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Grocery Challenge 2008 Copyright January 2008 Happy New Year smart spenders! As we ring in 2008, it is time to look at your household budget. Now if that doesn’t sound exciting, you are missing out! This is your opportunity to hit that budget hard, line-by-line and determine if you are on track to pay off debt, save for college expenses and eventually… someday… hopefully….. retire. If you are not one of those budget driven spenders/savers, you need to be - period, end of story. There is no getting around the need for a realistic budget. This all-knowing tool allows you to have an accurate financial picture and keeps you on track to reaching your short and long-term financial goals. Your budget guides all your spending and saving and should be seen as a friend who has only your best financial interests at heart. If you listen to that friend, you will head towards financial freedom and a debt-free life. If you neglect that friend, you may be doomed to dance with debt forever. THE RISING COST OF FOOD: In nearly every family budget, groceries are a tremendous expense. I know families who spend $200 per week to feed a family of four or five. That’s $10,400 per year! Gone are the college days of being able to live on ramen noodles and peanut butter for weeks on end. Children require nutrition and variety in their diets and food costs are increasing at an alarming rate. According to a 2007 story from ABC news, food costs are up almost 4% from 2006. The article goes on to say that in California, the price of milk has risen 30%! Here in North Carolina, milk is at $4 per gallon and rising. Clearly, our hard-earned money does not buy as much as it used to at the grocery store. Experts have predicted that prices will continue to climb in 2008 because of the demand for corn and rising energy costs, so be prepared for continued high prices. What does all this food inflation mean for your grocery budgets? Are you destined to blow the budget before you even see the middle of January? With careful planning and creative shopping, you can conquer those high prices and stay within a reasonable budget. Each month, for the next year, I will write about a different money saving topic related to grocery shopping. We will be covering couponing, using rebates, understanding retail tactics, meal planning, where to shop and much more. My hope is that by the end of the year, you will have cut your grocery bills significantly while still eating the same variety of healthy, tasty foods you now enjoy. Not only will I address food items, I will also touch on non-food expenses including toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo and paper products. THE CHALLENGE: For this month, I challenge each of you to take a long critical look at your food budget. How much are you spending per week on: fast-food, take-out, coffee from the pricey specialty shop, lunches at the office cafeteria, school lunches and snacks, convenience store chips, vending machine crackers, drug store sodas, grocery store purchases and all your other food expenses? Tally those numbers for the month and I am betting that most of you will be SHOCKED at how much money you and your family have spent on food each week. Once you have an accurate picture of how much you are honestly spending, look closely at the expenses you can cut back or totally eliminate. Consider trying a few of these suggestions to help lower your food total:
You will be amazed at how much less money you have spent when you cut out the non-essentials and stay out of the fast-food lane. Even if you only cut back on the extras a couple days a week, you will see a positive difference. I would love to know how you are doing with your tracking as the month goes on. Please post your results and we can all get a good idea (and lots of empathy I am sure!) about what it costs to feed our families. My monthly grocery budget for our family of 4 (2 adults and 2 elementary age kiddos) has been $50 per week for years, but I am finding that it is challenging to stay in that $50 budget each week as prices keep increasing. I am a long-time couponer and meal planner with a great overstock pantry and an extra chest freezer, so my monthly grocery expenses are usually less than most. I hear from people nearly every day about how hard it is to feed their families on a budget. The techniques I will cover in the next 12 months will give you the tools to cut your grocery bills and hopefully ease some of the pain of those rising grocery costs. For more information on creating a budget see: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/Financial_Literacy/Jan07_budgeting_howto_a1.asp?caret=2a and http://www.betterbudgeting.com/budgetformsfree-basicbudgeting.htm Now, let’s hear your food budget stories and savings ideas and start slashing those grocery bills! I wish you all a happy, healthy, financially responsible year. Remember, it’s your money – spend it wisely! Fabulous Drug Store Deals Copyright August 2007 Faye Prosser Do you remember what you spent on your last tube of toothpaste? Was it on sale or did you pay full price (gasp!). The average tube of