Sunday, April 18, 2010

Apparently, I am a Jedi


According to my husband, I am a Jedi when it comes to saving money! That is so hilarious to me, but it truly touches me too. It is a lot of work to save the amount of money that I save our family and there are some days I want to give up, but when he calls me a Jedi in front of a group of people, it makes it all worth it!! :)
This speaks to the fact that my number 1 love language is Words of Affirmation. If you haven't already, go take the FREE Love Languages Assessment test that I mentioned earlier in the week.
There really are some great things to learn if you keep reading this post. I wanted to point out some really great ways that I save money that I thought of while driving home. Many ways I save money are so ingrained in me now that I don't even think of them to blog about, but here are a few that not everyone may know:

Publix:

1.) When there is a Buy One, Get One (BOGO) item at Publix (they have a huge list of them every single week) you can use TWO coupons even though you are getting one of them free. On top of that, you can use one manufacturer's coupon (MQ) and one store coupon (SQ) on the same item. If there was an item that was BOGO and you had 2 MQs and 2 SQs, you could use them all and possibly (probably!) MAKE money on that item.

2.) Publix accepts competitor's coupons!!! I noticed in the 2010 Entertainment Book that there were $5/$20 coupons for Save-A-Lot. I will most likely never go there so I will use those Save-A-Lot coupons at Publix!! The Entertainment Books are normally $20-$25 in the beginning of the year. You can get them HERE for $15 with free shipping! These Entertainment Books can also save you a TON of money if you stick to using them for things you would normally purchase anyway. Also, when it comes to Competitor coupons, think Aldi, Food Lion, Winn-Dixie, Target-these are all competitors to Publix and they accept all of their coupons. I love this policy!!
**UPDATE: If you buy the Entertainment Book through Swagbucks, you will get 153 swagbucks added to your account! Go HERE.

3.) If you buy something at Publix and you forget coupons or find some later for an item you purchased, save your receipt and bring the coupons back in and they will hand you CASH in exchange for the coupons. Does it get much better? I did that this week and got $9.45 handed to me in cash.

On-line shopping:
1.) I rarely buy anything on-line unless I can find a coupon for it retailmenot.com is awesome for finding coupon codes for most any store.

2.) I absolutely NEVER buy anything unless I buy it and get some kind of rebate. There are many different rebate websites out there, but my preferred one is shopathome.com. Go to their site, find the store you want to buy your item and you will get a certain percentage back on your purchase. Some stores offer up to 25% back and you get that in the form of a check mailed to your door! PLUS, you get $5 just for signing up with Shop At Home.

3.) I use Swagbucks.com as my search engine which gives me free points to buy pretty much anything I want on-line. To learn more, go HERE. To Sign up, go HERE.


Printing coupons:
1.) Not sure where to start? I have a banner at the top and bottom of my blog for coupons.com. They change up their coupons every single month and each one has a print limit of 2 so perfect for those BOGO deals. Or go HERE.

2.) Before you buy a particular product, go to their website and see if they offer any printable coupons or a sign up where they can mail coupons to your home.

Last but not least, Follow my blog. You can do that on the right hand side. I usually post at least once per day if not several times. Lots and lots of the deals that I post are time sensitive so you want to make sure to check back often so you don't miss out.
You can also look back through old posts to see if you anything interests you that you may have missed.

That's all I got for now. If you are just starting on this journey of saving money, STICK with it. It is worth the effort. :)

8 comments:

JENinFL said...

Jedi Jessica! You go girl!

Mom said...

that describes you perfectly! May the force be with you!

Unknown said...

Great thought on the Entertainment books! I didn't buy this year because Publix didn't advertise. I will definitely see about getting one now. TY

Shawna said...

Hi! I don't really know you but I'm good friend's with your cousin Denise. I am also obsessed with finding good deals! I'm so glad I found your blog! The info you posted about Publix is AWESOME! I just recently moved to TN and now I have Publix that I can shop at. I didn't realize you could use the competitor q's (like the $5 off of $20 for save-a-lot!). That is AWESOME! I actually just joined the publix baby club & they sent me a bunch of publix q's for baby items (some were completely free too!) That was my 1st time going to publix! Now i'm super excited to go there more. Okay, now i'm babbling. But thanks for posting this and I'll defiently be following your blog! :)

Unknown said...

Hi Jessica,
Neil just emailed me this link to getting the entertainment book at 75% off if you reserve next years. If you like it feel free to pass the info along!
Sharon
https://www.entertainment.com/buy/jsp/pages/viewCart.epi?sku=10EE0137&linkName=EXPMEM_041910_3A

Unknown said...

So I went ahead and ordered, I went through Ebates first to get an additional 25% off instead of through the link and once I placed the order I was offered the same deal with renewal. They did fool me a bit as they said it would be $8.75, it was $10 with free shipping and next year's book will be $5 off with free shipping and arrive in the fall.

Thank you again for the post!

Jessica said...

Thanks Sharon! Love it! I think I am going to order too!!

Shawna, you are so sweet. Denise told me you have a blog too, I can't wait to check it out!

Lauren said...

We have the same love language. I wonder if Jon & Matt are similar? I laughed because I scored a ZERO on Jon's highest. LOL