Category Archives: Shopping

How To Reduce Your Holiday Spending

15 Dec 2 comments Shopping gift cards, presents

Every year around this time we have to dig into our savings or put holiday gifts on credit cards. It’s as if the holiday music puts us into a money spending mood. If you’re tight on cash this holiday season you can still buy presents without breaking the bank. Here’s how.

Plan a gift exchange. Instead of buying 3-4 co-workers presents and 5-10 relatives presents, set up a gift exchange. Each person in the group draws a name from a jar and you have to buy a present for that person. In this system, everybody buys 1 present and receives 1 present. The benefits of this system are plenty. You’ll save money since you’re only buying 1 present instead of several. There are also no hurt feelings if you neglect to buy someone a present, since you all agreed to participate in the gift exchange.

The Best Ways To Negotiate A Discount

13 Nov 2 comments Shopping discounts, negotiate, prices

Asking for a discount isn’t tacky, it’s being financially savvy. You really have nothing to lose by asking for a discount. But in order to increase the chances of walking away with a better-than-advertised deal, follow these tips on how to negotiate a discount.

Big ticket items. When buying big ticket items your odds of getting a discount are great. You can almost always negotiate the price of a house, a car, HDTV or a wedding dress. But you won’t get anywhere asking for a $2 discount on $8 sunglasses. So target the larger items to get big savings.
Small stores. The smaller the store the better the chances of getting a discount. When you’re at a family owned business or some other small store, you’re likely going to be dealing with a decision maker. This person knows their profit margin and is more likely to give you the discount.

Sales Pitches That You Can’t Resist

14 Oct 1 comment Shopping discounts, sales

When going shopping we all fall prey to tricky marketing tactics. At each store we go to is full of so called deals, ending promotions and amazing bargains. But is a sale always really a good deal? Here on this post I’ll list a few of the sales pitches that make us whip out our wallets.

Shop today and get a gift card. The gimmick here is that they want you to come back later to use it. It’s also an added incentive to buy something today just so you can get the gift card. You feel as if they’re giving money away. In reality, the item you’re buying today isn’t on sale and there won’t be any sales for the period the gift card is active for, that’s if you even remember to use it.

Bad Financial Habits You Need To Break Right Now

25 Sep 1 comment Debts, Shopping credit cards, credit score, ebay

We all have bad habits like biting our nails or tapping our feet. While those may not have a lasting effect on our lives, bad financial habits often times do. Here is a short list of some bad financial habits that you need to break right now, once and for all.

Switching credit cards. I know that some credit cards offer a 0% introductory offer and others give you more rewards. There will always be a credit card that is better than your current one. However when you open up a new credit card, your credit score drops. Not only that, but when you cancel your old credit card your score will drop even more.
Borrowing. If you don’t have enough money to pay for something, then you can’t buy it. If you really want it bad, then budget for it every month and buy it when you can afford to pay it in full. If you can’t budget for it, then you must not want it that bad.

Be Aware Of Psychological Priming And Save Money

22 Sep No comments Shopping advertising

Recently, a fascinating Fast Company article explained a phenomenon of which too few consumers are unaware. Even though we know that most consumer goods companies use advertising tactics to “hook” their customers in, I suspect that we don’t always notice. That is to say, we fall prey to even the most obvious marketing ploys even though we like to think of ourselves as intelligent consumers who aren’t tricked by advertising.

How To Start Saving Money On Food

23 Jul 1 comment Shopping coupons, food, groceries

You can save money on just about anything and this includes food at the grocery store. Here are some tips on how to save some dough on food.

Cook. You shouldn’t pay for the convenience of pre-made meals. Buy the ingredients yourself and make your own homemade meals. Those meals will be healthier and much fresher.
Coupons. You get them in the mail or can find them online. Put them to good use and save a couple of bucks on every visit to the grocery store. This adds up to a couple hundred dollars every year.

3 Ways To Save Money Every Week

23 Mar 5 comments Saving, Shopping gas, groceries, save, utilities

Saving money on one item is good, but real savings come in the way of saving money on the things you need on a weekly basis. Checking before you buy anything can save you money. Remember there is a market for everything and there’s always going to be someone selling cheaper than the others.

Here now are three simple ideas you could use to save money every single week.

Buying gas for your car – Before you next buy gas again go online and check out who has the lowest price in your area. You can do this at gasmeup.com and gasbuddy.com. Remember, all the gas stations are in competition. Doing this simple check could save you a few bucks every week, depending on how much gas you use. This equals to savings of over $100 a year.

