HELPFUL TIPS: Saving Money When Times are Tight

A few years ago there were many stories telling how a savvy shopper got $300 worth of food and groceries and after turning in the clipped coupons only had to pay $12.34. We were told that all that was needed was about 48 hours each week to cut coupons… match up to the various store marketing flyers, and then maximize the potential savings by going to a variety of stores. (The cost of the gas never seemed to be factored in.)
Well, today finding a bargain is easier than you think. Marketing Gurus have made many bargains available on the Internet. There are a variety of websites that focus on coupon specialization. These sites are user-friendly, quick, and if used effectively, could save us all lots of money.
Below are three sites that you may want to view for their cost saving potential.
Each seems to have a slightly different advantage over their competitors. But as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder… so you decide for yourself if any of these holds a benefit for you and your family.
The Bargainist – www.bargainist.com
This site hosts opportunities to access a large variety of bargain choices. It contains Deals, Coupons, Tips, Freebies and Stores. This site distinguishes itself with a Freebies section, offering a great variety of goodies on a daily basis. No, you will not be able to feed your family for free, but you can get some pretty good samples of new and different products to try, at no cost to you.
Red Plum – www.redplum.com
On this site all you have to do is enter in your zip code. There are different category types for coupons to pick from (Drug Store, Grocer, Restaurant, Services or simply do Select All.). Simply pick the coupons you want and print.  Note the disclaimer for this site that you may have to install “The Coupon Printer” to enable you to print the coupons.
Dealighted – www.dealighted.com
The name of this site says it all. The uniqueness of this site is you can make your choice of coupons based on a specific store. However, at this writing, the freebie section seemed a bit weak on their offerings.
 Groupon – www.groupon.com and Livingsocial – http://livingsocial.com
These two websites also merit a look. They do not offer coupons but rather offer “Deals.” These sites rely on extremely heavy consumer traffic and volume savings with popular businesses and local merchants. Once you register on the sites, the advantage is that you will receive daily feeds of values discounted from 50-90%. These sites are competitors of each other. As a documented testimony to the value of these discount sites, Groupon just passed up a buyout offer from Google of 6 billion dollars. Their website memberships have risen to 40 million/10 million respectively in the last 2 years, a testimony to the stamina of these companies. Both CEOs are under 35 years of age.
And as a reminder, you can “Bookmark” these sites on your web browser so that you can quickly and easily access them.
Sometimes we have a tendency to miss an opportunity right under our noses. In this case let your fingers do the walking and your face do the smiling when you become a subject matter expert (SME) on “couponing competency”.
Cleaning for a Reason
We attempt in this newsletter to provide our PSGCNJ members with helpful tools and techniques to get through this transitional unemployment. But could you imagine being in transition and then getting the news that you are facing a medical crisis? If you or someone you know is going through cancer treatments, the program Cleaning for a reason might be a huge help. This nonprofit organization offers free professional housecleaning, and maid services to improve the lives and of women undergoing treatment for any type of cancer. The URL is http://www.cleaningforareason.org/  Please share this information with anyone that might qualify and be interested.