name brand toothpaste is $3.00. That is about $3.00 too much for me! I can’t remember the last time I paid more than a few cents for toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, or body wash. Don’t be alarmed – our family still uses all of those items daily. In fact, not only do I find fantastic deals on health and beauty products, but many of the best deals are for higher priced national brand products. Smart spenders know that many national drug store chains offer excellent buys on health and beauty items through in-store promotions and rebates. The secret is to use these promotions to stock up and never pay full price again. Drug stores chains including CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens offer rebate promotions that result in free and almost free products every week. Each chain has weekly and monthly deals that include rebates on name brand items as well as store brand products. The weekly sales begin on Sundays and end on Saturdays. Last week, hand sanitizer was free after rebate at Walgreens. Colgate toothpaste and Lady Speed Stick deodorant were only 13 cents at Rite Aid using manufacturer’s coupons. By combining sales and coupons, Schick women’s razors are free this week at CVS. With different store promotions offered each week, your best bet is to choose those deals that appeal to you most. Nobody wants to drive all around town looking for every deal. Focus on the great buys for your family’s needs. The more flexible you are with brands, the more money you will save. If you are willing to use Crest, Colgate and Aquafresh, for example, chances are good you will be able to buy at least a couple free tubes per month. Even if you are somewhat brand loyal, you will still find many good deals on the brands you love with these promotions. Following is a description of the rebate promotions for Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS. To see the weekly and monthly promotions for each store, go to their websites at www.cvs.com, www.walgreens.com, and www.riteaid.com. Sale ads and rebate booklets are available at your local store, as well. If you are not sure which of these stores is in your town, go to the store websites and click on store locator. Enter your zip code and you will see a list of the stores closest to you. Walgreens offers a traditional rebate program. They publish the monthly Easy Saver Catalog rebate booklet. Buy the promotional items listed in the catalog, send in the rebate form and receipt and receive a check in the mail. You can also request your rebate in the form of a Walgreens gift card and they will add an additional 10% of your rebate amount on to the gift card. If your rebate amount for the month is $20 and you choose to receive your rebate on a Walgreens gift card, they will add an additional $2 (10% of $20) for a total rebate of $22. Then, each month, you pay for your rebate items using your Walgreens gift card you earned from the rebates in the previous month. This is called “rolling” your gift card so you have very little out of pocket expense from month to month. You simply use the gift card from the last month’s rebates to pay for the current rebate items. You send in the rebate form for the month all at once and there is one rebate per household per month. Easy Saver Rebate Catalogs can be seen online at http://www.walgreens.com/store/rebateclub.jsp and can be found in the store. Rite Aid also offers a traditional rebate program with a rebate booklet that shows the available rebate deals. The biggest difference is that you can request your rebate online at https://riteaid.rebateplus.com/ instead of sending it in via snail mail. You can also check your rebate status at anytime from the Rite Aid website. Rite Aid just bought out Eckerd and Brooks and they are currently changing over those stores to Rite Aid stores. CVS has an interesting rebate program that offers ECB’s (Extra Care Bucks) instead of a cash rebate. ECB’s are CVS store coupons that print out at the end of a qualifying sale and can be used to purchase almost anything in the store (except prescriptions, stamps, tobacco and a few other items). For example, Aquafresh Advanced toothpaste was on sale last week for $2.99. There is also an ECB August monthly promotion that offers $2.99 in ECB’s when you buy one of the Aquafresh Advanced toothpaste tubes. If you have the $2.00 Aquafresh Advanced manufacturer’s coupon from the 7/08/07 Sunday newspaper, you will pay 99 cents plus tax for your toothpaste. At the end of the sale, on the bottom of your receipt, you will then receive your $2.99 ECB coupon. The smart CVS shopper will then turn around and “roll” that ECB into another ECB deal to earn more ECB’s lowering the out of pocket expense. Last week they also offered a $20 ECB when you bought $20 of Kraft, Nabisco and other products. So, if you bought $20 in qualifying products (such as Planters peanuts, DiGiorno pizza, Post cereals, Wheat Thins), a $20 ECB coupon printed out at the end of your receipt that can be spent on anything in the store. You also earn $1 in ECB’s for every 2 prescriptions that are filled at CVS. For a much more in depth tutorial of CVS ECB’s see