I know that many of you have been hitting the stores this week, and will be in the coming weeks in hopes of getting a fabulous clearance deal. I mean, everyone you’ve ever known you’d call thrifty talks about clearance deals, so it’s one sure-fire way to save money, right?

Wrong.

You have really got to watch what you are doing. The word “clearance” is overused. It used to mean that a store was clearing away product, wanted it gone fast, and was willing to mark it down big to make that happen. Now, meh, it kinda means that, but stores are smart. They aren’t going to mark it down 75% when shoppers will take things off the shelf at 30% off. There’s no sense in making unnecessary, drastic cuts when so many people go insane at the very mention of the word ‘clearance.’

Post-Christmas sales are the worst in big box stores. The next holiday is Valentine’s Day, and that takes up very little space. It’s also still the height of winter so there’s plenty of time to gradually replace winter jackets and sweaters with bikinis and tank tops. There’s really no rush to get all that holiday stuff off the racks and shelves.

Before Christmas, I went into the holiday section and looked around at the ornaments, gift wrap, gift boxes, etc. Everything that day was 40% off. This past Saturday, the day after Christmas, that section was 50% off and there were so many people and carts it looked like a war zone. Yesterday, at that same Meijer, and where the holiday trees and things once were was vast, open space and what was left was only a shelf or two. Everything was still at 50% off.

It went that fast because the sign said ‘clearance’ and because it’s clearance shopping season. Sometimes I wonder if the guys in the back room at Meijer watch through those cameras with bowls of popcorn with psychology professors and just laugh… “Watch this sir! We have an extremely limited selection, the holiday is over, and we’re going to create a sense of urgency to buy this stuff  by simply using the color orange and using the word clearance, and marking down a mere  10% more!”

Years ago, when people didn’t look for clearance sales as they do now, and back when stores ordered far more than they needed, there were deals. Weeks after Christmas, there’d still sit bins full of rosy cheeked Santa gift wrap and 90% off bows that just didn’t sell well during the actual season. This rarely happens anymore. You’ll find some rock bottom pricing at Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite-Aid. These places are severely limited in shelf and rack spacing.

5. Know where to shop.

You aren’t likely to get the best deal at Meijer, or Walmart, or Target, or KMart. You are likely to get the best deals at the mall or drug stores.

Last year, a cute Carter’s outfit caught my attention at JCPenney. Clearance price, $6! The same little outfit was at Meijer, but the clearance price there was $13. I started comparing the two types of stores and example after example, this rang true.  Watch yourself at the big box stores. They have more storage space, they can afford to stretch out clearance a little longer.

Big box stores often have things on clearance while similar items are on sale for a comparable price. Seriously, I was at Target once and found cereal on clearance for 15% off (laughable, I know) but the real shame was that the entire brand line of cereal was 25% off that week – it was cheaper to buy off the shelf than to buy the clearanced items. I’ve seen other examples of this on the Meijer grocery clearance rack. I don’t think it’s intentional, I think this happens when you have such a large store.

The rule of thumb I find true is, the bigger the store, the higher the clearance price.

4. Check the condition.

Stores often have an as-is type policy for clearance deals, so check out what you are buying before you pull out your wallet.

Last week, I had my son try on a winter coat at Meijer, price tag: $13! I made him zip it up, pull on the hood, the whole shebang. I was ready to throw it in the cart when I realized he was fumbling on the zipper. He couldn’t unzip it. I couldn’t unzip it. I checked the other coats on the rack – same problem. I saved myself $13 and the inconvenience and hassle of having to buy another coat just by taking a few moments in the store.

Try it on. Check out the cut. It’s not a jacket if it lifts above your navel when you lift your arms, it’s a burlap sack with arm holes and isn’t worth even the minuscule price on the tag unless you are going to re-craft the fabric for something useful. Check the elastics to see if they are weak.

You don’t always have to put it back on the rack, just know what you are getting into. I have a fabulous wool winter coat that I grabbed for $8 at one of those ‘take an additional % off’, and then ‘take another % off because it’s Tuesday’ type department sales. The original price tag was $279. The cut was perfect, but the buttons were falling off. This was acceptable to me. I am no seamstress and I have to re-attach these from time to time, but I knew I was getting into this when I bought the coat.

Don’t be shy about opening boxes or asking an employee to help you out, if it looks like an open box. In some cases, open box deals are wonderful – Best Buy is a reliable place for such things. I can’t trust your average KMart or WalMart employee to know if all the necessary components are still inside.

