Cha-Ching

I posted a few months ago about my money saving new year's resolution here. I'm still working on it and I'm really pleased to share some of my progress. For a while I felt like I had been working at it but I wasn't seeing any results. Over this last week I feel like things have started to come together and I'm proud of my thriftiness and just had to share....

All for Free

• $10 Starbucks gift card in the mail that I won by using Swagbucks



• $25 Master Card Gift Card from the Huggies "Enjoy the Ride" rewards program



• Coupons a free stuff, no purchase required (Kashi crackers, Swiffer refill, Scrubbing Bubbles refill)



• A free notepad from Snapfish



• A free notepad from VistaPrint



• $15 check for reading emails and taking surveys from Inbox dollars



• A $3 check from taking a survey from Pinecone Research



• I saved over $30 today at the grocery store (for the last several weeks the average was around $25 so I'm excited to have reached this milestone

I'm starting to realize how much money people can save by using coupons but I can also see how it can quickly become an obsession. I usually try to pick up the Sunday paper and I'll print online coupons but I don't spend more than half an hour a week doing this. I am also not going near the drugstores, no CVS or Walgreens for me yet. That seems way too complicated but I know that there are big money making opportunities there. I shop just once a week, either at the Commissary or at Aldi. I have found that menu planning is saving me a ton of time and money. Our envelope system is working really well. We've discovered that we HAVE to go the day Mike gets paid otherwise we'll slip and use our debit cards. It can be hard to take out such a large sum from the ATM but it's nice to know that everything that is left can go back into savings in addition to the money that is already directly transferred into our savings account.