Become a Savvy Shopper in 12 Weeks: Week 1

Welcome to the 12 week course!  Here are your daily reading assignments and homework assignments.

Monday- Take the time today to set a weekly grocery budget.  If you have a significant other, I want you to involve them in your decision.  Do not set your budget significantly lower than your current one at first. You will begin to see savings, but at first you are going to use those savings for other purposes (like stockpiling).

• Be realistic. You won’t see significant savings at first, but it will come.
• Do NOT go over this budget during this course. (Everyone makes mistakes though.)
• If you can, keep this budget in cash.  You will be less likely to overspend.
• You budget will greatly vary depending on the money you have available and how many people you have in your family.

Tuesday-You are going to get friendly with coupons throughout this course.  Today I want you to read about several coupon organization methods, and choose the one that you THINK will work best for you.  (Don’t worry, I have used 4 or 5 methods during the past 3 years.)

• Coupon Binder=The most time consuming method due to cutting and sorting, but the best method to save the most money. This requires a binder (usually around $15), dividers, baseball card sleeves, and usually a few other odds and ends.  This is the best for coupon pros and building a stockpile.
• Coupon Box or Coupon Caddy (small check file)=This method is medium in time, because the coupons will have to be cut and sorted.  This is the method I used for several years. The problem for me was that I quickly had too many coupons for my caddy. You will need a box or check file with labeled sections.
• File by Insert=The least work of all coupon organization, because you do not cut them out.  The downside?  Well, you don’t always have the coupons you want when you need them.  You will need an easy filing system, and a small coupon holder for cut coupons. I use this system, because I am on limited time, and I have a big stockpile already.

Wednesday-All you have to do is set up your coupon organization. (Not as easy as it sounds.)  Check out Walmart, the Dollar store, or office supply stores for cheap supplies.

Thursday-Make a space in your home for a small stockpile area.  You may not be on board with this at first, but it is the most important step to help take your savings from 30-40% to 70-80% after time.  I have a shelf in my spare bedroom and in my bathroom.  If you don’t have the extra space, get creative!  How about under the bed containers or over the door hangers? We will talk lots more about stockpiling later, but you do have to have a little space!

Friday-Today you have two assignments.

1. Figure out the biggest circulation newspaper that is available to you.  Either subscribe to it, or find a place where you can pick it up inexpensively on Sunday.  I recommend 1 paper per person in your household. (HINT: It isn’t an assignment, but I would do your best to get started buying a paper this weekend.)  Here is a site that provides newspaper subscriptions at discounted rates.

2. Find a frugal blogger that covers stores in your area.  This will be key for next week’s assignments and to lessen your work load!  I routinely cover several grocery stores and all the drug stores.   Visit BeCentsable, the Frugal Map, and Inexpensively for help.  If you have trouble finding someone who covers your local store, ask me, and I will do my best to help.

Whew!  I told you that the first week would be tough. I decided that one post per week would be best, in case you needed to skip a step or budget your time accordingly.  Hang in there, it gets a lot easier!!!

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