3. Buy what you know.

Unless you have been shopping for weeks for TV sets and you’ve compared brands, reviews/rating,  features and price, you shouldn’t get lured in by the words, ’sale,’ ‘blowout’, ‘clearance.’ Least of all listen to Crazy Larry from TV or his sales people trying to tell you what a rock-bottom deal they can get you in, today only. There may be a suggested retail price of $1299 on the tag that makes the $399 orange tag look good, but you have no idea – this model could be obsolete or they could be selling all day long for $200 elsewhere.

If you don’t know it, don’t buy it until you do. The last thing you want to do is realize that what you bought all the children you know mp3 players that take batteries instead of charging through a USB port. Forty bucks in batteries later, you may realize that you saved nothing on your great purchase, and you spent more.

One year I found Tyco RC planes, cars, and boats on clearance at Toys R Us for $20-$25 each. As we’d purchased one the Christmas prior for over $100, I put several in my cart and on the spot planned out birthdays, father’s day gifts, the next coming holidays, etc., until I realized that these were the models that did not come with the battery. The batteries were $45 each. Those RC models went right back on the shelf.

Still, if there’s an awfully tempting deal in front of you and feel the need to buy now, then by all means, use your phone a friend option and call someone who does, or someone who can search online for you in a few seconds.

2. Put the ‘hunt’ back into bargain hunting.

Be wary of fresh clearance. It’s often the same price as a regular sale.

Find what you want and make decisions based on the information you have. If you see the jacket that caught your eye twice since last fall on the clearance rack and there’s 2 left in your size, but it’s only 40% off, you should probably pick it up. If it’s just a run of the mill red sweater that you know you’ll wear, but isn’t anything special and there’s dozens left in all sizes, wait. The price is much likely to fall lower.

Find your prey, stalk it, and pounce when it’s at it’s most vulnerable point.

1. Be practical.

No matter how low the price, do not listen the voice in your head that helps you justify bad purchases. You know the voice, it says things like,

“There are tons of occasions in which this puke green sweater dress with raspberry belt would be perfect for!” or,

“Those boots at that price? You can suffer through a mere half size too small without a problem!” or,

“Sure, your daughter isn’t into bright colors this year, but I am certain by this time next year she’ll totally be into neon colored pink camo snow suit.” or,

“I can wear wide leg pants.”

Buying stuff you don’t need negates any savings you think you got for the day. I see this crap all the time at thrift stores, brand new, with tags.

Always ask yourself… Do I need it? Will I really use/wear it? If there’s any hesitation, walk away and look at something else or go get a pretzel or something.

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Many people overlook drug stores for savings. I can understand why this is… drug stores tend to have a limited selection of items, they often carry upscale brands that come with higher price tags, and the sales circulars often are an odd collection of laxatives, Ace Bandage twin packs, .09 pencils and cans of sardines.

Beyond prescriptions and medical necessities, these stores are otherwise your impulse stop shopping bonanza. Russel Stover c andy. Hallmark cards. A Snuggie for your dog. Magazines. Four of the top 100 best sellers. Large print crossword puzzles. $9 toasters and Ped Egg refills.

If you chuckle because you find my description accurate, then you may be surprised to find that drug stores can save you hundreds of dollars per year!

I invite you to check out:

www.iheartriteaid.com

www.iheartwags.com

www.iheartcvs.com

These sites are the best resources I can find online with constantly updated information. It can be overwhelming if you’ve never bargain shopped at a drug store before.

Starting in January, I am going to start to highlight some of my drug store deals on this blog. I haven’t shopped at any of them in nearly a year as I’d stocked up enough razors, hair coloring, soap, body wash, shampoo/conditioner, toothpaste, etc., to last. My linen closet is getting a little low on inventory so I am going to start stocking up again.

In the meantime, check out those websites!

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Empty Fridge?

How not to shop…

I once shopped with a neighbor/relative who had some car trouble and needed a ride to the store. She had a food stamp budget of $600 for the month for a household with 6 people. The youngest child was an infant, and so all of those needs were taken care of with WIC. The other three children were in school. They received free breakfast and lunch there through the week. The other adult in the house worked and ate out 5 days per week. This was a month where there were no vacations from school, so let’s tally up the meals she was going to prepare, shall we?

Dinner for 2 adults, 4 children x 31

Lunch for 2 adults, 4 children on weekends x 8

Breakfast for 2 adults, 4 children on weekends x 8

Lunch for herself and 1 infant on weekdays x 20

67 meals to prepare for. She’s got $9 per meal to spend here, which I think is awfully generous considering that 20 of these meals are just herself and a toddler. One could spend $15 per dinner meal and still have $135 leftover for cereal and lunch meat and bread for breakfast and lunches and eat really, really well.

This family, however, did not eat really well. They didn’t even eat decent. To be honest, they often ran out of food and had ‘borrow’ things from my house, or spend more money on food.