Hot Coupon World at http://hotcouponworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28157. Remember to read all the rebate details before buying an item at any store. Make sure the rebate is still valid and that you are purchasing the correct brand and size. When filling out rebate forms, be sure to follow all the directions on the form including circling rebate prices on the receipt or enclosing UPC’s. Whenever you are sending in any rebates to drug stores or manufacturer’s, make sure you keep a copy of all the information you sent. If your rebate is lost in the mail or there is a dispute, you will need the copies. Most drug store rebates take 4-8 weeks to receive except the weekly ECB’s from CVS, which print immediately. Now it is time to take a look at your weekly sales flyers and rebate booklets and discover what you can purchase for pennies this week. Looking for Great Grocery Coupons? Try Flattery! Copyright March 2007 Faye Prosser How many times have you wished there were more great coupons available for your favorite grocery and drug store brands? Week after week, you thumb through the coupon inserts in your Sunday paper wondering if you will find the elusive coupons for the products you love. Unfortunately, week after week you only cut out a few coupons. Lament no more. There is an easy and FREE way to find coupons for the products your family loves - flattery. Whoever said that “flattery will get you nowhere”, clearly did not have e-mail! Since September, I have been sending e-mails and making toll-free phone calls to manufacturers who make the products we like. The e-mail I send is nearly the same for each company. First, I let them know how much our family likes their product. Then I mention that I am a stay at home mom who needs to stick to a budget. Next, I politely ask if they have any coupons available. Finally, I thank them again for such a great product. Here are the results of my little coupon request experiment: E-mails and phone contacts made: 74 Companies that sent coupons: 51 Companies who refused: 20 Companies that have not responded yet: 3 Face value amount of coupons sent: $200.30 I average three contacts per week, mostly made via e-mail once the kids have gone to sleep at night. To date, I have received coupons worth $200 for products we use all the time. Even better, in three grocery chains in my area, and in many stores throughout the country, they double coupons. If a company sent me a coupon for 50 cents off one product, that coupon will be doubled to $1.00 at Harris Teeter, Lowe’s Foods and Kroger stores in my area. My family loves Green Giant frozen sugar snap peas. So I e-mailed Green Giant and they sent four coupons for 50 cents off any frozen or canned Green Giant products. I waited for the frozen sugar snap peas, which we love, to go on sale for $1.00 each. Using the 50 cent coupons, I was able to buy four boxes of FREE vegetables once the coupons were doubled. That $200 worth of coupons was actually worth more than $300 once the stores doubled the coupons that could be doubled. Another surprising result of this experiment was that many companies sent coupons for FREE items including free yogurt (Dannon), cereal (Kashi), canned tuna (Starkist), jelly (Smuckers), paper plates (Zoo Pals), and tissues (Scotties). Dannon even sent stickers and magnets for the kids and a t-shirt for me! Wasn’t that nice?! Your homework for this week (and every week if you want a reason to look forward to going to the mailbox): *Look through your pantry, fridge and freezer. *Choose three products your family likes and look on the package to find the website addresses of those companies. You can also do a Google search to find the website addresses. *Once on a company website, click on Contact. *E-mail (or call) the companies using the format below. Sample letter: “Hello, I am writing to let you know how much our family loves the boxed Green Giant Sugar Snap Peas! Even my 5 year old, who is very picky, eats them all up and asks for more. If you happen to have any coupons available for the sugar snap peas, I would really appreciate it. We are a one- income family, on a budget, and I use coupons whenever I can. Again, thank you for offering a healthy product that my picky 5 & 7 year olds love! Best Regards, Your Name.” That wasn’t so hard, was it? For just a few minutes a week, you can offer valuable feedback to companies and fill your mailbox with coupons for products you know your family likes. Now wait patiently for your coupons, use them with good sales and enjoy your great deals. Remember, it’s your money – spend it wisely! It’s January and Time to Shop! Copyright January 2007 Faye Prosser What? Time to shop? You may be thinking, “No…please…NO MORE SHOPPING!” Think again. ‘Tis the season to save, save, save on everything from festive holiday wrap to great birthday gifts. Retailers are clearing out holiday and winter merchandise and that means huge savings for the savvy smart spender. January is the time to stock up on items that you can use year-round. Take advantage of great deals in January and save shopping carts full of money (or at least a gift bag’s worth) during the next 