Prudent and Practical

January 27, 2010

The Coupon Experiment

Filed under: saving money — Tags: discounts, food, health, saving money — K @ 1:47 AM

Something has been bothering me.  I’m attracted to the real food movement and have been was making progress eating more real food.  I try not to eat processed foods and have been limiting packaged powders.  I was getting good at grocery shopping and finally staying either in or close to our budget.  Then something happened.  I’ve read quite a few blogger’s out there get their groceries for a little bit of nothing thanks to coupons and rebates and this intrigued me.  I subscribed to the Sunday paper for $7 per month to get coupons.  If it didn’t work out, I could easily cancel.  Here’s how it went…

Week #1: Wow!  I saved $10 on groceries!  Crap – I just spent double our budget.

Week #2: Wow!  I saved $13 on groceries!  Crap – I just spent double our budget, again.

Week #3: Wow!  I saved $16 on groceries!  Crap – I just spent almost double our budget.  The real food is disappearing from our cart :-(

Week #4: Wow! I saved $30 on groceries and only went a little over budget!  Cart filled with processed foods :-(

At this point I feel like I fell into a trap.  It’s winter in Iowa and there are no markets around here.  The nearest grocer that sells a decent supply of locally grown meats and organic produce is one hour away.  We need to save money and I actually ended up spending more, not just monetarily, but with our health as well.  In the last month, even though we watched what we ate during the holidays, D and I have both gained weight.  Our cabinets are getting more and more full, leading us to snack on, guess what, crap foods throughout the day.  At this point, I feel stuffed and upset to my stomach.  I blame the cereal and HFCS-laden white bread.

Week #5: Well, we’re stocked up on canned soups, fruits, and veggies.  We also have plenty of powdered cake, pancake, and cupcake mixes as well as cereal.  We did buy quite a bit more fresh produce than usual due to the store’s 80th anniversary sale.  We ended up $5 under budget and saving 25% off of our total bill due to the coupons.  Saving money makes D really happy.

I had worked out a system and kept a budget and was purchasing real food before all this couponing business.  Now we’re so into clipping, we have a stockpile of “Q’s”  that we can dig through and use without going over budget.  I’m feeling much better this week and am thinking of a plan to get more good food back into the cupboards.

I have found that many whole food producers do actually have coupons!  Many I can’t use around here, but my grocer does carry a few products.  Some whole foods retailers give away copies of magazines that have coupons in them or even coupon books!  I already have plans for a garden around our fire pit.  I have some herbs, garlic, a grapevine, and rhubarb planted around the house – that was my first step last year ~ edible landscaping!.  This year I’ll be adding some veggies and another grapevine.

See the next page to see how I’m going to save money on real food…

November 4, 2009

Early Christmas Shopping Deals

Filed under: saving money — Tags: bargains, Black Friday, discounts, free, holidays, online, sales, save money, saving money, shopping — K @ 11:59 PM

It’s that time of year again!  The Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are gradually getting posted as we eagerly wait to see how good or bad the discounts are this year.  For those who may not know, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s a day when many businesses make a profit and are in the black.  It’s also a day when greed takes over many people and bad things can happen.  Cyber Monday is the online version of Black Friday happening the Monday after Thanksgiving when people go back to work and apparently spend the day shopping online…

Going from personal experience, when the economy is good, there are a lot of freebies and awesome discounts.  When the economy isn’t great, the deals aren’t great either.  However, this year many businesses are taking part in online pre-Black Friday sales and not waiting until Thanksgiving weekend.  I’ve looked through some of the deals and so far there isn’t anything that has sparked my interest.  I’d love a new digital SLR camera, but the deals I’ve seen for both the pre-sales and Black Friday aren’t good enough to warrant a purchase.  See the below links for posted Black Friday ads and the pre-Black Friday sales that are happening right now!

