Saving At The Supermarket

The supermarket is a great place to really save money during these tough times. It shouldn't be hard for you to easily save $100 per month or more at your supermarket because they'll compete for your business with aggressive sales, coupons and other sorts of discounts. Here's what to do:

Choose one place to shop. Supermarkets in the same area tend to have similar sales cycles. So the same deal you get on spaghetti at one store will likely be matched by another store at roughly the same time. Shopping at the same store also lets you familiarize yourself enough to know when a "special" really is special.

Buy enough to last. Supermarkets typically cycle their rock-bottom sales over a 12-week period through every section of the store. Buy enough to last that length of time and you'll routinely save 30% to 50% discount off regular prices. For example, if your favorite cereal goes on sale every 12 weeks, and you use a box of cereal every two weeks, buy six boxes and you'll always get it on sale.

Use coupons. Manufacturers are now extending coupons to many more meats, vegetables, healthful foods, organics and household products. They're also making more "multi-purchase" offers that save $1 to $5 if you buy several different items from the same manufacturer. You don't have to do a lot of clipping because 90% of all coupons are printed in the Sunday newspaper supplements. Also, many supermarkets will double the value of any coupons you use or issue their own coupon for the same item with a higher face value.

Use coupons on sale items. The week a coupon appears in the paper is often not when the item is on sale at your supermarket. This is because coupons are the first wave of promotion, designed to entice you to buy the item near full price. By stacking a coupon on top of a sale you can often get it free.

Buy on the last day before a sell-by date. Meat, bakery, milk and even vegetables are put on sale on the last day of their "sell-by" dates, whether they are specifically indicated on the product or not. Some products have the dates on them. Others such as vegetables are marked down after they've been on the shelf a while. These products are perfectly safe to eat and are usually marked down by 50%. Talk to the department heads about when to get the best deals.

Same price, smaller size. Manufacturers know that price hikes will drive away consumers. Instead, they maintain the same price but reduce the size of products, hoping that you won't notice. Ignore the total price and check the tags on the shelf that list the price per ounce or unit cost when comparing similar products. Consider store brands, which typically cost 10% to 30% less than "brand names".

Skip prepared foods. If someone else does the work, you'll pay for it. Cut vegetables, sliced fruit, bagged salad are a few examples. The premium you pay, often 100%, is not worth the time you save preparing the food yourself. One exception is a roasted chicken. You can usually get one for less than it would cost you to prepare it at home.

Use your supermarket loyalty cards. You'll save on more than just groceries. Many supermarkets offer discounts on things such as gasoline, oil-changes, car washes and restaurants to name a few.

Shoplifting: Beware of Consequences

Our posting today starts with a special word -- Kleptomaniac -- people who feel compelled to steal at any opportunity. According to an estimate, every year US retailers lose about 10 billions due to shoplifting. The ratailers, of course, make sure that the amount is extracted from average consumers like you and us through higher prices for their merchandise.

People steal things that they want to have but cannot afford like fancy cosmetics or apparels or the latest CD/DVD or things that they are forbidden to purchase like cigarettes. Some do this just out of fun. However, survey says that majority (about two-third) of shoplifters resort to this simply because they see the opportunity of doing that, even though they were not predetermined when they entered the shop.

Some retailers like Walmart take quite tough stand about this. Many retailers keep plain-cloth security people in aisles and exit. Walmart, for example, charges a high amount from the arrested person irrespective of the outcome of the court. The high cost of the procedures in court and complexity of expunging the act from the criminal record may take peace away from the arrested person's mind. So, never get into such a temptation and make your friends and family members, and young people, in particular, aware of this. One evening's temptation may haunt them and their career for a long time.

Toy Safety

On Monday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) took a long overdue first step toward banning lead in children’s metal jewelry. It is known for decades that lead can cause permanent developmental damage in children or even death. The CPSC voted to move forward with a ban on any children’s metal jewelry containing more than 0.06 percent lead by weight.

The holiday shopping has already started and it's time to take proper caution to avoid paying for such harmful items for your children. Most toys carry safety labels, but it's still important to be aware of such hazards when shopping children's gifts. Toys can pose different risks depending on the age of the child, according to the Federation of State Public Interest Research Groups. Here are a few noteworthy points:

Small parts and cords pose choking and strangulation risks for young childern.

Make sure the sound level of toys and audio products doesn't exceed 85 decibels; higher levels can cause loss of hearing.

Consider how kids might actually use a toy. If it shoots or launches an object, determine if children could substitute items such as pencils or nails, which would make the toy hazardous.

Check girls' cosmetics sets for hazardous chemicals such as propane (found in glitter hairsprays) and xylene or dibutyl phthalate (common in nail polish).

