Cheaper Doesn't Always Mean Better

Last year Shop Rite had a 20 pack of AA and AAA batteries cheap.  I purchased a few packs of each just to have.  I recently opened a pack of AA to put two in my digital camera.  I took a picture or two and a message popped up that the batteries were depleted.  Really?  I thought I put new batteries in.  Yesterday we took out our wii fit board to use.  It would power on, but would not allow a body test because the batteries were to low.  We changed the batteries a month or so ago.  Again we put in Kodak batteries.  The wii fit board gets used once a week or once every two weeks.  These batteries should have lasted longer.
Because I thought I was getting a bargain on batteries I now am faced with having to change the batteries in things more often.  Shop Rite has these same batteries on sale this week for a good price however this is one deal that I will not be getting.  They might be great batteries for TV remotes or flash lights, but in my experience these batteries are not good for electronics.
Sometimes cheaper is not always better.

My Grand Idea

Earlier this month I had the grand idea to make this my job.  Start my own company and start holding couponing classes.  So far it is just an idea.  When I throw out on facebook the offer to show people how I save at no cost to them, there haven't been any takers.  It has me wondering, if there will be a lot of people interested in couponing classes if I charge a certain amount per person.
Hmm...Do I take my grand idea and run with it....You'll have to wait until 2014 to see what I decide.

Cell Phone Plan Savings

You don't just need to use coupons to save.  A few weeks ago, my family and I upgraded our cell phones to smart phones with the upgrade we added a data plan.  Before this we only used our cell phones to make telephone calls and text.  We spent hours comparing cell phone plans on the top cell phone carriers.  After the hours comparing we discovered that unlimited data did not make the most financial sense for our family.  

I went to facebook and asked my friends how much data do they use.  Never having a data plan I really did not know how much data we really would need.  Their answers varied, but it did give me hope that we wouldn't need unlimited.  This got me thinking, since some of the answers said they didn't really use much since they mostly connect to wifi.  At least 90% of the places I go to have wifi or I'm able to pick up a hotspot from my cable company.  If I don't have wifi while I'm out whatever I need to do can wait until I get home.  

Before we purchased our phones we made sure we can change our data plan as we find necessary without changing our contract.  We started out higher than we really needed.  Since our billing cycle just ended we decided to make a change to our data. We went down a few gigs.  We have alerts set for 50%, 75% and 100%.  If we find that our data usage increases we can always increase it and it would still be less than what an unlimited plan with a different carrier would have cost us. Don't let the salesperson talk you into something you don't need.  Stand firm on your decision...it's not their money they are spending, but yours.   

On a side note, check with your cell phone carrier or your job to see if they offer discounts that will lower your bill each month.  

Organization is the Key

Have you seen a sale, but you have no clue if you have a coupon to make the final price even less? Have you gone shopping and found out a few days later you had a coupon for that item?  This has happened to me quite a bit and has caused much frustration.

There is a solution to it the problem.  Organization.  Time is not always our friend so you might be laughing at the word organization.  Organization does not have to be cutting and filing your coupons. That is one obvious way to get organized.  Let's explore this option for a minute after clipping your coupons you can file them away in a coupon box.  Or another way that is becoming more and more popular is a coupon binder.  Using baseball card sheets and tabbed dividers your coupons would be easier to find this way.

Clipping and filing the coupons are not high on your list, but you still want to save.  Here are two other ways I have tried to organized my coupons and reasons why it worked or didn't for me.

Make three piles for your coupon inserts.  Pile 1 will be Red Plum.  Pile 2 Smart Source.  Pile 3 P&G, which you will only get once a month.  Within each pile sort the inserts by date, the dates of the inserts are on the outer spine.  The reason for sorting the inserts this way is to help you find your inserts quicker when on a couponing website that mentions a deal.  Most couponing websites that discuss actual deals list the insert name and date.  This will help cut down on flipping through all of your inserts to see if you have the paper towel coupon you are looking for.  For me this didn't work.  Here's why I would never remember if I used a coupon and would flip to where it should be and find I used it already.  Also since coupons are regional I would be disappointed when I would look for a certain coupon to find I didn't receive it in my insert.

So, organizing the inserts by date didn't exactly work for me, but then I revised this idea some.  On a Saturday or Sunday when I would get my coupon inserts I would flip through the inserts, write down on a sticky note the coupon names that are inside and stick it to the cover.  I could quickly glance at the insert covers to see if I have a coupon for things we might be running low on.  When I would take a coupon from the insert I would just cross it off the list.

When I have inserts that are piling up, I will try and use the sticky notes, but to be honest sometimes that doesn't even happen.  Ultimately I really enjoy my coupon binder.  I never would have thought I would have a binder just for coupons, but it's what works best for me.