1) One of the best tools that you can use if you want to save money at the store is a price tracker spreadsheet. My best advice is to fill it out in pencil, then when your price changes on various items that you have on the list, you can just erase and write in the “new” price. This is the one that I created and use in my own household:
2) Don’t shop without a list! As you peruse your sales flyers each week, jot down the items that you want to purchase, make a note of the store that you need to purchase the item from, and how much it is on sale for. You can use a general list, like this one that I created:
or you can also use a category-specific list like this:
[p.s...this is the list that works seamlessly with my Coupon Organization System].
3) If you want to save the most when you shop, you have to use coupons. To get some ideas, you can browse through my Coupon Tutorial posts (text and video tutorials). I also recommend that you check out my favorite website about penny pinching, Pocket Your Dollars. This website alerts its’ readers about tons of weekly deals and bargains, and even does a sale flyer round up each week for all of the popular stores.
4) Find a way to organize your coupons, especially if you want to save some serious money. I’m not necessarily telling you to buy my organization system (although I think it’s the best one around), but definitely find a way to keep track of the coupons that you clip. There’s no sense in clipping them if you can’t find them when you get to the store!
5) Enter the store prepared! Match up your store sale items to the coupons that you have on-hand before you step foot in the store. A good way to do that is to use our Store/Coupon Companion sheet:
[you can download any of the files you see above for free (!!!) by clicking on the "download" arrow that appears in the window].
