[...] weeks Carnivals:The Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted at Mighty Bargain Hunter.Festival of Frugality – I May Be In Incredible Pain But At Least I’m Living Frugal Edition was hosted at My Life ROI.Money Hacks Blog Carnival – Earth Day Edition was hosted at The [...]

[...] in budgeting, couponing, meal planning, organizing I’ve been getting the newspaper and clipping coupons since the beginning of 2009. After a few months of trial and error I’ve finally figured out the right way to use coupons for me. For personal care products, I pick up any free items at Walgreens or Rite Aid each week (Longs Drugs has discontinued their rebate program in anticipation of the conversion to CVS and my local Target is currently closed for renovation but eventually I’ll be hitting CVS and Target each week too). I wasn’t too sure about the Walgreens register rewards program at first because I don’t like the way the register rewards expire after two weeks – what if I don’t find something else to spend them on in time? I’ve figured out now that I’ll use any register rewards I can’t roll into another Walgreens freebie on Diet Coke (my one major vice). If I ran out of anything, I’d check for a coupon, check the circulars for a sale price, and pick it up on my next trip to the store but running out of any product category has yet to happen. For groceries, I’ve become a pretty big fan of meal planning and sticking to a strict list in combination with thegrocerygame.com. The Safeway ad usually arrives on Tuesday or Wednesday at which point I start thinking about what meals I want to make for the next week based on the loss leaders (pretty much any sale prices that hit the front page of the ad). During the rest of the week I work up my grocery list based strictly on what I need to make my planned meals (I plan dinners and baked goods, I eat leftovers for lunch and, in addition to whatever I might be baking that week, I have nearly a lifetime supply of breakfast foods stocked already – I do need fresh milk to go with those breakfast foods though). Late Saturday night or Sunday morning I check out thegrocerygame.com and add anything to my list that I know I’ll use that is 75% or more off the regular price (sometimes those 75%+ off items are good for breakfasts or lunches too). Before I hit the store I check my list against my coupons and see if there are any coupons applicable to the items already on the list. To make the most efficient use of my time, I try not to make more than one stop at each store a week and I usually hit all three Sunday morning (Rite Aid and Safeway are next door to each other and Walgreens is across the street). What’s a reasonable level of couponing for you and how do you do stick to that? Featured in the Festival of Frugality at My Life ROI. [...]

[...] Festival of Frugality – I May Be In Incredible Pain But At Least I’m Living Frugal Edition was hosted at My Life ROI. [...]

[...] Festival of Frugality was hosted at My Life [...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/business/economy/11cheap.html?_r=1&em

This is my absolutely favorite: http://thenonconsumeradvocate.wordpress.com/

Katy is witty, down to earth, and stimulates a lot of thinking on my part.

Have a look.

btw, I’m asking you what I’ve asked other bloggers, how do you have time to read all those and still have time for life??? I spend hours on the computer and that’s not having seen any of your links :<( But I hope to, especially on the gardening.

You were very brave to post while in pain. Hope the pain is all gone by now, but hope you still have all your wisdom.

[...] Life ROI hosted the Festival of Frugality which featured my post, Help!  House Fever Is Attacking [...]

[...] was featured this past week at the Carnival of Personal Development, Festival of Frugality, and Money Hacks Carnival. Our sister site, Athletic-Diabetic.com, was in its own blog carnival, [...]