Back to Penny Pinching...

So, Christmas is over and I managed to get through it without charging anything...no, that's not totally true, I do have a $38.00 bill coming from Boscov's. Tomorrow, the girls and I will head out to spend their Christmas money, so I'm hoping to grab lots of sale items!

As I've mentioned before, I love saving money and am a penny-pincher at heart. It's a real challenge to me to see how much I can save on any given item. So off to the grocery store I went today. I was looking for some things for lunches for the upcoming work week, of course pork for New Year's Day and some side dishes for New Year's Eve.

I first had

to clip all of

the coupons.

Then, I file all of them

according to category.

I have two separate

coupon accordian

files. One for food

and one for health and

beauty products.

If you want to cut your coupon-cutting time in half, I highly recommend you get one of these great little gadgets:

It's one of those little zippy wrapping paper cutters. Wow, does it get the job done! Anyway, have to say, sales this week were terrible! After all was said and done, I only saved a total of $25.99, which was about 30% of my bill. I usually average between 40 and 50 percent, so I was disappointed. But, that's $25.99 that's still in my pocket! I also have to keep in mind that when I'm done with some of the products, I can send in for rebates. For instance, I can get all or some of the total price of an item when I send proofs of purchase, such as my receipt and/or the UPC on the item. Some brands have their own "points system" where you collect symbols from the package and redeem them for something free. I just received a Charlie Brown DVD for buying some frozen vegetables. I have a separate file for refunds and their proofs of purchase:

I'm currently saving up for another DVD and a t-shirt from Kellogg's. I file the refund forms by the month that they're expiring, so I know when they're due. As you can see, I kinda have it down to a science. I have to admit that I've been slacking off a little because of the chaos of the holidays, but I'm going to dive right back in, starting today!

As a side note, did I mention that Santa gave me a new digital camera for Christmas? It is sooo awesome! Beware! I'll be a picture-taking fool once I figure out how to work the thing! I was able to take a picture of one of my favorite old Christmas decorations. It's a snowman tray that sits on our kitchen table. It's round and then the snowman figure stands up in the middle. I look forward to getting him out every year.

Isn't he wonderful?