Where are you in your journey with coupons, deals, rebates, and more!?! Are you slowing down while soaking up the spring air outside?!? Or do you really have your savings gear on this season?
I’ve (Litsa) remained a stay at home mom this past year and continue to work on our savings plan——-with coupons and deals to negate debt and to refrain from working outside the home until our little girl enters Kindergarten! It’s a challenge to stay on course with a savings plan in today’s economy but to show you and myself that it matters, I tallied up our savings for January 2013, February 2013, March 2013, and now April! Here’s a glimpse of our savings by categories this month:
Coupons (Kroger/Wal-Mart/Walgreens): $728.13 (many, many stockpiled items—shampoo, conditioner, deo, shaving gel, cleaning products, etc.—which may last until the end of the year)
Bing/Swagbucks/Ebates/Cashback/ibotta/rebates: $73.12
Items Sold (items around the house): $0.00—took a break this month and just toted items to the mission for tax deductible receipts—-these receipts are perfect at the end of the year!!
Blog Dealing (One Source): $232.45
Online/Retail Store Savings: $75.04
Our family’s total was $1108.74 for the month of April! That’s a grand total of $6,043.91 for four months of working from home on deal blogging, watching sales and clipping coupons!! I didn’t even buy the newspaper the last two months! A neighbor has been kind enough to give me her coupons that she doesn’t clip!!
Now, I reiterate as in the past that I don’t encourage you to quit your job because the hours put in on accumulating this figure were FULLTIME hours! However, I can say that our stockpiles are still working wonders and will take us to the end of the year as we negate debt.
There’s always room to save! I opted to color my own hair again at home ($60 savings—and much blonder—a little summer fun!) and I’m not using a gym membership (rather working out on my own outdoors and/or home videos–yoga by Rodney Yee, running stairs, walking/running a.m. routine)! Additionally, it was a great month to receive an IRS refund and a home escrow refund for overpaying for an entire year (insurance issue)!! All of these funds were well spent negating debt (less stress as debt has been lifted off of us)!! An added savings scenario took place at our home too as we tackled a plumbing issue for three days. The hubby contractor was able to borrow CAT equipment to dig up our entire front yard (almost) to fix the compounding problem. It was a mess but borrowing the equipment saved us about $5K out of pocket—-a blessing amidst our mess!
And again……there’s that dreaded budget word—–spend what you have coming in before you have the money in hand! That’s my focus for May as I watch sales, deals, and more to buy what we need and eliminate the WANT buying—-an all cash budget for daily needs throughout the month is another goal!! I’m not there yet but much, much closer after this April’s showers of savings. I can count medical bills on one hand now too. Each penny saved is a penny spent negating debt right now. Where are you?
There were many, many freebies too that came in the mail—-magazines and more! I didn’t attempt to make a list. There was a freebie in my mailbox daily from magazines to samples and more!!
May your journey of savings and having it all be just as prosperous as ours this spring!
Set goals. Achieve—-as you envision where you want to be a month from now—or a year from now! My personal goal in May beyond what I’ve already stated is to buy only perishables that we will consume so that we make full use of our stockpiles. We will PLAY in MAY and continue to PAY items down for the fun really begins when we can be debt free—–and of course, on vacation this summer!
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