12 months. Make Your List and Check it Twice: Start by making a list of those you buy birthday, holiday and anniversary gifts for throughout the year. Keep the list in your wallet so you always know for whom you need to shop. Think Outside the Gift Box: Holiday clearance has much more than just once-a-year wrap and bows. When searching markdown sections, remember the following tips for finding year-round gifts in the clearance section: *Shop now for deep discounts on toys at online and brick and mortar retailers. For example, Target stores mark down aisles of toys from 50% - 75% in early to mid January. Buy birthday gifts for your kids and their friends, tooth fairy presents, stocking stuffers, and holiday gifts for next year at super savings! When shopping online, search a coupon website first for discount codes to your favorite online stores. Good sites to search for codes include www.gonicofish.com and www.flamingoworld.com. *Purchase gift sets that include items such as a cheese plate, cheese knife and a block of cheese. Eat the cheese and save the other items to use as a gift anytime of year by simply adding another block of cheese. *Buy solid color red paper plates, cups and napkins to use at your child’s Valentines party at school. Use the green paper products for your St. Patty’s day party. *Stock up on solid color wrapping paper – you can use it for almost any occasion. *Buy up the markdown bags of chocolate kisses and freeze them to use later for baking. Remember this tip during the post-Valentine’s Day clearance as well. *Purchase winter clothing in January. Holiday/winter sweaters, dresses, children’s outfits, socks, hair clips and other clothing and beauty items can be found at 30% - 75% off. Many of these items can be worn all winter long or given as gifts for the next holiday. Ideally, you have a single place to store your fantastic deals until you need them. A gift closet or cabinet allows you to find items easily when you need them. Don’t delay, the New Year is here and so are the deals. As I always say, it’s your money – spend it wisely! How To Cut Your Grocery Bills in Half Copyright: Faye Prosser January 2006 Want to buy much more for less? Imagine filling your cart with your favorite groceries, but only paying a fraction of the total cost. By mastering the eight essential techniques, every shopper who buys groceries can get the most out of their hard-earned money. Learn the art of couponing. Smart shoppers know, without question, that using coupons wisely is the greatest money-saving technique when it comes to buying groceries. They know how, when and where to use those little pieces of "paper gold" and they know just where to find the best coupons for the products they prefer to buy. Their coupons are well-organized and accessible so they don’t ever miss an unadvertised sale. Smart spenders pay for a good portion of their groceries using coupons and save more than 50% off their weekly budgets each and every week. Compare apples to apples. How do you know whether something is really a bargain just because it is on sale? By developing a Price Book, you are able to compare the price per unit of one size package to another. This allows you to compare the 200-ounce box of warehouse club bran cereal to the 20-ounce bag of the same type of cereal from the grocery store. Smart spenders know the surprising news that often the smaller container is less expensive per unit than the bulk container when used in conjunction with coupons and sales. Gain leverage from sales flyers. By reviewing the sales flyers that stores issue every week, you can plan your weekly menu, decide where to shop, determine what to include on your grocery list, and choose the best money-saving coupons to use at the store. Smart spenders realize that the key to the greatest savings is purchasing the best sale items listed in the weekly flyers and then using coupons for those items. Be a proud card-carrying member. Sign up for the frequent shopper rewards cards at the stores you shop. Without them, you won’t be offered the sale prices or special incentives and you may lose out on thousands of dollars in savings a year. Many stores will even mail great money-saving coupons to members throughout the year. Smart spenders take advantage of the sale prices by using their rewards cards every time they shop. little brand name loyalty stand in their way of savings. Refuse to be overcharged. Many grocery stores carry 30,000 or more items. It is not hard to imagine that there may be a price mistake or two at the register. Before you leave the store, thoroughly review your receipt to make sure you weren’t overcharged. If you discover an overcharge, head straight to customer service and explain the error. Many stores have a price scan guarantee, which means that you will receive the entire cost you paid for the item and get to keep the product. Yes, this means you will take home the product for free! Smart spenders never leave the store without reviewing the receipt and requesting the price scan guarantee, when applicable. Enjoy delayed gratification. Yes, it’s just what you were thinking. Rebates. You buy an item that offers a