The reason was, my relative could not plan ahead. She bought crap. She couldn’t seem to forsee that food was a necessity every.single.day. I joke with my kids when they tell me they are hungry. I sometimes respond, “Didn’t I just feed you yesterday?” They get to laugh along because they know they aren’t going to go without a meal. Some kids don’t get that joke because the adults in their world can’t plan past today.

You can easily assume that the house was void of food when the first of the month rolled around when we did this shopping. I didn’t use coupons back then. I just had a strict weekly budget (I didn’t have food stamps) and lived tightly within it.

The first stop in the store was at a display with Pepsi 2 liter bottles for .59. This was quite a loss leader! The limit was 10, so I piled 10 into my cart. My relative looked horrified. For a brief moment I thought that maybe she had a much healthier household than mine, but then I remembered that in fact, drank Pepsi. I’d watched her children while she ran to buy some in the past, as well as picked up some for her when I ran to the store. She made Pepsi runs all the time. She placed 1 in her cart.

It was my turn to be horrified. One? Really? When I asked her if she’d read the sign that said .59, just to be sure. She nodded. I quickly explained that this was going to be like a 3-4 week Pepsi supply for our house.  I didn’t quite understand, but we moved on.

We walked down the cereal aisle and I was thrilled to find store brand cereal on sale for $1. One dollar per box! Oh, this was awesome! The limit was 10, so I bought 10. I had store brand crisp rice to make cereal bar treats, store brand chex to make snack mix, and several boxes of my son’s then-favorite, which were the generic version of Cocoa Puffs. I would be set on cereal for weeks to come, plus, I was a bag of marshmallows and a bag of pretzels away from a few low-cost treats.

My neighbor asked her 6 year old son which box of cereal he’d like. He chose Lucky Charms. She threw the box in the cart indifferently. Small box, not on sale, $3. I quietly pointed out to her that for the $3, she could get 3 boxes of the store brand Lucky Charms and have enough to last a while. She didn’t really say anything, but I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me behind my back. I took the mental note that not everyone appreciates the store brand. I can respect that, though I can’t wrap my mind around why, with this many children, there was only a single box of cereal in the cart anyhow. Thinking of her feisty little crew of children, I could imagine they could go through a small box like this in a day, unsupervised and 2 days even if the bowls were carefully poured. Knowing that their family was going to be down to one vehicle for a while, and our distance from the grocery store, I had no comprehension of her resistance to stock up. Really. I had a Lewis Black moment of pound-fisting inner rage, followed by a screwed up angry face, followed by the blank look of a total lack of understanding.

I attempted to console my inner frustration by thinking that maybe I’d watch her stock up on frozen waffles or boxed pancake mix or even a loaf of bread for toast, but I didn’t see her buy any of that stuff. She did, however, grab 2 bags of Hostess mini doughnuts at $2.50/bag. I often went to a Hostess outlet store that was literally a 3 minute drive from the store we stood in. I casually mentioned to her that I’d been planning to make a stop there this week anyhow, and asked if she’d ever been there. She said that she had. I mentioned that we could make a stop there after we left this store. Despite the $1/bag doughnuts that awaited us at the next store, she left the pricey ones in the cart.

I decided I could no longer butt in and just let her shop without my scrutiny. Box upon box of snack crackers, bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, Lunchables. One dozen bakery made chocolate chip cookies for $5.99! $7/lb. deli meat. $6/lb. deli cheese. Cans of aerosol cheese flavored product at $4 a whack, in 4 different flavors. Nothing really tops a cheez cracker like a fake bacon flavored fake cheese cheeseturd out of a can. Yum. She spent more on fake cheese than I spent on meat to last for 3 weeks.

At the checkout I allowed myself to glance over her loot: I saw one pound of hamburger and one package of hot dogs. I tried to hide the quizzed look on my face because I regularly had her children over for dinner and I knew that 1 pound of hot dogs was just enough for the kids, if the adults weren’t eating. And one itty bitty pound of hamburger? WTF are you going to do with that for 7 people over the course of  a month? No flour, no sugar, no cans of vegetables, no frozen vegetables, no fresh fruit, no canned fruit, no family sized cans of soup, no pasta, no rice, no chicken, no buns… I couldn’t see any food staple item. Seriously, I couldn’t make a single meal of out what she’d bought, unless you chop up hot dogs real small and make a bun out of cheezy crackers and serve with a side of ice cream. That might make a mighty fine meal on Friday, but what will you eat the rest of the week?

