A Couple of Super Easy Ways to Save a Buck or Two

Pretty much everyone is looking for a way to trim their spending these days.  We're no different.  In our apartment there is always a stack of coupons somewhere, the Sunday ads are scoured for sales, pennies are saved, and clearance sales are considered gold mines.

While some money saving habits are very easy others can be more of sacrifice/challenge.  Here are a couple that take little time or effort!

ONE Do you do a lot of online shopping?  Then start at Ebates! If you go to their website and then from there go to the store you are purchasing from you can get some cash back!  It ranges anywhere from a percent or two to twenty (during some specials).  Currently they don't have any promotions for Ebay or Amazon, but they have hundreds of other stores!  I've used them for Jo Ann's, Walmart, Lands' End, Old Navy, and a couple of others.  Since I started using them I've gotten a couple of small checks.  The cash back ins't much, but the great thing is that I was going to purchase all of the items regardless of the cash back and literally takes two seconds to do!

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TWO Do you do a lot of internet searches?  Check out Swagbucks!  This is a search engine that rewards many of your searches with "bucks".  Once you gain enough Swagbucks you can go to the Swagstore and buy things.  They have a lot of options, but my favorite (and the one that I think is the best deal) is the $5 Amazon gift-card.  I've been able to cash in for quite a few of these!  The search engine isn't quite as good as Google, in my humble opinion, but if you don't like the options it gives you it only takes a second to perform a Google search.

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THREE Don't have time to clip coupons?  That's ok.  Find the store that has the lowest price on the majority of your family's basics.  Our go to store is Aldi.  (LOVE that store!)  Even if this store isn't the closest, it could be worth making a part of your routine if you know your staples are going to be significantly less. Living in a metropolitan area we do have a couple of super close grocery stores, the one that is the nearest (and generally the best stocked) is Giant, but our weekly run is at Aldi.  Items that we buy almost every week include: Milk, sandwich bread, bananas, cheese, chips, carrots, and raisins.  Here's a small breakdown of a couple of these items:

	Aldi	Giant
Bread	$0.89	$1.50
Milk (Hormone Free)	$2.69	$3.89
Chips	$0.99	$3.69
Cream Cheese	$0.99	$2.19
Bananas	$0.44 (lb)	$0.65 (lb)
Raisins	$1.49	$2.99

Even with just a few of these staples that we buy we are saving over seven dollars a week--that's almost 400 bucks a year!  And this doesn't even include everything.  Coupons are fantastic and I use them often--but some things just don't have coupons and that's when knowing the local store's prices can save you big bucks.  (We buy at least two gallons of milk a week, generally it is closer to three, just on milk alone Aldi's save our family about $150 a year!)

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FOUR Don't let dollar stores scare you!  Yes, many of them are filled with cheap junk and overpriced candy.  However, you never know what you will find there.  Two weeks ago I found full sized boxes of Ritz Crackers for a buck--even on sale at Giant they are rarely less than $2.50.  I also am lucky that my local Dollar Tree tends to have high quality yarn in its arts and crafts aisle.  The same yarn that I see at stores like Michael's and Jo Anne's for over triple the price.  (I made this blanket, this belt, these broaches, and these scarves with some of this lucky find!)

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FIVE Love to read?  For me this is a no-brainer, but it needs to be said anyways, check out your local library!  Books, movies, music, storytimes, classes, e-books, and more are right at your fingertips at the library.  Take advantage of it!  Hey, your tax dollars are paying for it.



Well, there are five quick tips to help you save some money.  None of them take much time and all are super easy to do.  Do you have any quick tips you'd like to share?  I'd love to hear them!

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