rebate, fill out the form exactly as required, send in the UPC, receipt or other necessary proof of purchase, and after a short delay, you get your money back in the mail. If you are thinking that it doesn’t sound so difficult, you are right! Surprisingly, many people don’t take advantage of the amazing rebates available for everything from beef to toothpaste to pies. Smart spenders recognize that the savings opportunities are huge, if they are willing to fill out a little form and wait patiently for their gratifying reward. Stick to your strategy and avoid the tactics. Do you smell the fresh cookies baking in the deli? Did you taste those free samples of cereal when you walked into the store? Welcome to the world of store tactics. Their job is to make money marketing the products they sell. Your job is to steer clear of the tactics and stick to your grocery list. Don’t be enticed by the sale signs when you know something isn’t a good deal. Don’t go to the store hungry and don’t impulse-shop (unless it’s a good unadvertised buy, of course!). Smart spenders come prepared to shop for the items that will save them the most money and they avoid the clever methods designed to persuade you to part with more of your paycheck than you should. These aren’t the only money-saving techniques used by the shopping experts, but they are the basis for the very best buys. Grocery Store Tactics Copyright: Faye Prosser, 2006 Every grocery store hopes that you will do most, if not all, of your shopping at their location. Many use tactics that entice the shopper to stay longer and buy more. It is important for you to understand what those tactics are and avoid being taken by them. Remember that these tactics are not evil techniques designed to drain your bank account of every dollar and leave you flailing financially. Marketing to increase sales is their job. Your job is to learn the skills that allow you to make wise choices that are not influenced by clever marketing. Following are some methods stores use to get you to spend your money at their location: What’s That Wonderful Smell?! - Stores bake fresh bread, cookies, chicken, and all sorts of tasty prepared foods right there in the store. The smell of those items is often enough to get you to buy whatever it is they are cooking. Once again, stay away from the prepared deli foods and your grocery bill will not burst your well-prepared budget! Store Layout - Stores often put the more expensive brand-name products at eye-level, where they will be easily seen. To find the store brand and clearance items, you need to look on the higher and lower shelves. Is It Really on Sale? - Be aware that stores often place non-sale items on the same fancy display as sale items. Their hope is that you will pick up both items, especially if the non-sale item is usually used with the sale item, such as ketchup with hot dog buns. Package Size - Bigger is not always better. When a store has a monster size package of an item you want to purchase, remember that just because something is packaged in a larger box or a multi-pack does not mean that you are getting a better deal. Remember to figure out the price per unit to see which size package is the best buy. Checkout Lines - If you have children, try to stay away from the checkout lines with candy or toys. It will cut down on the whining and begging from your children and the impulse shopping you may do just to appease them. The same thing goes for adults who have a weakness for chocolate! Developing a Price Book Copyright Faye Prosser 2005 Developing a price book is one of the most important steps you can take if you want to cut your grocery bills. A price book is simply a list of the items you use regularly and the best prices they sell for in the stores where you are willing to shop. A price book is an excellent tool for tracking prices, sales and buying opportunities. Prices in a price book should be listed by cost per unit so you can easily compare different size packages from different stores. When you see a deal in the weekly flyer or in the store, you will know instantly if it is really a good deal and worth your time to go out and purchase. Just because an item is on sale doesn’t automatically make it a good buy. The regular price at some stores may be less than the sale price at others. Your price book is an invaluable tool to help you determine if a sale is really a deal. You don't have to create the whole book at once, just carry it with you when you go to the store and write down the best prices when you see them. You can also use the weekly sales flyers and your store receipts to find the best prices. If you make an entry in your price book and then find a better price at another store, change the information to reflect the better deal. After a while you'll have an excellent price record of the things you like to buy. If you add dates to the entries you will begin to see the sale pattern for that item. You don’t need to include everything you ever use in the course of a year, just those items you buy regularly. You can price items for as many stores as you want or just the main store at which you shop. Is it a better deal to buy the