Saturday, January 2, 2010

New Year: New Resolutions?

 
I hadn't intended to make any New Year's Resolutions, but how can I resist?  The New Year always feels like the best time to take a challenge in hand and declare war.  According to a survey I found somewhere on the net (so it's completely scientific-y, by gosh!) here are the TOP TEN resolutions:

1. Stop smoking  
2. Get Fit 
3. Lose Weight
4. Enjoy Life More  
5. Quit Drinking  
6. Get Organized  
7. Learn Something New  
8. Get Out of Debt  
9. Spend more time with the Family  
10. Help Others

If you've learned anything about me....you know for sure I'm CHEAP!!!  Not thrifty, not frugal, just plain cheap.  Something I started a few months ago was to start using store coupons, and I'm always quite tickled when I get a particularly amazing bargain.  Of course, I limit my coupon use to items we actually USE in this house, and always try to maximize my savings by waiting until the items are on sale if possible. 

But, if you'll scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see I've added a ticker to my blog, and challenged myself to use $1000 worth of coupons this year.  That's a pretty stiff challenge, but I'm going to include the redemption of Canadian Tire money and Shopper's Drug Mart Optimum points.
 

I also do my best to optimize my CT money and Optimum points by buying my gas at Canadian Tire, paying cash, and using a coupon to get bonus CT money (usually amounts to somewhere between $1.40 to $2.00 a week) and do my shopping a SDM on bonus points day.

So, how am I doing so far?  Well, you'll see I'm up to $12 and it's only the 2nd day of the year.  I went to SDM this morning, and collected 30,000 points (it's 20x the points day) and used $12 in coupons.  See, Kleenex products (click the link to learn everything you wanted to know about the history of Kleenex!) were 40% off, and I had a handful of Buy 2, save $1 coupons.  I used 9 of those coupons, buying 18 boxes of Kleenex tissue for $.99 each -- 18 boxes of tissue for $8.82. 



Where did I get the Kleenex coupons?  They were right on the shelf at the store!

Lever 2000 soap is usually priced at $5.69 for four 89g bars.  But this week, it's on sale for $1.69, and I had a $1 off coupon, so I bought three packages: $2.07 for 12 bars of name brand soap (roughly 17¢ a bar). The coupons were on the shelf in the store a few months back, and I helped myself to a few, and put them in my stash.

You'll have to forgive the length of this blog post, and that the following information is probably only going to be useful for Canadian readers.

  • SmartCanucks : I subscribe to this blog to learn about the best deals, and occasionally check out the forum to see what bargains other shoppers are getting, and find the links to PRINTABLE coupons.


  • Save.ca : Pick the coupons you want, and they will be mailed to you in a few days.


  • GoCoupons.ca : Pick the coupons you want, and they will be mailed to you in a few days.



6 comments:

  1. Hey, my post didn't show up? I love this Nancy. You inspired me to look through the flyers that arrived in our local paper today. I have a habit of sending them straight to the recycle bin. I do buy stuff on sale but it's usually a fluke. I've used Save.ca for awhile now but just discovered SmartCanucks after they were shown on the news a couple of weeks ago.

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  2. What an excellent motivational post for everyone! Cheap??.....psht! I call it "Smartful use of Resources!"

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  3. Good for you! I'm pretty cheap myself, much to the chagrin of my hubby. He's a brand name kind of guy. Luckily, I do most of the shopping...

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  4. I'm so cheap I could never smoke again!
    Oh my goodness when I started smoking cigs were 2 packs for 1.00.....now what are they??

    Good to have those goals......
    Good luck with it and good luck with those High School kids.

    Happy Sewing

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