[Craig328]

I used to pull out all my spending money in cash but then I had someone liberate my wallet from a gym locker. Poor due to stupid due to poor impulse control broke me of that crap. Now, I have a harder time pulling the trigger on purchases I can actually afford. When my 17 year old big screen kicked the bucket last year, we were 3-4 weeks before I went out and got a new one. Just didn't like the idea of dropping that much money on anything...and yes, it was money and not "free credit with no payments 'til 2014".

Learn to save now so you can buy later and master the bullshit credit game and many of your troubles will be of the smaller variety.

[jon.kiparsky]

I see a number that smells funny to me: 60% savings. That suggests to me that you're buying a lot of prepackaged junk, because that's the only place where there's room to knock off that much. I suspect that your savings are illusory, in that you'd save a lot more (and eat better) by just buying more food and less packaging.

As for the bizarre belief that time is not money, I don't know what to say. I don't find any pleasure in playing with lots of bits of paper, so you'd have to pay me to do it. I'm doing it on my off hours, so you'd have to pay me overtime to do it. And there's plenty of work to be done for my boss, which I can do at home, so it seems like a losing proposition for me to spend my time doing something that pays me far less, which I don't enjoy, in order to convince myself to buy crap that I don't need or want.
That's just how I look at it though. Your mileage may vary.

Looking at it from another angle, I don't think that manufacturers and stores issue coupons to lose money. Therefore, you have to assume that they make more money from people who use coupons than from people who don't - probably because they move people from low-margin products (bulk flour) to high-margin ones (biscuit mix). So unless you think you're somehow special, you're giving more money, not less, to the grocery store when you use coupons. If it were otherwise, coupons wouldn't exist.
Perhaps you're special. More likely, you're deluding yourself.

[Craig328]

Choscura, on 02 February 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

take sterilized manure (wrap it in foil, bake it at 200 degrees F for 20 minutes) and put it in an old sock

No.

[BenignDesign]

When I'm considering making non-essential purchases - even for the kids' Christmas or birthday gifts - I almost always buy through Amazon. I'll go to the site, find everything I'm considering purchasing and add it all to my cart. Then I'll walk away for 2 or 3 days, come back, look over the in-cart list and pare down what I really don't want to buy. Then I walk away for another day or two and come back and do the same thing before making the final purchase. I usually end up buying my kids about a third of what I had originally picked out for them. After a couple days to clear my head, it turns into, "What the hell is that? She won't play with that! That's awfully messy, what the hell was I thinking? Does she need these shoes? No, she has a closet full of shoes she doesn't wear already. She used to have something almost identical to that and she busted it in three days.... not getting another one." In the end, I've saved myself thousands on wasted, neglected, or otherwise unwanted items.

Even those used books I mentioned earlier. I'll go through and add all the books on my want-to-read list to my Amazon cart and walk away for a couple days. When I come back, there are often several that don't look as appealing as they did at first, so I drop them and pare it down to just the stuff I actually, really, truly want to read. Granted, sometimes the seller I selected no longer has the book and I may have to pay an extra quarter to get it from the next cheapest seller, but I just saved $20 in books I'd likely never bother to look at, so it's worth the extra change.

[Craig328]

Things you can easily save money on via coupons that aren't prepackaged junk:

• laundry detergent
  
• trash bags
  
• milk
  
• bread
  
• meat
  
• toothpaste
  
• shampoo/soap

It's pretty much an endless list.

Nobody said time isn't money. Someone said "Can you save enough to make it worth the time? If not, you're losing money on the deal" and since the activity they'd be doing otherwise likely wasn't making or saving money then the obvious answer is "yes, it's worth the time". Thing is this: if it took maybe 2 hours per week of perusing papers, clipping and organizing coupons and planning shopping based on all that and it ended up saving $100 then that equates to $50/hr which, for most folks means it's worth the time even basing it on a warped scale like "it's Sunday morning but I could still be working my job instead". And at my house, that's the wife's area of responsibility and her current wage is $0/hr...so for us it'd be especially cost effective.

Manufacturers offer deals on new products all time to gain market share while stores have things called "loss leaders" and neither one of necessity means they LOSE money on it they just may not make as much. I thought everyone knew this.

[supersloth]

i use my credit card every single day. have some self-control you fucking weirdos.

[BenignDesign]

I have just enough self-control to know I can't be responsible with a credit card. Been there. Done that. It had a disastrous end... hence, why purchasing a home is not currently an option on my planet.

[jon.kiparsky]

Quote

Thing is this: if it took maybe 2 hours per week of perusing papers, clipping and organizing coupons and planning shopping based on all that and it ended up saving $100 then that equates to $50/hr which, for most folks means it's worth the time even basing it on a warped scale like "it's Sunday morning but I could still be working my job instead".

You're working on Sunday morning in either case. It's just in one case you're working for the grocery store doing scutwork and in the other case you're working for your boss, increasing the value you're adding to his bottom line and doing work you presumably chose to do. But it's okay, do what you like.

Quote

saving $100

I don't know what you're spending on groceries, but I'm not spending anywhere near $100 a week, shopping for two people who prepare just about all of our meals at home, and there's no coupons involved. So I still think my previous point holds.

[BenignDesign]

Are you living on dollar store rice? I shop for three people, two under 12... and prepare nearly all of our meals at home... and $100 is only a partial grocery bill for a week!