largest size of an item or the smallest size? You will be surprised to know that biggest isn't always best! Larger sizes can be more economical than smaller sizes, but that is not usually the case with this system. A smaller size item that is on sale can often be less per unit than the larger size of that same item. When you use a coupon on top of the sale, you can really cut the cost per unit. Calculating Cost Per Unit: Some stores make it especially hard to figure out cost per unit (ounce, pound, etc.) because they list the prices on the tags as 3/$5.00 or 2/$4.98. First you have to figure out the cost of one of the items and then you have to figure out the cost per unit. You may think this is difficult, but just take a small calculator with you when you shop so you will not have to figure the cost in your head. When stores offer shelf tags with cost per unit clearly indicated, you won’t need that calculator. To figure out the cost per unit of an item, follow this simple equation: Cost of item divided by the # of units = cost per unit. $1.99 divided by 18 ounces = .11 (11 cents) In this case, the cost per unit is 11 cents per ounce. When you see this same cereal on sale elsewhere in a different size package, you can easily calculate which package is the better deal. For instance, if a smaller size package of the same product is on sale for $1.15 for a 12-ounce package, you will have enough information to be able to compare the two packages. The 18-ounce package is 11 cents per ounce ($1.99 divided by 18 oz. = 11 cents per ounce). The 12-ounce package is 9.5 cents per ounce ($1.15 divided by 12 oz. = 9.5 cents per ounce). As you can see, the smaller package on sale is a better deal than the larger package at regular price because the cost per ounce of the smaller package is lowest. Often the difference is much more than just a penny per ounce and the savings can add up very quickly. Some people use a small spiral notebook and write in the prices of the items they use. Others use spreadsheets or word processing software to enter their price book prices. There are even some high tech options such as downloading a price book program into a handheld computer. Your price book can be as short or as long as you wish. You may decide to list the top 20 items you buy regularly or you may decide to create a 10- page list of all the items you buy. How in-depth you make your list is up to you. The key is that it is accurate and that you can reference it easily when you are shopping. The following price book sample contains details on sale dates, stores and brands, as well as unit price. Some price books only include the item, size and brand and do not get as detailed as this example. Price Book Sample: Department: Dairy Date Store Item Brand Size Cost Unit Price 4-24 ABCGrocery Yogurt Store Brand 8 oz .50 6 cents per oz 8-23 DEFGrocery Sour Cream XYZ Name Brand 16 oz .99 6 cents per oz 4-14 GHI Grocery Shred. Cheese Store Brand 8 oz .99 12 c./oz Now that you know how to create and use your price book, you will never have to wonder if the sale price in the flyer or the great deal posted in the store is actually a bargain worth buying! Copyright, Faye Prosser 2006 Backyard Garden Copyright: Faye Prosser, 2006 One of the best ways to cut produce costs is to grow your own vegetables and fruits. Produce from your own garden tastes delicious and reduces your food bill. Growing a garden is also a wonderful learning experience for children. We began growing our own produce garden ten years ago and, to this day, my favorite thing to eat is a tomato and cucumber sandwich with vegetables fresh from the garden (although cheesecake is a close second!). I start daydreaming about 'mater and cuke sandwiches in mid-winter, and by July, when we are harvesting fresh vegetables, my dreams come true! Following are some tips to get you started with your own garden. Don’t get in over your head - There is nothing like planting your first garden only to find out you planted more than you can handle. You will become frustrated, tired and overwhelmed and give up forever. Start with a comfortable 10’ X 10’ area and remember that next year you can increase the size if you wish. Location is key - Find a space for your garden that receives plenty of sun. Prep the soil by tilling it with a borrowed or rented tiller. Mixing grass in with soil adds organic material. You will need to determine what soil type you have so you know what soil amendments (topsoil, gypsum, lime, fertilizer, organic material) to add. Bring a sample of your soil to your local agricultural extension office to receive a pH and soil analysis. If you only have a small area, consider container gardening. Many varieties of different vegetables grow well in large pots. Planting time - Once your soil is tilled and in good shape, it is time to plant. There are many types of seeds that you can start growing indoors in small containers approximately eight weeks before replanting into the outdoor garden. You can also buy transplants of many of the popular vegetables and fruits. These little plants work beautifully, are inexpensive, and are good for the beginning gardener who may only