Do you have a favorite Black Friday site you go to? Mine is GottaDeal which shows bargains all year long on a forum, but also has a Black Friday site that lists the Black Friday ads as they come out.  The following ads are currently listed:

  1. Gander Mountain
  2. Gymboree
  3. Half Price Books
  4. Harbor Freight
  5. Kmart
  6. Lowe’s
  7. Old Navy
  8. Sears
  9. Tanger Outlets

“Become” also has a Black Friday deals area.  One thing I like about their site is that you can click on a general item you’re interested in purchasing, such as digital cameras, and they’ll show you every store that has that item on Black Friday.

Many of the following stores have been in the news because of their early deals, so I’ll summarize what they’re offering for you here.

CVS and CVS Holiday

  • Offering weekly deals.

Kmart

Kohls

  • Power Hour pricing on November 6 and 7 (this Friday and Saturday).  There will be many deals and stores will be open until midnight.
  • Redeem Kohl’s Cash and Pick-Your-Day savings.
  • Save 20% on toys already marked 10-40% off.

Sears

  • Every Friday at 5pm through Saturday morning – “Black Friday Now” features weekly deals through Christmas.
  • Every Saturday 7am-12noon – doorbuster deals
  • Offering a credit for any November-release book you have purchased through Amazon.com, Target.com, or Walmart.com.  Use the credit on a purchase over $45 at Sears.com.

Target

Toys ‘R Us

Vistaprint

  • 50% off 2010 calendars, holiday Cards and many holiday products
  • Free shipping on orders over $50
  • Up to 50% off custom photo gifts

Walmart

  • 100 toys for $10 each through the holiday season.
  • Popular books will be selling for $8.98.
  • 2 for $30 specials on Nintendo Wii games.
  • Saturday (11/7/2009) – pre-Black Friday sale.  Hot deals include a Sharp 42″ LCD HDTV for $498 and an Xbox 360 System with free $100 Gift Card for $199.
  • Walmart.com has also started a “Deal of the Day” where they will be selling one item each day at a Black Friday-level price. Today’s deal is a 32″ LCD HDTV for just $298 with free in-store pickup.

Do you participate in Black Friday?  Why or why not?  What’s the best deal you’ve found? Is there anything you have your eye on this year?

November 3, 2009

How to Get Cheap Tickets in Vegas

Filed under: saving money — Tags: bargains, discounts, eating out, entertainment, food, free, restaurants, review, saving money, travel — K @ 6:50 PM

During my shuttle from the airport to the Las Vegas Hilton, the driver explained how to get cheap tickets if you hadn’t purchased any yet.  I already had two Cirque Mystere tickets, but there were three of us that wanted to go so I checked out Tix 4 Tonight.  Tix 4 Tonight sells discount vouchers usually the day of the show.  The available showings post at 9:30 AM and the store opens at 10:00 AM.  They also offer discounts for local exhibits (Bodies Exhibit at Luxor and Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum at The Venetian to name a couple) and discount vouchers for the local restaurants and buffets.

My Experience:

I used (or was with someone who used) the service three times.  The first location I visited was at Hawaiian Marketplace.  After standing in line for 15 minutes, Mom and I made it to a sales rep.  The rep was friendly, helpful, and fast, explaining different exhibits we might be interested in.  We purchased tickets for the Bodies Exhibit and Madame Tussaud’s and the tickets had to be used that evening.  If we didn’t have enough time, we could bring the tickets back and trade them for tomorrow.  We stopped at the Bodies Exhibit first and learned a lesson.  The tickets that you purchase at Tix4Tonight have to be traded in for actual tickets at the event or exhibit.  This meant standing in line another 10 minutes to trade the slips for actual tickets.  Mom was only there for 2-1/2 days – all the waiting was annoying.

Since Darren and I had tickets to Mystere, after lunch the following day we stopped at the Bills Casino location across from our hotel, Bally’s to get a ticket for my mom. (I switched hotels when the rest of the family arrived in town.)  Lesson #2 learned - when you purchase a voucher for a show, you’ve simply bought a seat for that show.  So, you must haul your tush across town and trade that voucher in for a ticket as fast as your legs will carry you – the sooner you do the trade, the better seat you’ll get.  You don’t get an assigned seat until you have an actual ticket from the show’s venue.