How Japan Crisis Might Affect Supply and Prices

23 Mar No comments Shopping prices

The Japanese tsunami and nuclear crisis is causing some problems with the just-in-time inventory of some commodities imported from Japan that could cause a shortage in supply or a rise in prices, or both. The reason for this is that some of the electronic parts are manufactured in Japan and with the disruption in manufacturing and shipping; inventories are quickly dropping with no new replacements available for a while. Not only will it take time to get certain products from Japan, if at all, but the demand will quickly outstrip supply, potentially leading to higher prices.

Stock Up And Save, Just In Case

29 Jan 1 comment Shopping food, save, stock up

In the event of a catastrophe, such as war or a natural disaster, store shelves are going to empty out real fast, the gas station will have a line of cars, they may run out of gas and may raise prices immediately. Therefore, you should stock up whenever you can on the essential items you need. The good thing about stocking up though is that you can get some good prices by buying in bulk. So what do you need to buy?

Save On Anti Virus Programs

08 Sep 1 comment Shopping computers, free, gadgets, software

When you buy a computer it usually comes pre-loaded with Norton or Mcafee. These are free trials that expire after a few months and afterward leave you with no protection and a nearly impossible program to uninstall. So you might choose to avoid the headaches and just pay for it.

My advice is this, don’t fall for their heavy handed advertising methods and scare tactics. In order to keep your computer safe you should follow the following steps..

Saving On Food

09 Aug 2 comments Shopping coupons, grocery store, savings

Food is a necessity, but you can still save on it. It might only seem like a few bucks, but we all need to eat every day and it really adds up. Just saving $20 a week can convert to saving over $1,000 per year. Here are some tips on how you can save money on food.

1. Plan in advance. Know what you need beforehand. If you go without a shopping list, you’ll end up buying a lot more than what you need.

2. Don’t go to the store hungry. When you haven’t eaten in a while, everything you look at tastes good. By the time you know it you’ll end up with a cart full of junk food.

CFL and LED bulbs

02 Apr No comments Shopping change, Shopping

Immediately replace your five most frequently used classic light bulbs with more efficient bulbs to start saving money on your electricity costs. Over time you can begin to replace your other bulbs, the less frequently used ones, as they burn out.

Here are two energy efficient alternatives.

Generic Label Grocery Products

01 Feb No comments Shopping food, grocery store

Buying generic groceries can save consumers a lot of money. Often, the generic brands are made in the same factory as the name brands. They are just made with different packaging. These products usually sell for less than their name brand counterparts.

Black Friday Is Almost Here

24 Nov No comments Shopping black friday, cyber monday, sales, Shopping

black-friday

Here’s a quick plug for a site that is useful to me every year during this time. It’s bfads.net. They’ve got all the black friday ads from the top retailers around. It’s useful because you can see the deals going around and make a list of what you’re buying before you go shopping.

If you’re brave enough to shop with the masses on fri-sun after thanksgiving then it’s best to have a well thought out plan of where you’re going and what you’re buying beforehand. Nothing’s worse than window shopping on black friday.
Personally around this time I opt to buy a flat screen hdtv or a laptop because those are always discounted several hundred dollars.

If you don’t want to risk being trampled you can also shop online but the deals won’t be as food as some of those doorbreaker / limited quantities specials.

Buy It Nice And You Wont Buy Twice

31 Oct No comments Shopping electronics, expensive, Saving

shopping-bags

When it comes to buying items like TV’s, refrigerators or laptops, it’s a good idea to buy good products, even if they are more expensive. You’ll make your money back since you won’t need a replacement anytime soon. Plus, more expensive electronic items are likely to be more energy efficient than cheap clunkers.

Can It Be Chic To Be Cheap?

20 Sep 4 comments Shopping clothing, Shopping, style

style

When it comes to looking stylish, expensive clothes isn’t everything. It’s more about accessorizing. Now if you buy a blouse or shirt at Target or Walmart, odds are other people will own it already and you’ll have the uncomfortable feeling of being in the same room as something else wearing the same thing. So the trick is to layer your clothes. For guys a dark long sleeve shirt under a light colored t-shirt does the trick. For girls, scarfs work wonders in adding style to your look. Skirts can be worn with leggings, necklaces can add flavor to a boring gray blouse, and layering 2 tank tops looks nice too.