What are your secrets for saving money?

[ajrsmom]

What methods do you use to save money? Coupons, rebates, BOGO deals, clearance items?

[barbszy]

Everything but the rebates. I don't find those too often for things we use.

[ajrsmom]

I can't seem to find rebates for too many things, either. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places for them?

[ellenmelon]

Coupons for sure help, and the BOGO, especially for the weekly loss leaders at the grocery store. What I don't do is the B1G1 at half price. That means just a 25% reduction in price on those two items and I don't think that's enough, especially for hard goods like shoes.

I did rebates on everything including food for awhile and the money for stamps and keeping it all together was too much work for me. We do rebates on hard goods though, like electronics etc. Those seem good. And our grocery store has an automatic rebate system that I like.

MOstly I just shop 2-3x a month instead of 4x and try to stretch in between. Planning lunches to make helps with the eating out budget.

[danstigerangel]

I use coupons and bogo. I love it when I have a coupon for something that is bogo!

[RobertaD]

I use lots of coupons over $100 worth a month at the grocery, gas station, restaurants, etc.

I combine b1g1 offers with coupons as much as possible. I do like those sales when shoe shopping for the kids since I'm buying 2 pairs anyways 2-3 times a year and will actually wait for a sale before buying.

I think rebates are pretty much a thing of the past an 1980-s thing.

For clothing I shop thrift stores, garage sales first and then clearance racks in department stores.

Roberta