want one plant for each type of vegetable. Good starter crops include tomatoes, beans, peas, zucchini, summer squash and cucumbers. Make sure you plant after the last expected frost. You can find out about frost information by speaking with your extension office. How does your garden grow? - Once you have planted, you should put down a layer of newspaper and then a layer of hay straw. This will keep weeds from growing too rapidly. If you see weeds emerge, get rid of them right away. Plant the seeds or transplants far enough apart, keep them weeded and fertilize regularly and you will cut down on pest issues. Seed packs and transplant labels will indicate how far apart you need to plant the seeds or plants. You can also put up a short wire mesh gate around your garden to discourage children, rabbits and other creatures that may rummage through your hard work. When dealing with insects, you can choose an organic route, which we have done most years, or use an insecticide from your local garden supply store. For information on which route is best, see the extension office once again. They can tell you what types of pests are most common in your area and how to best prevent them. You will also want to know what critters are good to have around because they eat the pests that can destroy your beloved garden. Enjoy the fruits of your labor - Pick your produce when it is ripe and don’t overcook your vegetables. Enjoy your wonderful produce all winter by freezing or canning, as well. Share the bounty - You will find that as your plants begin to bear fruit, you may harvest more than you and your family can possibly eat. A sure way to endear yourself to all your friends, family and the new neighbor two doors down is through garden fresh veggies. Nothing says friendship like a homegrown tomato! If you are hesitant about produce gardening, begin with one container plant. Find a variety that is suitable for containers and get your feet wet with a single vegetable. We have grown tomatoes (especially cherry tomatoes) successfully in containers, and once you bite into that first juicy tomato, you will probably be ready to go tiller shopping! Growing an herb garden is another easy way to add fresh and frugal flavor to your meals. If you have children, herbs are a good introduction to gardening because the plants are smaller than most vegetable and fruit plants. For much more information on all aspects of gardening, check with your local library for books on growing vegetables, consult your agricultural extension office and speak with other people who garden in your climate. Ask them what works well for them and what problems they have encountered. 10 Steps to Conquering Back-to-School Spending Copyright: Faye Prosser, August 2006 As the summer sun warms the thick August air, the real heat for parents of school age children is coming from back to school spending. With the price of everyday necessities burning a hole in your wallet, you will be relieved to know that there are many effective ways to cut the cost of those expensive school purchases. From sneakers to scissors, these 10 steps will help you stretch your school supply budget and still send your kids off to school in style: 1. Make a complete list. Include clothing and school supplies such as scissors, notebooks, backpacks, lunchboxes and all the other specific items each child will need. If you already have a supply list from your child’s teacher, use this list when making the master list. If you do not already have a supply list, ask the school to provide a generic list of items that children in the relevant grades will need. Many retailers offer these lists in their stores. Call ahead to see if your local Wal-mart or Staples has the list for your child’s school and grade. 2. Take inventory. Include both new and used items you already have in the house. You will be surprised at how many supplies you can check off your list just by going from room to room. Items like scissors, backpacks and rulers may not need to be purchased again for this school year. You can also use items you already have to spruce up inexpensive supplies. For example, if your child wants the expensive decorated folders but the plain ones are on sale for 5 cents, he/she can decorate the inexpensive ones with stickers or stencils you already have at home. 3. Create a detailed budget. List everything you think you will need to purchase and the approximate cost of each item. Ask for your child’s input when making the budget, and you will craft a wonderful teaching opportunity. When they help determine how to spend their back-to-school dollars, they will learn that if they want the more expensive sneakers or jeans, they will have to buy less expensive versions of the other items on their list. 4. Start now. Even if your child doesn’t go back to school for another month, now is the time to start shopping. Actually, the best time to start school shopping was last year’s back-to-school clearance. If you start stocking up for next year at this years clearance (in late September), you will have all the essential supplies such as pencils, paper, notebooks, etc. purchased at 50-90% off. There may even be items for this school year that you can wait to purchase until late September when the prices will come down significantly. Maybe last year’s lunch boxes are still in good shape. If you can wait 8 more weeks, the brand new ones will be $2-3 on clearance versus $10-$15 regularly priced. 5. Consider all your options and compare, compare, compare. There are many places to purchase school supplies and clothing. Some are much more expensive than others but with a little homework of your own, you can find the best buys.
