that helps me to save money...sign me up! Often, that money savings comes in the form of a sale in which I'll stock up on an item-canned goods, toothpaste, rice...you get the idea.  Products that I can buy in bulk (at a discount), and that don't expire for a good period of time while I work my way through them.  It's a common game I play on a regular basis. So, it would stand to reason that buying in bulk at Costco or Sam's Club would net the same deal, right?  Buy in bulk=save money.  Right?  WRONG.  At least, some of the time.  Hear me out... A lot of retailers (online, brick and mortar...all of them) absolutely have loss leaders-those items that the retailer will so deeply discount that they won't make a profit-but it gets you in to the store/onto the website, feeling good about what you're buying. That's great-and yo...

 I love a routine.  It's how I'm built.  And, generally speaking, I love that routines typically save me time and effort-which, when I was working, equaled saving me money.  Since I'm retired, the cost of my time is different...but since I'm not earning, I also look at any cost savings as 'income.'  I know it's not exactly the same, but it works for my brain. :) Anyhoo...on that topic of 'change', I've been shopping at the same grocery store in town for 5 years.  It's a Smith's (part of the Kroger chain).   They are cheaper than the other, equally nearby grocery store, Albertsons.   I've been meaning to do this for a year now, and finally got around to taking a pause on my weekly shop to go look at the prices of comparable items at Walmart and Aldi.  I think I've mentioned before, but I pretty much only buy private label everything now (to continue to try to keep the cost of grocery items down), but between the BS shrink-flation t...

 As summer starts to wind down across most of the US, I for one am looking forward to not having my A/C on 24/7!  Not only am I not a fan (no pun intended!) of the dryness that the air creates, but I can't help but just feel like I hear coins falling out of my pocket when the A/C is on.  In our house, it is the 100% most expensive energy device we own.  Ugh. But, since we live in Las Vegas, not having A/C is not an option.  Also not an option?  $300+ electric bills 5 months out of the year!  So, over the past three years, we've done *everything* we can to take advantage of savings -either thru our own efforts or thru the programs that our local energy supplier provides. We're now at an average monthly bill of $71.  This is down from $83 the previous year, and $111 the year before that.  Considering wattage rates have done nothing but go up and up, this means that we have genuinely-and aggressively-cut our electricity usage for the past severa...

 Every now and then, my husband and I spend a little more than we should. Usually on travel.  Sometimes on random purchases like a piece of art-more often than not, it's an emergency home repair.  The travel purchases we try to plan for (and usually can).  The art purchases and home repairs are a bit less than planned-and in some cases, completely unplanned.  Ugh. But, for the purchases we can make that we plan for, we try to play what we like to call the Credit Card Float Game.  Here's what I mean:  If we know that our credit card billing cycle starts on the 5th of the month..and payment for that cycle won't be due until the 2nd of the next-following month...we try to plan big purchases to happen when a new billing cycle starts so we can get the 'float' of making the purchase by holding onto our cash (to pay the credit card bill) until the last day of the upcoming billing cycle.   We like to do this for two reasons: 1.  We want to keep ...