AutomaticPersonalFinance.com

Archive for the ‘frugal shopping’ Category

Gas prices are finally falling but everything else seems to be against the American people. Your 401k and IRAs are less today that they were a month or year ago, depending upon where you live your house may be worth as much as half of what it was a year or two ago. These are serious factors that influence an economy.

When people are scared they pull money out of the stock market, stop or slow down on buying new items, often just trying to buy the necessary items. In addition new car sales often slump as people put more money into their old cars to avoid expenses. Everything I just covered will make the economy hurt even more. Funny how everything is intertwined.

So what should you do?

1) Start buying store brand items. Store brands can often save you as much as 30% off of your grocery bills.

2) Cut down to just getting the Sunday paper. Sunday’s paper often includes the coupons, sale adds and everything else you need to save money. By reducing your subscription down to one day it will save you money.

3) Open your freezer and look at whats inside. Things tend to build up. Start planning meals around things you already have. This will save you money as you are eating things you already paid for and help you avoid wasting money so things do not get freezer burned.

For more tips about saving money read the rest of our personal finance articles.

The following post is about reusable grocery bags, sure it really doesn’t involve anything finance related but once we reach or financial goals we do have to protect the environment to enjoy our financial security.

How many of you use reusable grocery or shopping bags?  Recently my fiancee and I have purchased two bags.  Originally I was somewhat against them.  “What, I have to pay for bags to save the grocery store money?”  But after thinking about it I thought it really would be a good idea.

We used to re-use the plastic grocery bags and sometimes recycle them.  What I didn’t know is recycling a plastic bag is an expensive process and really is not worth while as it it easier for companies just to make new ones.

The Benefits of Reusable Bags

1) They do save the grocery store money, which helps keep grocery stores from passing along higher costs to customers.

2) Plastic bags are made from petroleum, as you know anything we can do to help cut down of gas prices we should.