The total at the checkout was over $400. Two carts, and nothing to prepare a single meal. After we loaded up my van and unloaded it all into her kitchen, she glanced at the clock and picked up the phone and told her husband to bring home a pizza for dinner. Lo and behold, two weeks after eating their fill of crackers and ice cream, the inevitable neighbor knock on my door came … not for a cup of sugar, but asking if we had an extra loaf of bread to spare. I was also asked on several occasions for a quick ride down the street to the store where she could pick up a 2 liter of Pepsi (for $1.89) and a cold deli sandwich that was allowed on food stamps so that she could eat lunch. The $10 she spent on a single lunch would be enough to buy an entire pound of deli meat, a week’s worth of gourmet crusty french rolls and toppings to last an entire week.

I remember this shopping trip well because it was a huge inspiration for me of how not to shop. Ever.

She is an extreme case, but I think we can all learn something here. Her lack of planning was extreme and her spending was far out of control.

Grocery Shopping Basics…

1. Determine the length of time you are shopping for. Are you grocery shopping for a week? For a month? For a day or two?

2. Plan meals.

Make a list of what you would like to make for the period of time you are shopping for. This doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to have a 3 course meal each night. It’s okay to have a soup and sandwich night, but you can’t do that if there’s no soup or sandwich items in the house.

3. Make a list of ingredients.

It sounds elementary, but if you want to have hot dogs on Wednesday, write down everything you need to have a hot dog meal. Buns, mustard, sauce, relish, chips on the side, raw veggies, etc.

4. Take inventory.

Open your refrigerator, freezer and pantry and cross any items off your list of ingredients that you have. Be sure to check for common ingredients like condiments, eggs, butter and milk.

Ask yourself, beyond meals, what do you need? Are you making lunches for the kids to send to school? Do you drink coffee every morning? Need to replenish a bowl of fruit for quick snacks? Is it your turn to bring in a passing dish for a potluck at work? Determine what you need and add this to your list. If you want to control your grocery spending, you really want to avoid extra trips to the store. For this same reason, you want to avoid making unrealistic declarations like, “No snacks this week!” Be realistic. If you almost always have a dish of ice cream on movie night, then buy the ice cream.

5. Go to store and buy items from your list. Avoid putting anything into your cart unless it has a purpose.

If you don’t have these basics down pat, you can’t lower your grocery spending over time, even with coupons. It’s impossible.

Meal Planning…

My favorite recipe site is www.allrecipes.com. I love the rating system so you can get an idea of what the recipe is like by reading the reviews. Also, there seems to be a lot of food company recipes on the site as well. I find results from Campbell’s, Kraft, magazines, and, professionals and everyday cooks.

Another great resource is http://www.supercook.com. You tell Supercook what you have, and it displays recipes for you to explore.

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Only good today!

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I work in the customer service industry and I ask  people for their email addresses on a regular basis. Many refuse to give them to me because they don’t want to be ’spammed.’ (Oddly enough, in most positions I’ve held to ask this, I further ask for other sensitive information which people give without question… social security numbers, credit card numbers, etc.) Human behavior is strange!

I welcome spam! Well, legitimate spam, that is.

If I shop somewhere, I sign up for the newsletter, the email list, and I always check yes next to the box asking if it’s OK to be contacted with future information about sales, coupons, etc.

Just this week I received in my inbox a $4/20 coupon for Rite-Aid, a $15/$50 coupon for Fashion Bug, and announcement of new coupons for Healthy Choice, Glade, and Robitussin, just to name a few.

I’ve had one email address for over a decade and I use this for everything. I’m talking free samples, registering for websites for free catalogs, etc. This is a basic yahoo web-based freebie account and I might get 50 actual spam a day from it, which go directly to my spam box without me ever having to view them.

I get approximately 20 emails per day from places I’ve registered at. Rarely do I get a newsletter that doesn’t have some kind of discount or coupon associated with it. Thumbing through this mail really isn’t a huge waste of my time. It takes a few moments at best. The best part about yahoo mail is, if you don’t open email from someone consistently, eventually it automatically gets trashed for you.

If you are afraid to fill up your mailbox, or if getting spam is your biggest pet peeve, I advise you to open an email account just for ‘junk.’ You just never know when this may come in handy. Some stores are famous for sending out store coupons to email addresses and you won’t get them in the store. They may be $5/$25 purchase or better, which can be used to get some spectacular deals!

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The items we spend the most money on are necessity items.

Directly, you just spend more. If you need shampoo this week, you need it. You aren’t going to go all week without it to see if you can save $1 the next week on your favorite brand. This is just going to happen with certain things. There are thousands of items at the grocery store, it is inevitable that you’ll pay full price for something you need.

