Maximize Your #Couponing with Meal Planning

Once you have built a stockpile of non-perishable foods, you're ready to move on to the next step of maximizing your savings: meal planning. If you meal plan a week ahead of time and match your meals with the sales for the week, you can really improve your savings.

It can be difficult to do this on your own. You'll need to have your recipes readily available and scan through them to find ingredients that are on sale. It can be a time consuming process, but worth it. When I meal plan and match sales to meals ahead of time, my typical savings goes from 33% to 60% or more per shopping trip.

It can typically take me an extra hour to meal plan and match the sales with the meal plan. This is on top of the hour it takes me to cut out coupons every week, and the hour it takes me to create coupon matchups.

If you don't have this kind of time to devote to couponing and saving money, you might want to consider a neat website called Food on the Table that does it for you. Food on the Table is an easy meal planning service that matches meals with sales at local grocery stores. With Food on the Table, you'll will be able to find thousands of easy, healthy recipes, save money by knowing the items that are on sale, and simplify your shopping experience with a well organized grocery list. 

10 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do for #Free

Photo Credit: bigfoto.com

1. Save a Life Do you know CPR? Just because you've seen it on TV doesn't mean you're ready to go into action when it's time to save a life. Good news: you can take free CPR classes through many local hospitals, fire departments, or even online. It might sound like a boring way to spend your evening, but your efforts could save a life.
2. Read Used Books -- I love books, but being frugal, I hate paying for them. That's the main reason I haven't bought a Kindle yet--I'd end up spending more on books than I do now. A couple of ways I get books cheap or free: local libraries of course are FREE and a great resource (support your local library as much as you can!) and used bookstores are great, too. I buy books at used bookstores and then trade them in again later. I end up spending a little money, but not as much as new books. Another way to get free to cheap books is through online swap sites like PaperBackSwap or Title Trader. You list books you don’t want and then wait for someone to request it. Once someone’s laid claim to it, you simply mail it out and you’re given credit towards getting a book you really want. You will have to pay for shipping your old books out, but on paperbacks it isn’t much and you'll get books back in return.
3. Find Needed Household Items What's better than recycling? Reusing! That's the premise behind Freecycle, a nonprofit community group that encourages users to give away old items instead of throwing them away. You can clean out your old stuff and replace it with new stuff for free. If you see a listing you want, simply respond to it. These are usually operated on a first-come-first-served basis and you are responsible for transporting, shipping, or picking up the items you want.
4. Learn a new Language Being bilingual is an increasingly valuable skill to add to your resume. There are a number of resources available on the web to help you learn languages via Podcasts. A good one to try is the BBC. There, you can brush up on any number of languages. Great idea: load the files onto your MP3 player and take it with you to listen to while you go about your day.
5. Learn How to Run a Business Most small businesses fail within the first year. It can be difficult to learn how to run a business on your own. That's why you can get a little help and advice for free from the Small Business Administration. Local business centers offer classes that can teach you how to write a business plan or even how to take care of all the tax details associated with business ownership.
6. Become Tech Savvy Lacking tech experience? There is a solution to at least some of your tech woes. Apple stores nationwide offer workshops on a variety of (Apple) software and hardware techniques as well as some computer basics.
7. Make Phone Calls If your long distance charges are getting you down, stop using your phone to make calls and start using your computer. Sign up for Skype or Gizmo Project and you can make computer-to-computer calls for free to anywhere in the world. Hook up your Webcam and you’ll have an instant videophone.
8. Take a trip to a Museum As a teacher, I strongly recommend you take your children to as many museums as you can--they're great places for learning. We recently went to Houston and got to visit their awesome Children's Museum. My kids loved it! Going to a museum can be pretty expensive, however, especially if you’re trying to bring a family along. Many museums offer free days or hours, especially during the summer (like the Art Institute of Chicago summer programs). Why pay $20 to see art when you can examine it for free?
9. Receive Email Reminders I have a terrible memory and I also tend to lose track of time. Now I can never forget a birthday again when I use free email reminder systems like Memo to Me. Give them the date you want to remember and your email address and the system will send you a note that will gently remind you to remember that important date. If you want to be really proactive, you can also pick out free eCards to be sent at a later date. Hallmark carries a great collection of free cards, but you can also try out Hipster Cards or CardCow.
10. Download Music (Not illegal) Not all music available for download online is illegal, but you have to be careful about what you choose. Many artists release songs for free download so that they can get more fans. Check out this list of sites that offer free music. You'll be amazed at the variety and maybe even discover your new favorite band! 

Can you think of something you get for free that I haven't listed? Please share in a comment below!

Save on the Holidays -- 5 Must-Do Tips to Slash your Budget

The Holidays are coming quicker than you know, and it's this time of year that our frugal souls can make a run for it. Keep in your holiday budget by planning ahead.

1. Stock up on Christmas gifts throughout the year. At the end of every season, stores have items on clearance. Stores like Kohl's frequently have coupons like $10 off $20 which can be used on clearance items as well. Stocking up on toys, bath products, candles, fun gadgets, sports items, etc. can be a smart way to save on gifts. Tip: Target has their annual toy clearance in July, usually the last Thursday is when prices hit their rock bottom.

2. Stockpile non-perishable baking goods when you see a sale. Throughout the year, you'll see sales on sugar, flour, baking mixes, chocolate chips, canned fruit, etc. Buy extras and you will have what you need for all of that holiday baking!

3. Use those great sites I keep telling you about: EBates.com and Swagbucks. EBates can help you save money on your online purchases and by using Swagbucks, you can earn giftcards. Use the giftcards to buy gifts, or to give as gifts or stocking stuffers.

4. Participate in cookie swap. Instead of making dozens and dozens of different cookies, costing you lots of money in the process, get your friends together and bring cookies in bags to swap with each other.

5. Santa shops at JBF. JBF, or Just Between Friends, is an excellent consignment sale. There are tons of like-new clothes, baby items, books, electronics, strollers, furniture, and toys. Most items are at least half off retail and you can hardly tell the difference between new and JBF. In my area, the JBF sale is this week. If you haven't already, check out my previous post on JBF, and go to the Just Between Friends site to see when a sale is happening around you.

Do you have tips for saving around the holidays? Share below! I'd love to hear from you!

Frugal Living: Cutting Your Families' Hair

As a frugalista, my "bible" for living cheap is Amy Dacyczyn's The Tightwad Gazette . If you've never read it, I highly suggest you should. Some of the tips may be outdated, as it was written a while ago, but Amy gave me courage to try so many new things in my quest to live on less. Some of the things I learned from Amy: how to use leftovers to make a variety of cheap breakfasts, making your own yogurt, using items around your house in creative ways, and the courage to "garbage pick" good items others throw out. You can check it out on Amazon:

One of the things Amy taught me was the courage to cut my families' hair. I have a husband and two boys, so by cutting their hair, I save between $30-$45 every 6 weeks. That's a savings of $240 a year!

It sounds scary, but it's not as hard as it seems. Of course, it's easier if you're starting off with toddlers or preschoolers so you can learn before they get too worried about how they look. Neither one of my boys remembers going to the barber because I started cutting their hair when they were very young.

The key to cutting hair is to start cutting less than you think you should. Cut it all a consistent length, then check and see if it needs to go shorter.