Dollar Tamer Helping you tame your money

I know this is probably obvious to anyone reading this site, but I came across this article at WAPT.com about coupons on the back of your receipts.  I noticed this trend some time ago, and every now and then there are some decent coupons back there.  A lot of stores are printing additional savings discounts on the bottom of the coupon as well now.

With the economic slowdown, people are finally starting to pay more attention to coupons and discounts.  You may not always find something useful on your receipt (if you don’t need it, don’t use it!), but it’s always worth a look.  I’m a big advocate of saving your receipts so that you can track your spending anyhow, but this gives you yet another reason not to just toss that receipt into the garbage or forget it in the bottom of the bag.

What’s the best gem you’ve found on your receipt?

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Posted under Deals, Spending

Let me tell you about my $60/hr part-time job…

The internet is full of useful information! I use it for what I consider one of my part-time jobs. There are oodles of sites that can help you save money by sharing ideas I’ve never thought of before and showing me where to get things I need for almost nothing or free. Recently I paid 50 cents for boxes of cereal, 67 cents for frozen dinners, 25 cents for a loaf of bread, 7 cents for toilet bowl cleaner.  I got mustard, hot sauce, gravy, soap, a haircut, restaurant meals (see our birthday post), toothbrushes, mouthwash, toothpaste, Band-Aids, and rice among many other things for free. Even better, sometimes the store pays me to take their products out of the store!

This is how I do this job, which has flexible hours and is very rewarding with a high rate of pay:

1. Get the Sunday paper, generally the one with the largest circulation will have the most coupons. I get two subscriptions now.  I used to get one but when I would see how great the coupon potential is, I always wanted to go get another paper.
2. Don’t clip any coupons. Just pull out the coupon inserts (there are usually about 2-4 of them) and write the date on the cover of each of them in black marker. I keep them in date order in a filing cabinet next to my computer.
3. I also pull out some of the ads for the stores. My favorites are CVS, Walgreens, Meijer, and Kroger. I also pull out the Target ad and the Michaels craft store ad. We very rarely go to these stores and buy something that we don’t need, but I work next to a Target and if I can get some free items, I will go pick them up. Michaels usually has a coupon for 40 or 50 % off an item and my daughter is very crafty and might buy herself some paint or something.
4. Monday night or Tuesday is when I usually start the serious work with lots of help from the internet! My first stop is The Grocery Game where I pay $15 every 8 weeks to get extremely valuable information. They offer a 4 week trial for $1 to check it out. You can subscribe to a number of different lists for grocery or drug stores. It costs more the more lists you get. I get the lists for Kroger and Meijer. The lists tells me exactly what is on sale, the regular price, the sale price, and the coupons that have been in the Sunday paper. I didn’t clip the coupons, but the list tells me exactly which coupon insert to look in for the coupon, for example, Smart Source on September 21. And I’ve labeled it so I can find it right away! The list tells me the savings percentage and also codes it in a way, helping me to get the best deal by putting all the FREE items in green and the really good deals in blue. Other sale items are in black, but it almost recommends to not buy it right now unless you need it because they know that it will go on sale for a better price soon. That list is amazing, it would probably take me at least 30 hours to go through all the ads and coupons to figure out those best deals. Other (free) places to check out the best deals for the week are www.couponmom.com, mommysnacks.blogspot.com, www.becentsable.net and my favorite, www.moneysavingmom.com. Some of these different lists for the same stores have a few different items, locations might vary a little and some people notice other deals, so I try to check several sites to get the most deals.
5. Using these lists on the internet, I write out my grocery list and make a pile of coupons, bundling them together before I head out to the store.

I typically go to two different grocery stores each once a week, and often CVS or Walgreens because they like to give things away too, as long as you know how to do it. My grocery stores double coupons up to fifty cents which really helps the savings add up. I spend an hour or two each week preparing my shopping lists while reading various money saving blogs and learning about other ways to tame our dollars. Payday for this “job” of mine comes quickly and I don’t have to pay taxes or social security on my earnings!

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Posted under Deals, Spending

You’ve likely seen their ads on television.  They are an online bank, and have both checking and savings accounts.  We have been using their Orange savings account for some time now and love it.  It is extremely useful and the options they have work very well with long-term budgeting (I’ll be posting on how to use ING Orange Savings for this).

They have a 3% APY savings account.  If you use a referral and open with $250 or more, you get $25 instantly added to your account.  They also have a checking account that gives between 1.75% APY and 3.5% APY that also will give you the $25 bonus.

If you’re interested, I’d appreciate it if you used one of my referrals.  I get a $10 referral bonus and you get a $25 bonus on a high-interest account.  I’ll also be showing you how to use the ING account for some budgeting help!

Referrals are available here.

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Posted under Budgeting, Deals, Investing

My memory got jogged since my wife’s birthday coming up a few days from now.  Want some free birthday food?  Check out some of these for some free food (sometimes entire meals) on your birthday. Some will even give you an immediate discount just for signing up for their clubs.  I’ve hotlinked what I know is a club you need to sign up for and included what I understand to be the freebie for your birthday.

• Applebee’s - Free Desert
• Arby’s - Free Sandwich (with Purchase of Side & Drink)
  
• Burger King - Kids Get a Free Kids Meal
• Baskin-Robbins - Free Ice Cream & Discount on Birthday Cake
• California Pizza Kitchen - Free Kids Meal (10 and Under)
• Chili’s - Free Meal
• Denny’s - Free Meal
• Famous Dave’s - Free Meal
• Fuddrucker’s - Free Burger
• Krispy Kreme - Free 1/2 Dozen Donuts & Coffee
• Red Robin - Free Meal
• Ruby Tuesday’s - Free Desert
• Steak and Shake - Free Meal for Kids
• Wendy’s - Free Meal for Kids

I’m sure there are tons more I’m unaware of.  Add them to the comments list!

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Posted under Deals

On Monday, the Dow lost over 777 points, the largest point drop in history (though I will also point out that if it didn’t even break the top 10 worst days percentage wise).  If you were listening to radio or television, you’d think this was the worst financial disaster in history.  The negativity I heard was unbelievable, clearly it’s time to panic!

Not so fast…  Here we are at the closing bell Tuesday and the Dow has recovered 485 points.  If you took the news at value last night you would probably have bet on another bad day for the stock market.  Somehow, here we are without a bailout plan in place, and yet the stock market is going back up.

Such is the nature of the stock market.  If it were easy to predict, we’d all be sitting on mountains of money.  If you are a sensible, long-term investor, there is no reason to panic.  The stock market will recover.  As long as you stay diversified, you will still come out ahead in the end.  If you panic and pull your money, you will be taking an unnecessary risk and could end up losing big.

Let’s say you had $50,000 invested as of opening bell Monday.  If your investments tracked with the Dow, that would have been worth around $46,510 by closing bell.  Relenting to panic is a bad idea.  By keeping your funds in, your investment is back up to around $48,687 today.  Pulling your money out of your investments because of a bad day would have cost you nearly 5% of gains.

The stock market goes up, the stock market goes down.  It is volatile, and that’s why investments are for the long-term.  Do not succumb to panic, and listen to the talking heads with a grain of salt.  Stay patient and reap the rewards of your patience when retirement time comes. 

As Dave Ramsey likes to point out, there has never been a 10 year period where the market is down.  If you pull your money out now, you will be missing out on the gains that will come down the road.  Have no doubt, the stock market will recover.  It may take some time, but you are investing for the long-term anyhow.

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Posted under Investing, News