Indirectly, there’s that $26 trip to get milk. How many times have you purposely went into a certain grocery store because you remember the ad and that store had the cheapest milk in town that week, only to come home with a few bags of other things? It happens all the time. It’s so easy to impulse shop for something for dinner, or to pick up some snacks, or even grab a magazine at the checkout. Seriously, I am cheap and I know that the true cost of running out of toilet paper is $20.

I don’t pay full price for much of anything because I can afford to wait for a spectacular sale. I currently have no less than 12 bottles of body wash in my linen pantry. I won’t buy it at full price as there’s no need. I won’t even buy it on a sale price because there’s no need. Now, if it goes on sale and there’s a coupon, and I can pick it up for .75 or less per bottle? Now we’re talking. I may add 3-4 when I find it at that price and add them to the linen closet.

One mistake people tend to make when they have a lot of something is to feel the need to find a use for it. I think this is what happened to our family when I used to shop a lot at Sam’s Club. I found a great deal on bacon there. I calculated it out to be a 6 month supply with about a 30% savings. Nice, huh?

Pre-Sam’s Club case-o-bacon purchase, I made bacon once a week with a breakfast dinner. Post-Sam’s Club case-o-bacon purchase, we were spiraling toward coronaries; bacon atop our burgers, breakfast as a dinner meal, brunch on Sunday, real bacon bits on salad night, real bacon crumbles on our home made pizza, turkey club sandwiches, bacon because tomatoes were ripe. Yum!

Before I knew it, my 6 month supply of bacon was gone in 2 months. I realized no savings because I was out the money I spent, plus I had nothing left in the freezer and if I wanted it for meals, I’d have to buy it again. Not to mention that it would take months of eating oatmeal to lower our cholesterol.

I was like a kid with a Halloween bucket who’d happily eaten candy for days, joyfully, happily, reveling in my ultimate candy abundance who all of a sudden reaches in and finds the only things left are those 3 peanut butter kisses and a peppermint.

To realize savings, you must think of your stockpile as an investment. You must be moderate. And you must be practical.

I can use myself as an example today. This week, I am not going to the grocery store. I don’t have to. There is not one thing we need this week from the store. From toilet paper to pasta sauce, we have it. I can choose to go to pick up a few deals, and maybe I’ll do this. I don’t have to, however, and that is the ultimate convenience.

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I’ve struggled writing this entry for my website for some time. It’s very important to me that I explain the concept of stockpiling correctly because this is vital for longer-term savings. It’s important to me that I get it right, that I make it easy to understand. Also, I don’t know how others shop and I’m worried that everyone that will find their way to my site will already know how to stock up and that this will read like an article to tell the difference between a triangle and a circle.

Stockpiling is an easy enough concept for anyone who lives near a Meijer. For years, Meijer has run an excellent store brand sale that was super awesome. One could pick up boxes of mac and cheese 4/$1, canned veggies 4/$1, store brand pastas (spaghettio types) 4/$1, boxes of plain pasta 4/$1, etc., etc.

Wouldn’t it be great if the price was low every week? It can be!

As this sale would approach in the fall I would stretch what we bought at the last store brand sale to last because the prices were simply unbeatable. People at Meijer would have overflowing carts with cans and boxes and fill their pantries cheap. And the best part is, Meijer brand is excellent. There are a few places around town where I find the off brand, well, off.

The math is pretty simple. On average, you were saving 50% or better. If you only bought a single can of green beans for .25, you saved .25 or more that week. If you happen to use a can of green beans every week in a certain recipe for a meal your family loves, by buying several cases at 50% off or better, your savings multiply.

You use 1 can per week. 1 can x 52 weeks/year = 52 cans.

If you buy 52 cans through the year at regular price, (52 cans x .57 (regular price) = $29.64) you’ll spend $29.64.

If you buy 52 cans when they are 50% off or better, (52 cans x .25 = $13) you’ll spend $13 for the year’s worth of canned green beans.

It makes sense to stock up when you find the lowest price like this and enjoy that same savings each and every week. For the year, you’ll have saved $16.64.

$16.64 may not sound like much over the course of a year, but multiply that by the 2 cans of corn, the can of carrots, and the 3 cans of peas you put in your famous casserole dishes and now you’re talking ($16.64 x 6 different cans) $98.84 for the year.

Now, it’s starting to look like real money saved.

This is what stockpiling to save money is all about. We all do it to some extent. Some believe that the price of gas goes up on the weekends or on holidays, so they will faithfully fill up their tank on Tuesdays. Some see the price of gas look a little lower than it did last week, and so they’ll stop to top off the tank even though they don’t really need to yet.

The trick is to buy enough that you’ll make it to the next sale.

