personal finance in a coupon blog

Are you ready to start trimming your household budget? The first place to start is with your grocery budget, where you can see the most significant savings just by changing some of your shopping habits.

You can slash your grocery budget by 50% or more, when you use simple strategies while shopping at the grocery store. Many people think that saving money at the grocery store is a time-consuming job of cutting out coupons and shopping at multiple stores every week, but here are some tips that you can use to save at the store that don't involve cutting out a single coupon:

1. Be prepared by going through the ad and stick to your list - The best way to blow your grocery budget is to be unprepared with no lists of items to look for and being enticed by the sights and sounds of the grocery store to spend more. Do some quick research ahead of time at home, by looking through the ad to see what is on sale and then trying to base your week's meals around the sale items for meat, produce and more. Even if you're running a last-minute errand to the store, always make sure you grab the store flyer as you walk in and scan the store sales and in-store coupons to see if there are any promotions or coupons you can take advantage of while you're there. Read More »

Are you up to anything this week? If you haven't already done so, it's probably a good time to organize everything you got in the mail for your taxes. I dedicated a majority of my Sunday (this past weekend) to get everything in order for my tax guy.

While I was looking through my spendings for 2012, it made me re-look at the different areas I could work on for 2013.

If you have credit cards, make sure you look at your year-end statements because they'll breakdown your spendings and put them on a graph. Not only will you see the percentage on a pie, you'll get a clear idea of your financial portfolio for the year. If you need to cut-back on some things, this statement will help you make a quick chop here and there.

But of course, you'll still have to make purchases throughout the year. It's all about making smart purchases by researching, price comparing and using coupons. To get you started, here are this week's top five deals: Read More »

This week we're chatting all about ways to save at the grocery store. From sales cycles to using coupons, there are so many ways to save some money on your groceries. But these days, most of us are thinking about ways to eat a little healthier, but don't want to impact our wallets.

Here are four tips to help you save money at the grocery store and eat a little healthier at the same time. 

1. Shop the perimeter of the store vs. heading down the individual aisles. The perimeter of the store contains whole foods like produce, meat and dairy. Avoiding the aisles also helps you avoid where a lot of the impulse purchases happen.  Read More »

Do you want to slash your grocery budget in half? There are key ways to save money on your next grocery store visit. Whether it's tomorrow or days from now, these simple steps will lead you on the path to savings.

1. Don't go to the store hungry. There's a reason why the bakery and floral department are located in the front of the store when you first walk in. They will heighten you senses. And if you're hungry, you'll immediately start to gravitate to buy more. Before you walk into the grocery store, eat a snack. Better yet, bring along a bottle of water to help curb your appetite as you shop those attractive aisles for those bargains. Read More »

Are you ever frustrated by the amount of food that goes to waste in your home? Have you resolved to reduce the amount of food you toss out, but aren't sure where to start? The good news is it only takes a little bit of planning to help you with your goal.

Meal planning is an essential element in reducing food waste. Making a menu plan ensures that you efficiently use the ingredients you have on hand and enables you to make a plan to use leftovers in future meals so they don't spoil. This not only creates a greener, less wasteful kitchen, but saves you time and money.

Plan meals to minimize waste and save money.

Look at your schedule and determine how many people will be home and decide how many meals you will need to prepare. Read More »

If you're a new homeowner and let's say your floors are in less than perfect condition, it's almost natural to dream about having new flooring put into your home. By changing out the flooring, your room can instantly change from drab to fab. But there are a lot of options out there and of course, the cost factor.

When I began my online research, there were only 2 options in my head: hardwood and carpet. Do I match our existing hardwoods in all our rooms or take out the old carpet in the living room and all 3 bedrooms and replace them with new carpet (by the way, I hate carpet). What would be the costs?

As a newbie, I quickly found myself overwhelmed with information overload and every price, wood grain, carpet color started to mesh into one. I was staring at terms like engineer wood, hand scraped laminate, loop pile carpet, click and lock, and the list kept going on and on. Shouldn't it be simple as "I want wood" or "I want carpet"? This shouldn't be rocket science!