Supervise kids if they use polymer clays to make crafts and jewlery. If inhaled or ingested, the clays can expose kids to harmful chemicals.

Coupon from Google Map

Google has started a new service that allows users to print out discount coupons for local merchants when they use Google Maps to search or locate a business. Coupons will be supplied by Cox Enterprises' ValPak Direct Marketing Systems. ValPak is best known for direct mailing light blue envelopes overflowing with discounts from local merchants such as pizza shops, carpet care and hardware stores.

Google is opening the service to businesses of all types -- at no fee. Companies may submit coupons directly to the search engine index. Links to the coupons will appear automatically when users search for local businesses on the mapping site.

Garage Sale

Things that pile up over the years in your cupboard, kitchen and Garage need to be disposed at some point of time and Garage sale is a great way to do that in exchange of some small but significant income.

But before you go for it, sort out items which you may rather sell/auction at ebay.com or amazon.com . Those provide a national exposure to your items like textbooks or DVDs and you may hope to get better prices. If you just depend on your neighborhood or pedestrians walking by, you may not even be able to sell it or may sell it at a much less price for the urge of disposing what you think is junk.

You may also take the service of some other Auction places as we described in one of our past postings. You may use those for large items in particular, which you may not like to ship.

You may now list rest of the items for your garage sale. Take permission from your city office (if your city requires it), put free advertisements at following websites well in advance (about 3 weeks so that ads appear just before the target weekend), put signs at road-crossings around your home and then open up your Garage door and enjoy talking to people who appear from nowhere and buy things that you wish to get rid of.

The following sites offer free listings :
GarageSaleHunter, GarageSaleZone, Craigslist, PennySaverUsa .
GarageSale-Guru is also a good site that offers information for buyers and sellers.

Flea Market

The term "flea market" originated in the open-air "le marche aux puces of Paris". The word 'flea' got assiciated with such markets possibly from the merchants who had to "flee" the gentrification of the Emperor Napoleon III. Some also say that the word came from those old furnitures infested with the bloodsucking pests that were sold in such markets.

Open-air markets always had a presence in American life. Those enormous tent-city flea markets of today have simply taken shape out of the city vendors and crossroad stands that filled up a broad spectrum of our lives. In addition to providing a livelihood for new immigrants and others on the lower economic groups, flea markets served as a low-overhead incubator for new micro-enterprises. Starbucks Coffee Corp. began as a vendor in Seattle's Pike Place Market. The Cabbage Patch dolls were born in Southern craft fairs.

According to the National Flea Market Association, America has more than 5,000 flea markets (also called swap meets, farmer's markets and public markets) that employ more than 80,000 workers. The association estimates that more than 500,000 vendors sell in excess of $5 billion annually at flea markets. The association classifies flea markets into 3 categories: large (5,000 to 10,000 vendors) medium (500 to 5,000) and small (fewer than 500). The Association is having its 9th Annual convention in Las Vegas from September 26th to 28th.

The nation's largest flea market is an annual affair called the Highway 127 Corridor. It happens in August along a 450 miles long way starting from Covington, KY, and goes all the way through Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

The Association has a useful flea market finder that you can use to find one in your neighborhood.

Plan Your Wedding

With wedding ceremonies of celebrities like Nicole Kidman hitting the headline, are you also feeling like stepping into a married life this summer? Well, you certainly need to do some planning before you decide to do so.

Love is blind but wedding can not be arranged having your eyes blindfolded. Planning a wedding, like creating a loving and trustworthy relationship, takes time. Selecting a location and having the prudence of reserving that a year in advance, arranging bands, caterers, photographers, rooms, flowers, dresses and the multitude of other things -- Oh God, it takes time.

That's the reason many couples nowadays are knocking the doors of wedding coordinators. A decade ago, hiring a wedding coordinator was a luxury that could be afforded by only the wealthy. These days, there are a variety of coordinators, charging either a flat fee, a percentage of the total cost of the wedding or by the hour. According to the "American Weddings" study conducted by The Fairchild Bridal Group, the current average cost of a wedding is $26,327. It's possible to hire a coordinator within that level of budget to have your ceremony well-managed. A wedding coordinator is almost like a financial planner. A professional coordinator can save you money by securing discounted rates that you couldn't have gotten on your own. They also take the hassle of checking and hiring people who are really professional and are not just claiming to be so.

You'll be surprised to know that the Association of Bridal Consultants has almost 4,000 members in 26 countries. You must hire a coordinator who lives in your city simply because that person has contacts with local vendors. You can get a list of wedding coordinators in your area by visiting BridalAssn.com .