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Yesterday I went to Meijer and was very excited to find .55 peelie coupons on these little Hungry Jack instant mashed potato pouches. Regular price is just .99, so I paid just .44 for each pouch. I picked up 4 of them. There are 4 servings to a pouch, so it’s a mere .11/serving which I congratulated myself upon. I saved over 50%! Often regular potatoes offer up a lower price, however, these boxed potatoes have a shelf life in years for your pantry, i.e. why I like to buy them when I can find them cheap.

I was happy with the purchase until I checked out this on Sam’s Club website. 3.24 pounds (65 servings) for a mere $5.48. That works out to .08 per serving. That’s not a sale price or anything either, just Sam’s Club pricing. I could stock my pantry for the next 18-24 months and I can buy it all in one shot. No coupon clipping necessary, no waiting for the store sale price, no worries about limitations on coupon doubling,  etc.

I’ve always been hesitant when it comes to warehouse or club type shopping because it’s overwhelming. It’s not easy to comparison shop because the package sizes are unique. I can easily calculate that a 25 bag of sugar for $15 is comparably $3 per 5 pounds, which is how I normally buy sugar, which is how I think of sugar in terms of cost.

I require a Sherpa-Shopping-Guide with killer math skills to determine whether or not $9.99 is a good price for 128 single rolls of double ply toilet tissue, 75 sheets per roll, when normally I spend around $7 for 12 mega rolls of triple ply, quilted, sliver-free paper when I find it on sale.

My vision of a Shopping-Sherpa. He would carry all the items, push the cart, do all required maths for required comparisons, and wisely nod yes or no for each potential purchase.

I am almost certain that given enough time and inclination the fine folks of NASA could figure out the cost-per-wipe, but even as a bargain hunter, I am lazy. I think for myself and for many others the decision to buy the 9.99 pallet of toilet paper would require these probing questions:

Do I need toilet paper?

Do I have 9.99?

(For advanced users) Do I have a place to store 128 rolls?

Yes, for the record, I have lugged home large quantities of goods without any thought to where I’d actually put them up until I pulled into my own driveway. I am pretty sure I am not alone here.

This potato incident is troubling me. This week I’ve taken a notebook and toured both GFS and Sam’s Club to get price ideas. It appears that for many baking basics, bulk is cheaper.

I used to shop at Sam’s Club years ago, however, I never bought many practical items there. Cases of individually wrapped frozen entrees. Supersized bags of cheese puffs. A gross of corn dogs. I barely justified the cost of membership because while I saved on what I bought, but what I bought were not necessity items.

I am considering a Sam’s Club membership. I do believe my will is much stronger these days and I give myself credit for not walking out of there with an impulsed shopped $42 worth of Twizzlers.

What instant potatoes has reminded me this week is that to get a great deal, one must constantly re-evaluate their shopping and buying habits.

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One thing I’ve cut from our weekly grocery budget to save money is potato chips. I was spending about $10 per week on them. I was buying little bags for lunch boxes, big bags for snacking, flavored bags for variety. I always tried to get everyone their favorite kind.

Chips were fairly abundant and the go-to snack of choice for pretty much every member of the family. Even worse, I was buying the brands on sale each week and felt great about my purchase. I left the store each week with $10 worth of chips every week, and I bought the brand someone else suggested, and I was patting myself on the back for being such a super spendthrift. As my niece would say: FAIL.

The first thing to consider is cost. $10 per week doesn’t sound like much, but this works out to $520 per year. I don’t know about you, but I can think of dozens of things to spend money on and potato chips ain’t one of ‘em.

The second thing to consider is nutrition. (Ducks to avoid getting things thrown at her, covers ears to drown out the chorus of “Booooooos.”) I am not the bastion of health and I certainly am not in any position to lecture. I do think that cutting out chips is one way to improve nutrition and save money in one big swoop, though. I’ve seen many people at the store and in the checkout with me with multiple bags of chips, so I know you’re out there.

One day, out of the complete blue, I just stopped buying chips. Contrary to what I’d imagined, my family did not put me into a makeshift stockade, or duct tape me to the wall and play Wang Chung on a continuous loop, or go on a bathing/hunger strike to teach me a lesson or anything.

I still buy an occasional bag, but just 1-3 per month, not 4-5 per week. Moderation helps the budget, moderation makes for more solid nutrition. I do still pick up Chex Mix when the cost approaches free, as it does often.

As my husband reads this, it will probably occur to him that lunches on the weekends have been missing chips and that’s why there were those piles of crunchy granola, mounds of baby carrots, piles of peanuts and stacks of crisp crackers. Sorry sweetie, it’s for the best!

If we don’t eat chips when we mindlessly graze, what do we eat?

