January 01, 2010
I wrote the best post yesterday and discovered last night that it went into a black hole in Internet space. I have no idea what happened to that post. It’s just gone. So I will try to duplicate part of it as our money saver for this week.
As you may know there are new credit card laws passed by Congress which will take effect on February 22th. There is some preparing we need to do before that happens.
Because the new law prohibits companies from hiking our interest rate when we are a day late, they are now going to be reinstating yearly fees. For those who pay off their card each month this will be a new expense in your budget so now may be the time to investigate who will be charging and who will charge the least. Get rid of the other cards.
There are also a variety of new fees being created so be sure to read the information that comes with your bill carefully. These are usually those small print items so, again, you should be aware and consider canceling the cards which are adding new fees.
One other thing you should be aware of, that is not mentioned in the report below is the due dates for payment. Be aware that one of the ways credit card companies make money is to make payment due before noon on the due date. If you run a payment to the bank during your lunch hour, too late, it will get posted to the next day and the payment will be considered late. You can prevent this from happening to you by moving your due date, in your own mind and on your to do list, to the day before the actual due date.
This trick is also employed by banks on automaic payments. If you have a payment scheduled for the 10th of the month and the afternoon of the 10th you put money in the account to cover the payment you may be too late. They will charge you a hefty fee for not having the money in the account to cover the payment. You know how ridiculous bounced check fees are now and that is exactly what this is like. They consider that payment just like a bounced check.
Since I am not the expert on this new law please listen to the clip below from a FOX news report so you can be aware of what you need to do to protect yourself before and after this new law goes into effect.
Now to coupons. I am not a coupon person. I have never had any luck with coupons. It seems they are all for brand name product which are more expensive than store brands and I just don’t care about brand names. I heard a report the other day that with the depressed economy there are more coupons out there now than ever before. I hear stories of people who get $200.00 worth of food for $50.00 and I am baffled. With so many coupons now available I want to learn more. So…to those of you who are coupon queens and kings out there will you please share your tricks with us. I’m ready to take the plunge!
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With only a few exceptions, I’m not a brand name person either. I also don’t buy a lot of prepared foods because so many of them contain MSG… so I’m not able to get the savings that others seem to.
I’m also allergic to many of the non-food products that coupons are available for.
But I do watch for coupons on things like canned and frozen fruits and veggies, canned meats and baking supplies, pasta and rice and juices. Occasionally there are even coupons for fresh meat.
The trick to having coupons work is to match coupons to sales so that you are paying the absolute minimum. And I’m fortunate in that our local Kroger doubles all coupons up to and including 50 cents. Some Krogers even double up to $1.
Check with the grocery stores in your area to find out what their coupon policies are before planning your grocery trips. For example, I rarely shop Ingles because ours requires that you have to buy a certain dollar amount in order to use 10 coupons, 20 coupons and so on.
I have built a pretty good stockpile of food by matching sales to coupons. Just one example, I have a 35 lb pail of rice that I got free, one lb at a time with 50 cent coupons that doubled when 1 lb bags were on sale for 99 cents.
I do have to admit, that since I started canning again and even bought a pressure canner for doing meat and vegetables, I’m buying less and less canned goods from the store.
But for someone who isn’t ready or wanting to go that route… coupons can certainly help to build a stockpile of good, nutritious food if you watch the sales.
There are many great sites that will explain how to work the deals at places like CVS and Walgreens. One site I check each day for deals is http://www.moneysavingmom.com
I use http://www.southernsavers.com
Jenny coupon matches the stores ads for you.
I then purchase enough for my family and storage. It has taken me about a year but I now very rarely purchase anything when it’s not on sale with a coupon and I have managed to put a great deal into my “store” that I would not have been able to afford at full price. (or at least not in that quantity).
If you can’t use that site try slickdeals or hot coupon world. It’s kind of hit or miss with some of their forums but most have the match ups weekly.