6. Buy Baggy. Not the kind of baggy that makes you want to pull up his pants from his knees and give him a belt, but roomy enough to make the clothes last a little longer. Elastic waistbands, long shirt-tails, and jeans with expandable waists all help to lengthen the amount of time that your children can wear his/her new clothes. Remember you can also turn those too-short pants into shorts and those shirts with the sleeves that are not quite long enough into short-sleeved shirts. 7. Cash and carry. If you have the tendency to overspend and blow your budget when you are back-to-school shopping, only bring cash. Keep the credit cards at home and don’t be talked into opening a store account. If you have a credit card that offers a reward (like cash back or travel miles) AND you pay it off every month, then use that to pay for your purchases in order to earn the additional benefit. 8. Sell to buy. Need a little extra money to finish up that shopping? Try selling those clothes that the little ones have outgrown on Ebay.com, Craigslist.org, or your own yard sale. You will be surprised at how many of the old toys your kids may be willing to sell in order to get that new backpack they have wanted. 9. Track your spending. Keep your receipts and tally your purchases each time you shop. In order to stay within your back-to-school budget, you need to know how much you have spent. It is certainly easier if you do all your shopping on one day in one store, but you will absolutely pay more if you take this approach. After you have entered your receipts on your tracking list or Excel spreadsheet, keep the receipts in an envelope so they are easy to access. If you purchased items that are not needed, you will want the receipts to make returns. Keep your budget information for next year so you have a starting point and an idea as to how much you will need to spend. If you stock up at the back-to-school clearance sales this year for next years supplies, you will have a great head start on lowering next years overall budget. 10. Finally, don’t give in. No child needs $100 pairs of jeans and $150 pairs of sneakers to wear to middle school, no matter how loudly he/she protests. Help your children to understand the school supply budget and how it relates to the overall family budget. Stand your ground if they want to overspend. The responsible spending habits you instill in them now will benefit them all through their lives. Once you have accomplished your exciting and action-packed back-to-school shopping mission and your little darlings are heading off to their first day of school, you can sit back and smile. You stayed within budget, spent responsibly and lived to tell about it! When the heat was turned on, you kept your cool, came prepared and conquered back-to-school spending. As I always say – It’s your money, spend it wisely! Keep the Joy, Ditch the Debt: Smart Spending During the Holidays Copyright 2006 Faye Prosser Picture this: You are gathered together with your family while they excitedly open their holiday gifts. The anticipation of this moment has been building for months. Gift after gift, the kids move from one present to another, in a wild frenzy of unwrapping abandon. In some cases, they barely glance at the gift before they move to the next. When all is said and done, you are left with a huge pile of torn gift wrap and toys your kids may only play with once or twice. But there is one thing about the gift giving whirlwind that will make a lasting impression – your credit card debt. That $500 or more you spent on all those things will follow you for months and possibly years to come. The toys will be long broken, lost, and stuck in storage, but you will still be paying for them, plus interest. Sound like the picture perfect holiday? Definitely not. Unfortunately, for many people, this is exactly what happens every year in December. People get caught up in the joy of giving and end up spending well above their means. The result is that they continue to pay for those items long after they are discarded. If this is a familiar holiday scenario in your house, you will be thrilled to know that there are alternatives to the spend and suffer debt cycle. If you sincerely want to enjoy a debt free, joy filled holiday, consider the following suggestions.
As you prepare for the holidays, remember your reasons for celebrating…..getting deep in debt is probably not one of them. If you focus on giving reasonably and enjoying family and friends, you will have a much more comfortable New Year. Your family will thank you and so will your wallet! Copyright 2005-2008 smartspendingresources.com. All Rights Reserved |