Popcorn!

I make popcorn 1-3 times per week. I make on the stove top. My kids’ friends are amazed that popcorn can be made this way and I’ve overheard conversations about this amongst themselves. It’s absolutely Amish or something.

Real butter works best as topping. Margarine tends to be a bit watery. If you cool the popcorn and melt the margarine and allow that to cool for a bit as well, you’ll have OK results.

It took some trial and error, but we also make popcorn in the microwave. 3 Tbsp. unpopped corn in a brown lunch sack (with the top folded down) will pop in our microwave in just 2:30. This is what I set up for the kiddos:

Home Made Microwave popcorn necessities.

Yes, that’s a recycled Domino sugar canister. One thing I love environmentalists for is for making reusing trash tres chic.

The easiest and most convenient topping for this kind of snacking is the spray butter. The kids can just spray a few times, shake the bag back up, and voila! They have a high fiber, low fat snack. Much tastier than celery sticks, but way better than a bowl of Doritos. If you are craving something sweet, toss in a little white sugar with your corn. My daughter loves it this way!

I keep this little tub convenient to the microwave so it’s an easy choice.

Popcorn is cheap.

Popcorn costs about $1.50/lb., for a store brand in most grocery stores.

On a recent trip to GFS I discovered that one can pick up 50 pounds of popcorn for a mere $21. That’s .42/pound! Sam’s Club offers the same 50 pound bag for $16.58/bag. You can’t beat .33/lb!!

If you have access to a grain mill, unpopped corn can also be ground into corn meal.

50 pounds of popcorn sounds like a lot, but this will fit right into your average Rubbermaid/Sterilite type tub with a lid. With the savings to be found, you could literally store half of it, throw the other half away or donate, or pop up and throw out for birds and still be money ahead.

Another idea is ask family or friends if they’d like to split a bag with you.

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Broken TV

They’ll want to know if you joined a cult, there will be an intervention. It’s a very difficult and trying time, and people want to help you through it. Whether you want them to or not. We’ve hooked our computer to our TV to alleviate the peer pressure, and provide some low priced entertainment. More on the how-to in a bit.

The odd part is that we went two years with a stove that the oven didn’t work in. We asked around, does anybody have a spare? One person told us yes, but it was buried in the garage and they didn’t want to dig it out. Others knew someone who had a spare, but it would be an imposition to ask.

When our son was 4, he knocked the TV off the entertainment center and broke it (although, in his defense, he was trying to hook up his video game, and he’s more qualified than his parents to do so). Within days, we had several offers for people to loan us, give us, or buy us a new TV.

America definitely has an entertainment priority.

The problem is that this goes completely against the Cheapskate Code. Or, for the newbie, look at it this way: is cable TV really worth it?

Well, first, take $4.00. 4 little single $1 bills.  Put it in a bowl next to your Television. Repeat this tomorrow- no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you watch a 1/2 hour of TV, a two hour movie, or aren’t going to be home at all to even turn on the TV- you have to put $4.00 a day in that bowl. Repeat this every day for thirty days.

Now it’s day 30. It’s time to pay the cable bill.  Do you really want to give this bowl to your cable company? That’s $120.00 you spent for the privilege of accessing the telly. Are you really going to hand that bowl over to those guys, or would that money be better spent on something else?

The question you really have to ask yourself is why you are watching the boob tube. Is it really that important that you can’t live without it?

What are the options? Stealing cable isn’t recommended- Nor is having a hacked dish. There’s legal ramifications- like it’s illegal. As in stealing. You could go back to the old days of an antenna on the roof 3 channels, and crappy reception when there’s a storm. Oh, wait- the dish guys still have that problem.

It really comes down to a matter of priorities. You could just Stop watching TV. We’ve tried that- successfully I might add. I’m not talking about 2 days when we were up north camping and “roughing” it. I’m talking about 9 months at home, no cable TV,  no antennas, nothing. The problem was the aforementioned interventions and arguments.

Unfortunately, we caved to peer pressure. We’ve done the dish. We’ve done cable TV. We compared both to our quality of life during the time period when we went without TV, and determined while TV does provide some entertainment, we didn’t think it was worth the monthly investment we were paying out.

It came down to a simple choice. Do we continue to pay almost $1000 a year for cable TV, or would that money be better spent on things like computers for the children, or eating out once a week with the family?

Several things have made this decision easier for us.

1. We can’t live without internet access. Jenn works from home, and requires it for work. I also require internet access from home to handle my job as well. If that same internet that we require for work also provides entertainment, it’s a free perk.

