Guru Goddess

Bulk bins are great

Along the same lines with watching prices, be sure to check bulk bins at your local store. These bulk bins are usually stocked full with cost savings. For instance, dried beans, while a little longer for preparation, have an enormous cost savings potential over canned beans. Sugar and flour are a couple other bulk items that are priced extremely well versus their bagged competitors.

Keeping an eye on your local bulk bin prices may just be the saving grace when it comes to shopping in bulk. There is another advantage to shopping the bulk bins. Most of the items stored in the bins are made for open air storage and will last an extremely long time before spoiling. The biggest thing to remember, when shopping bulk bins, is to make sure you have a good set of storage containers for all of the items. These containers should have a sealing mechanism which makes the container air tight along with a good marking system to be able to quickly identify what is in each container.

Storage made easy

While saving money, bulk shopping also allows for easy storage. If you are a bargain hunter and lack in the area of organizing, bulk shopping can help even out the playing field. Bulk items are far easier to store than individual items. Take, for instance, a solitary can of green beans. This can, more often than not, will get lost in the back of your pantry, especially when you realize that you need a can of green beans.

Having a full box of canned green beans, on top of which can be stacked other boxes of canned goods, helps to identify. What is in the box is listed by the label on the outside of the box. As items are neatly arranged in your pantry by the boxes they are in, storage and respective identification are made easier.

Watch your prices

Remember, the whole reason for bulk shopping is to save money. It is important to pay close attention to sale prices while shopping in bulk. There are many times that the shopping clubs do not have the best prices. Looking through sales ads is helpful in making sure you get the right target price.

If stores have sales going on and even more so if you can couple a sale with a coupon shopping clubs just cannot match the grocery store prices. Go ahead and buy a full case of whatever you are looking for to get the same bulk shopping with a better deal. Paying attention to sales and other specials going on at local stores can actually pay dividends when it comes to bulk shopping. There is nothing better than getting the same bulk items for a cheaper price than you would get at a bulk emporium.

Another possibility is to go through the week and see who can find the best deal, not even worrying about the category that it is in. Let’s say someone found a pair of shoes that were originally $300 and ended up with them, in hand, for $50, while another person purchased a certain brand of cereal for free, even though it never goes on sale. This game will have to be judged on a personal system, between friends because it is difficult to assign a point value across categories. The winner is whoever the group thought got the best deal on what they bought.

Have dinners – This goes right along with making a game of frugality. Invite a group of friends over and have each one bring a dish. To add to the difficulty, create a spending cap when making the dish. For instance, no prepared dish will be over five dollars. This forces people to get clever with their shopping and allows everyone else in attendance to get different ideas for frugal shopping and cooking. If the honor system won’t work for you, then have everyone bring in their receipts and award a prize to the best dish and also the least expensive meal.

The point is, when you share your shopping tips with others, everyone can win. Money is saved and fun is had at the same time. By sharing shopping tips with friends and family, you have just one more avenue to connect on, and isn’t that the whole point? Sure, saving money is great, but why not have some fun with those closest to you at the same time.

Finding great deals is an exciting adventure, but it is not an adventure to relish alone. By sharing shopping tips with friends and family, everyone can participate and be enveloped with the excitement of scoring the best deals. Here are a few ideas on how to share some shopping tips with those you love.

Coupons – Over the past year, with the recession growing on people’s minds, the use of coupons has become an art. Help others find this fine art and teach them what you know. Compare receipts after every shopping trip to see who saved the most, both in total dollars and percentage of the final bill. For instance, one person may have saved $100 on their trip, while the other saved almost 80%.

Get together for coupon clipping and see who can find the most coupons for a certain item, or who can find the biggest coupon amount. Rotate homes each week and make sure you have some food at this get together.

Make a game – List an item each week and see who can get it the cheapest. Let’s take Cheerios as an example. By the end of the week, the goal is to be able to combine the most coupons and store deals to get a box of Cheerios the cheapest. Of course, this is only one idea as far as making a game with your shopping habits.

Sort – The baseball card protector sheets allow like coupons to be combined into a single sleeve and even divided up by date. Labeling the sheets just like the isles in your favorite grocery store will allow you to pull only the coupons that you need. It can also give you a quick glance at the expiration dates to make sure you are not left stranded at the checkout.

Deals – Checking the weekly flyers put out by your local stores. Many of these fliers can be found online or come in the mail. Don’t forget to check at the front of the store as well because many places are now putting special coupon books up front for the customers that physically come in.

Websites – Check around for websites which pool all of the local deals. Different sites will also help you know when to combine a sale with certain coupons. Taking the time to do a little sale research before you make that trip to the store is wise. It can save big bucks when it comes to using those coupons. A good number of sites will also list all of the best values between compositing stores, such as where you can find the best price on crackers or milk. Ask around to find out which sites are local to your area.

Basically, the whole idea is to keep the coupons easily accessible and organized while being able to weed out the ones that have expired. By following these simple steps, you will be on your way to coupon clipping heaven and massive amounts of savings.