Milk is almost $5/gallon.
Eggs run $3/dozen at our local market.
Meat is outrageously priced (As of yesterday 3lb bag of chicken breasts was $12.97).
Produce is outrageously priced (again, as of yesterday, 3lb of apples were going for $6.50).
Peanut butter runs from $4-$6/jar.

God forbid you want to buy anything in "natural" or "organic" or "whole grain"... add $2-3 per item for that bit of text!

[xclite]

BenignDesign, on 02 February 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

When I'm considering making non-essential purchases - even for the kids' Christmas or birthday gifts - I almost always buy through Amazon. I'll go to the site, find everything I'm considering purchasing and add it all to my cart. Then I'll walk away for 2 or 3 days, come back, look over the in-cart list and pare down what I really don't want to buy. Then I walk away for another day or two and come back and do the same thing before making the final purchase.

I love this strategy and employ it all of the time. Generally if I have any second thoughts, the item is autopurged.

[jimblumberg]

Quote

Even those used books I mentioned earlier. I'll go through and add all the books on my want-to-read list to my Amazon cart and walk away for a couple days. When I come back, there are often several that don't look as appealing as they did at first, so I drop them and pare it down to just the stuff I actually, really, truly want to read.

Have you considered, after you make you list, checking your local library to see if they have the book. Also many libraries have movies that you can checkout, they may not be the latest releases, but free is still a good buy. Also if you do buy a book, what happens to that book after you finish it? Does it just sit on a shelf gathering dust, or do you try to resell the books you no longer need?

Another area to consider, if money is truly tight, is the possibility of reducing the number of outside activities. Instead of several activities per child, or adult limit them to one or two. Give them choices, either this or this, or that. This will have several benefits, less wear and tear on the car, more family time, etc.

How many times do you eat out each month? Eating out is usually much more expensive for a family than eating at home.

Have you considered careful shopping at a "Big Buy Store"? Many times you can get larger quantities cheaper than smaller quantities.

Hopefully you have already cut down on the amount of soft drinks purchased.

Edit: Don't forget to try to eliminate bottled water. If your home water is bad consider a filtering system.

Jim

This post has been edited by jimblumberg: 02 February 2012 - 11:49 AM

[BenignDesign]

From where I live, getting to a big box store is a minimum one hour drive, one way. We eat out once or twice per month (I try to take one weekend when the kids are home with me and make a special night out where one kid gets to choose a restaurant for dinner and the other kid gets to choose what movie we rent). I don't drink soda, my younger child avoids it like the plague (claims it makes her nose burn), and my older child (who LOVES it) is limited to one 2-liter bottle per week.

The library is a viable option and I've thought of that often... my thing is, I tend to take forever to finish a book... so I'd have to deal with the hassels of perpetually renewing my check-out... which is likely more laziness on my part, I suppose.

As for the books I purchase, they do not sit about gathering dust. I work for a college and we have a perpetual book exchange... when you find yourself in possession of a book you've finished or no longer want, you add it to the book shelf. If you see a book there that you'd like to read, snag it for your own. Someone else can come along and snag the book you've donated. It works very well... I've read many books that I've picked up from the shelf. So, I'm not making money on the books, but I'm getting free books in return.

I have an artesian well at home - the water is fantastic. We rarely do bottled water... the kids and I all have refillable bottles we drag along everywhere we go.

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 02 February 2012 - 11:55 AM

[Craig328]

BenignDesign, on 02 February 2012 - 01:08 PM, said:

Are you living on dollar store rice? I shop for three people, two under 12... and prepare nearly all of our meals at home... and $100 is only a partial grocery bill for a week!

Milk is almost $5/gallon.
Eggs run $3/dozen at our local market.
Meat is outrageously priced (As of yesterday 3lb bag of chicken breasts was $12.97).
Produce is outrageously priced (again, as of yesterday, 3lb of apples were going for $6.50).
Peanut butter runs from $4-$6/jar.

God forbid you want to buy anything in "natural" or "organic" or "whole grain"... add $2-3 per item for that bit of text!

Indeed. Our grocery budget is $175/wk and that was enough to do for a family of 5 inclusive of a teenaged boy (who ate everything that wasn't nailed down). I'd be curious to see what $50 for seven days for 1 adult buys...because you could indeed do that here and probably not starve but it wouldn't likely be an exciting menu. I also neglect to mention that alcohol we consume at home (beer, wine) comes out of that same money. Now, the missus drinks vodka occasionally and I drink bourbon and we pay for each of those from our own pockets and not the grocery money.

So, if some effort were made to realize a savings of 60% off our grocery bill, that nets us $105 which is definitely worth a few hours extra effort. I don't consider doing the things to maintain the family budget to be work any more than I consider sitting down to pay the bills online to be work, or changing the toilet paper when it runs out work, or feeding the dogs work. It's part of what goes into running a household and you're going to have to do it anyway. I suppose I could pay someone to change the toilet paper or make up the grocery shopping list but that seems unlikely for any of us.

[BenignDesign]

I don't drink much. My booze budget is roughly $20 annually.

I've been working on the same bottle of apricot brandy for 3 years.

[Craig328]

No coupons coopins available.

This post has been edited by Craig328: 02 February 2012 - 12:10 PM