2. Netflix allows access to numerous on demand movies that you can watch right on your computer. (Or TV, though danged if I am going to pay retail price for one of their boxes)- even with their basic movie packages. We’re talking about $15.00 a month for a few newer releases at home and access to all these movies. On demand. Without a DVR.

3. The launch of Hulu, providing access to numerous TV shows and movies (CSI, Fringe, Colbert Report, Daily Show, Family Guy, House Hunters, Curb Appeal would be the ones our family watches) for free- again, on Demand.

4. The local library system rents movies for .50 cents a piece.

Realistically, then, for as much as we watch movies, we can gorge on movies, watch TV, and budget this all for about $25.00 a month. That’s a whole helluva lot easier to swallow at less than $1.00 a day, for the whole family.

The first, and most obvious complaint is that “I don’t want to watch movies on my PC and Laptop. I want to watch TV, from the comfort of my chair.”

We feel the same way, though Jenn and I prefer to cuddle on the couch together.

The obvious solution is to hook your TV to your computer.

So, how do you connect your computer to your TV?

Simple, really. A TV is really just a monitor. The question comes down to what type of input does your TV have, and what type of output does your PC have.

The first thing I’ll warn you to stay clear of is adapters. For example, a VGA to S-Video adapter cable probably isn’t going to work. The majority of VGA Chipset manufacturers don’t provide the proper support for this to work. Your ten dollar adapter is going to give you a bunch of squiggly lines- which isn’t a practical investment. You need a direct, adapterless method.

I’d suggest making sure your computer can handle full screen video before you dig much further into this project. Go to Hulu.com, youtube.com, etc and watch a video in full screen before you do anything else. If your video stutters, your computer needs updating/replacing/fixing, or your internet connection sucks. That will require some troubleshooting outside of this article.

Our computer didn’t have this problem, so we could proceed. In our case, we were surprised to realize that our PC had an S-Video jack in the video card. I’ve noted that several laptops seem to already have this option as well. Other options are becoming more practical with the explosions of flat screens- DVI outputs, HDMI outputs, etc. The main point is you need a direct cable connection between your TV and computer.

If your PC doesn’t have this connection, your cheapest option is going to be to add a video card that has the capability. For example, a run of the mill video card with S-Video out can be found for less than $40 all day long on the internet. Straight DVI or HDMI connections will work as well- the main thing is that your TV must plug into your PC without adapters, or you are asking for trouble and headaches.

But, back to our particular instance- S-Video.

First; S-video only handles Video, not Audio. We’ll get back to this, but it’s important to keep in mind.  How do you know if you have S-Video on your TV and computer? Really simple. Look for the S-video jack where your monitor plugs into your computer and on the back of your TV. It’s looks like this on both your computer and your TV:

If your computer doesn’t have this connection, and it’s a PC, you can get a new video card. They are pretty cheap, and not hard to install at all.  Once this problem is solved, Then you need a cable to go between them.

It’s pretty straightforward. Plug one into the PC, the other into the TV.

This shows the back of our PC. You can see the S-video plugging in just above the VGA monitor plug.

Turn on the TV, switch to S-Video. I’m assuming your PC is already on. You probably won’t have video on your TV yet- DON’T PANIC. We just need to set it up on the PC.

To set it up, go to Start>Control Panel>Display.

Click on the Tab that says settings. Find the button that says Advance.

Our PC (Dell GX320) has a ATI Radeon X300. ATI provides software called Catalyst that has a simple, easy to use wizard.

I got lazy with the screenshots and actually used a camera. Cheap=Lazy sometimes.

I recommend cloned displays to avoid confusing yourself when using the PC.  Otherwise extended desktops, etc will seem strange when the TV is off and your mouse dissappears off the screen. More advanced users will have no trouble- but for the basic setup, go with Cloned and play with it later.

After you finish the wizard, you should see your desktop on both the monitor and your TV.

The last step is Audio. S-Video doesn’t send Audio to the TV. We have a basic Powered subwoofer stereo speaker set we picked up on clearance we love. We’re not technophiles; surround isn’t a requirement.

So, we just put the speakers on top of the TV, and plugged them into the PC. You could also use RCA cables, and run it into your TV for Audio. Our TV speakers suck, our powered speakers rock. So we went with the powered speakers.

At this point, you should be able to go watch streaming videos online in full screen mode, and watch it right on your Television.

The last problem is using your PC as a DVD player. Most PC’s have DVD drives. About 1/2 of those can play DVD’s without any trouble. If Windows Media throws a fit about not having a codec, get a free DVD player for your PC.  Don’t pay money for a Codec or a new program- it violates the Cheapskate Code.

So, now we don’t pay for Cable TV, have a plethora of programming choices, and are no longer hassled (as much) about not having “real” TV.

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