For buffets and restaurants, you pay a $2 or $3 service fee per person and they give you a discount pass.  The average buffet we went to was over $18, so a 25% discount per person definitely helps.

There are now 7 locations along the strip:

  1. Fashion Show Mall (strip entrance in front of Neiman Marcus)
  2. Hawaiian Marketplace (along strip in front of Polo Towers)
  3. North Strip (south of Riviera Hotel)
  4. Showcase Mall (south strip near the giant Coke bottle)
  5. Downtown (4 Queens Hotel at the Fremont Street Experience)
  6. Bills Casino (on the corner between Bally’s and the Flamingo)
  7. Casino Royale (across from the Mirage and next to Denny’s)

What I Liked:

  • Discounted tickets – the shows out here are expensive!
  • The employees were efficient
  • You get a $2 fee discount and entrance to the short (VIP) line if you bring your used ticket stubs back the next day
  • Online coupon for a fee discount
  • Many locations

What I Didn’t Like:

  • The long waits in line
  • Running around trading vouchers for tickets

If you’re not pressed for time and don’t mind waiting in lines or taking chances on ticket availability, Tix 4 Tonight may be for you.  If you are staying at a casino-hotel that is the home venue for a show, you may be able to get discounted tickets there.  For example, the Price is Right tickets are $50, but because I was staying at Bally’s (where the show is) I was able to snag tickets for $37.

There are also the freebie attractions at the casino-hotels.

There are a few other attractions that I didn’t list because I didn’t visit them.  You can see them at About.com’s Vegas page.

Have you used Tix 4 Tonight?  What did you think and did you save a lot?  As far as the freebies go I really enjoyed the Bellagio attractions, how about you?

August 11, 2009

10 Ways to Save Money on Books

Filed under: fun,saving money — Tags: books, discounts, reading, saving money — K @ 4:05 PM

To me, my love of reading is both a blessing and a curse – I have this undying thirst for knowledge. There’s nothing like curling up with a good book and a steaming cup of hot chocolate or herbal tea to learn something new! At the same time, that “thirst” can get overwhelming, especially when I have to put reading on the back burner. I feel like I can’t read fast enough to keep up with the growing list of books I want to read.

(more…)

August 4, 2009

A Trip to the Amish Countryside

Filed under: life — Tags: bargains, discounts, food, random, sales, shopping — K @ 2:56 PM

Hi all,

In an effort to add a little more personality to the blog, I’d like to start sharing bits and pieces of my non-make-an-attempt-at-everything life.  This is because although I’m usually doing something that results in a very cool end product, I feel the need to show you that I really do get out of the house and do other things… sometimes ;-)

So for my first attempt at this, I’d like to share with you one of my favorite places to go: Kalona, Iowa.  After doing some research, I found out that the Kalona area has the largest Amish and Mennonite settlement west of the Mississippi River!  You’ll never visit Kalona without seeing a barn quilt (pictured below) or a few buggies making their way through the town or countryside.

There are a lot of unique stores, a quilt museum, and bakeries, but our favorite places to go are Stringtown Grocery and Twin County Dairy Factory.  Stringtown Grocery sells stuff in bulk and you can find some unique ingredients there too.  On our most recent trip we purchased burdock root, licorice root, sassafras bark, and fennel seeds to make homemade rootbeer-type drinks.  They also sell canning supplies, cookbooks, and seed.  We usually try to squeeze in a trip to the cheese factory because they sell excellent “squeaky cheese” – cheese curds that have not been refrigerated yet, as well as specialty cheeses, jams, and a few gifts.  We visited the discount store this past weekend for the first time.  This store sells scratch and dent items as well as just expired items at a very steep discount.  All three of these stores are located on the same road.

And if you go about 10 miles to the east, you’ll find good ‘ole Riverside, Iowa.  Any self-respecting Trekkie nerd will know that as the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.  I’ve even got a photo of that as well as some Enterprise-esque “statues”.  Every June, Riverside holds Trek Fest and some of the celebrities show up too!

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