Save Money--Starting the Year off Right

Save Money--A Penny Here, A Penny There
Well, as promised i told you i would keep you informed as to how my savings for the year are going. Total for New Years Day--$1.20. Not a lot i know, but we have to start somewhere. On the way back from a wonderful lunch at my wife's brothers house in Charlotte I found that I needed to stop for gas. Now i usually get all my gas at the same place. Or i have in the past. This quest to save a few pennies may take me here and yonder. I don't know yet. What i do know is that it was very cold pumping gas at a BP station just outside Monroe, N.C. around 9 p.m. Tuesday night! The $1.20 savings?? I usually buy the middle grade the one between the regular and premium, but in my quest to see how much i can save this year I am going with the regular until my cars start moaning. Maybe they won't because they are both set up for regular to start with. I guess I've been wasting money on gas all along. Oh well, not this year. So i pumped 12 gallons of regular fuel at a savings of ten cents per gallon over the next grade. Really I don't think there is a lot of difference. Regular is 87 octane. Plus is 89 octane. and Premium is 93 octane. So from the Plus back to Regular, not a lot of difference. I'll let you know if it affects the performance of our cars. Jan. 1---$1.20
Now for today. I went through my wife's neat little coupon pouch and pulled out the ones that are to expire within the next week. I went through them and decided which I thought we really could use. There were nine coupons. So I headed off to Bi-Lo with my little hand full of coupons. Bi-Lo is my wife's store of choice and i like it too even tho it's about a mile further away than Food Lion. Not a lot of difference in the price, but the sale items are more numerous it seems to us. The weekly sales papers were in the mail box so i will probably plan a dual store excursion later in the week. Today was pretty much like a scavenger hunt for me. I'm not all that familiar with the aisles yet so it took me a while to find my items and when I did i wish I could have seen the look of excitement on my own face. Kind of like finding the prize egg at our churches egg hunt. And i did pretty well using the little stickers below the items to see how much the actual cost per pound was. You may be surprised at the difference just moving up to the next bigger size makes sometimes. I still check the price against the Bi-Lo store brand because even with the sales price and the coupon items are sometimes cheaper. Some things we still prefer the brand name but on a lot we are just as satisfied with the store brand. So anyway, to make a long story not so long, there i was stuck with a Woolite Carpet Cleaning Spray in my now sweaty hand. Nothing can make your hand sweat quicker than a handful of store coupons I've found, and it's pretty embarrassing handing the cashier a handful of smudged coupons. I've found putting them in the tray in the cart or in an empty pocket works pretty well for this. Notice I said empty pocket. Have you ever pulled your coupons from your pocket and rolled a half dozen pennies and dimes across the floor of the store. There goes your savings right there. So try to use an empty pocket for this purpose. So where was i .. oh the hidden Woolite Carpet Stuff. Did we really need it??? Who knows. My wife cut the coupon out , so that kind of settles it at my house. In the Bi-Lo engineer's infinite wisdom I'm wondering... why don't they put all the Woolite stuff together. I mean there are other Woolite items, cleaners and such. but no Carpet Stuff. So to try to wind this up...well...8 out of 9 ain't so bad in my book. My purchase price before coupon and store discount deductions $33.00, after 24.42. Not bad for starters. I plan to do a lot better. And if anyone has any helpful hints please, all comments welcome. A savings of 26%.
So our chart looks like this now Jan. 1--$1.20
Jan. 2--$8.58
Total---$9.78
I'll close for now...fingers tired....Happy Savings!!!!!!!
Oh another thing Bi-Lo here doubles coupons $.50 and under everyday. Not just certain days of the week. Ok I'm done.