Even with all the confusion, one thing was very clear: price. I quickly realized that my dreams of replacing 4 rooms with either wood or carpet was out the window. Especially since we just got our roof done and that cost was equivalent to purchasing a brand new car. Read More »

I recently bought my first home. It was one of the most exciting days and I will never forget the incredible feeling of stepping into my own place and reflecting on how hard I worked to get there. Unfortunately there were a lot of overlooked costs that I needed to retroactively factor into the budget of my lovely new home. For me the biggest out of pocket expense I needed to contend with was the cost of putting in window treatments. Although it's a large expense, my experience taught me it doesn't need to break the bank. Read More »

The flowers are blooming, the grass is greener and the sun is shining brighter. While the first day of Spring is only a few weeks away, I'm ready to get started with making some changes around the house now!

On top of my to-do list was to remove the rooster wallpaper that accents my dining room (an inherited design element from the previous owners). Not quite my taste and totally does not match our furniture. So this past weekend, I decided to remove the wallpaper on my own.

The first wall came out perfect, but the second wall was a mess. I nearly took down the entire wall with it. The plaster was crumbling and I was sweating bullets wondering what I would say to my husband, "Honey, I know that we just got a new roof, new plumbing, new vents, but guess what...the wall's coming down". Ahh!

I took a picture and rushed to Home Depot and what I thought was a disaster only cost me $17 to fix. Yay! If it's not a major construction job, I would try a DIY solution. While I did have my moment of "my husband is going to kill me", in the end, I saved myself about $1000 in wallpaper removal service.

Here are this week's top five deals: Read More »

We bought a home built in the late 50s and one thing we clearly noticed as soon as we moved in was that there was a draft coming through in different parts of our home. They all stemmed from our 64 year old windows and doors.

Our biggest issue came from our picture window in the living room. No matter how much we ran up our gas heater, the room felt like we were standing on top of an iceberg in Antarctica with a t-shirt, shorts and some flip-flops (might be an exaggeration, but it was freezing). Because of all the expenses that we've incurred being a new homeowner, we decided that we would replace the largest window in our home first which seemed to be the biggest problem in the home too.

In order to get a good idea on the prices of windows, I went over to Home Depot. I walked the Windows aisle and saw that the prices ranged by size and style. We have a large 94 X 60, so I did not see anything on the floor that matched that size. Plus, we have 2 side windows around the picture window that are 10 X 60 each and those were non-existent on the floor as well. After getting a rough idea on the prices, I went home to do a little more research on their site. Read More »

Painting your room is the easiest way to take it from drab to fab. It gives it an instant facelift and updates the look and feel of the room in only a few hours. The best part is that it costs less than $100 to do it (dependent on square footage) Yay!

As a new homeowner, I had all these initial thoughts of how my living room would look like before I moved into my home. But after I moved in, reality set in. The money I wanted to use for my dream living room makeover had to be used towards getting a new roof. Read More »

Spring Cleaning Fever is highly contagious.  If you're not careful you'll end up exhausted, discouraged . . . and broke.

I know what it's like to start with gusto, load up on cleaning supplies, and then become overwhelmed and frustrated without much to show for the effort and money spent. Here are a few tips to help you save your money and your sanity this spring.

Start cleaning BEFORE you head to the store. 

Making a long shopping list of supplies . . . is a stall tactic.

You don't need to buy anything to get started. Grab a trash bag and go through your house looking for things you can throw away. As you go, your home will look better and you'll see which areas need the most work.

After you've pitched the trash, use cleaning tools you already have.  Dust with rags or old (clean!) cloth diapers.  Sweep hard floors and vacuum carpet.  You'll be amazed at how much better your home looks, and you'll see which products you need to buy for the areas that need deep cleaning.

You may need to purchase cleaning supplies, but if you start cleaning before making a list, your list will be MUCH shorter. Read More »

The phrase "meal planning" automatically strikes terror into the hearts of many. How do I start? Will I have to spend hours and hours in the kitchen and then come out looking like a flour-covered, baked on zombie? 

Nah, meal planning doesn't have to be that bad, nor that scary. Here's how to get started with meal planning, and survive! 

1. Five meals a day, for five days a week. Write it down, commit to it, stick to it. It's just that simple.  Read More »