Sweet Pennies from Heaven

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Our Best Money Saving Tips for 2015 #MomsCheckIn

January 9, 2015 by Jenni 684 Comments

best money saving tips

Our Best Money Saving Tips for 2015

Saving money is always on my mind. Now that the New Year is here, it’s something I want to work harder at too! Even if that money saved is to go towards our vacation fund. Put towards groceries. Date nights. You get the drift…..it’s money that can be spent somewhere else or saved for a college fund even!

Our “Moms Check In” crew and I have some really awesome ideas and we’re sharing our best money saving tips that we use all the time. Hopefully it’ll help make your 2015 a little better!

 

 

Amanda-626x1024“We try to keep our electric bill in check. We do lots of different things like using power strips, using energy efficient appliances, and using smarter lights. You can find lots of energy saving tips here! I also do the $5 method. Every time I get a $5 bill it goes into savings. When I am out at the store, I try to spend just $5 less. It makes it easy and at the end of the year, all of those $5 bills really adds up! “

– Amanda is the mom to Joshua and owns It’s a Fabulous Life. If you are looking for a one stop place for all things mom, It’s a Fabulous Life is it! Full of recipes, fashion, DIY projects, recipes and parenting articles it’s the place for all of Mom’s favorites to come together! Follow her on Twitter here!

 

 

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“My biggest tip is to turn down the thermostat a few degrees in the winter and turn it up a few degrees in the summer. Our heating/cooling bill is the biggest chunk of money spent and just by turning it up or down a few degrees can REALLY make a big difference. I’m a big believer in wearing layers in the winter. If you’re cold, put on a sweater…haha! Actually though…keeping it a little cooler in the house during the winter is better for you too. Doctors will tell you to keep your home between 65-70 degrees. The cooler the better, because heat dries up your sinuses, making infections easier to breed. Yuck!“

– Jenni is the mom of one and the author of Sweet Pennies From Heaven. A hearth and home website, Sweet Pennies From Heaven focuses on recipes, crafts and creating a comfortable home. Follow her on Twitter here!

 

 

LindsayHeadShot3Border-300x300“The thing we spend the most money on is food. If I slack in the menu planning department we are at the store a few times a week and it adds up fast. Really fast. This year I’m planning to be more strict with myself about planning a menu, doing one shopping trip a week, and shopping from the flyer so I can buy what’s on sale and plan my menu around that, stocking up while I can save. It makes a huge difference and just requires a little bit of planning each week!”

– Lindsay is the mom of 2 and author of See Mom Click. She shares great deals, Disney happenings and recipes. You can follow her on Twitter here!

 

 

stephanie“I’m not much of a couponer or a flyer watcher. But I do watch our spending tightly so that we can focus on the priorities for our family — like retiring early and giving Sam an excellent education. When I am going shopping, I take out the amount of cash I want to spend for the day and keep to that budget. That way, I’m not tempted to use my credit card or overspend because I see something that’s too good of a deal to refuse. It’s worked well for our family and helped us keep on budget — which I’m really proud of!”

– Stephanie is the mom to Sam and the author of Spaceships and Laser Beams. If you ever need party ideas her site is the place to visit! Specializing in all things boy, it’s full of inspiration! Follow her on Twitter here!

 

 

moms-check-in-1 What is Moms Check In?

Who are the moms of Moms Check In? We’re 4 moms who are also professional bloggers. We chat about a new topic each week. We talk about things from dirty diapers to date night, and everything in between. Moms love to talk to other moms and let’s face it…MOMS know everything!! If you happen to be a blogger also, and want to be a guest host one week, please fill out this form. We’d love to have you join us!

Check out our Money Saving Tips board on Pinterest to get some more ideas!

Follow Sweet Pennies from Heaven’s board Money Saving Ideas on Pinterest.

Before you leave, let us know…

Do you have any helpful money saving tips?

 

Filed Under: Moms Check In, Money Saving Tips, Thrifty Household Tips Tagged With: frugal, Moms Check In, money saving tips, saving, thrifty tips

Use the New Price Alerts Feature at mySupermarket to Save Even More

February 19, 2014 by Jenni 702 Comments

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of mySupermarket, however, these opinions are 100% my own and honest, as always.

I know you all love saving money. That’s why I told you all about mySupermarket awhile back. If you aren’t familiar with them, make sure to click here to read my first post about them. Then you’ll understand why I love them so much!

Doing some of your normal household and grocery shopping from mySupermarket will save you lottttts of time and money! That’s what we busy mommas need, yo?!

mysupermarket

My favorite feature to use when shopping there is their unit price feature. I love, love, LOVE that part because I know I’m getting the best deal and I don’t have to stand in the middle of an aisle scratching my head figuring out which toilet paper is the better deal. Or whispering to myself, “this jar of sauce has this many ounces and it costs this much, but THIS jar has….”.

You know how it goes.

I’m really excited though, because I just found out that mySupermarket has another NEW and awesome feature…

PRICE ALERTS!

I don’t have a ton of time to always be on the hunt for the best deals. That’s why I’m excited about this new price alerts feature. You can now turn price alerts on for any product. You’ll receive an instant email when there’s a new offer or coupon on that particular product. Doesn’t matter which retailer. Amazon, Walmart, Walgreens, Target, or any of their other partners.

mysupermarket

So, not only can you save by using their unit price feature – now you can be alerted when your favorite products are discounted even more! YESSSS!!! I recently stocked up on toilet paper, paper towels, Jif peanut butter, coffee and some other things from mySupermarket. I saved over $40 by using their unit price feature so I’m excited to see how much I’ll be able to save with their new price alerts!

You can also manage the price alerts that you’ve turned on through their site. You can see all the alerts together, switch them on and off. That’s just a very cool way to keep your alerts exactly how you want them!

 

 

mysupermarket

You can see here with this screen shot I grabbed, with our favorite coffee as an example, you have the option to turn price alerts on.

 

mysupermarket

Now, here you can see I went ahead and turned the price alert ON. The button turned blue. All you have to do is click the button from off to on, and you’ll then be alerted each time that product is discounted more than it’s regular lowest price.

These price alerts kind of make me feel like a bargain sniper!!

Again…if you’d like to learn more about how mySupermarket works and how it can save you a ton of time and money, click HERE to read my previous post about them!! Or click HERE to begin shopping and saving now.

mysupermarket

You’ll love shopping there. I was completely sold the first time I shopped at mySupermarket because of the amount of time and money I saved. You can see from the photo above, all of the other companies who are raving about mySupermarket (including MY site)!! Just so you know, first time customers will receive $20 off their first shopping cart. Just watch for an email after you sign up!

Have you shopped using mySupermarket yet? If so, leave us a comment and let us know how much you saved or what your favorite feature is!!!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Money Saving Tips, Online-Deals Tagged With: money saving tips, mysupermarket, Online Shopping

August Savings Guide – What to Buy, What’s on Clearance, What’s in Season

August 6, 2013 by Jenni 321 Comments

August-Savings-Guide


Here is your August Savings Guide! This guide will show you what to buy, what’s on clearance and what’s in season for the month of August. This guide is intended to help you understand how the monthly grocery and other promotional sales cycle. Always planning ahead is one of the best tips to use when trying to save!! I hope you find this helpful. Thanks to Family Frugal Fun for sharing this awesome guide!

 

Clearance-sale-sign (1)

Items you’ll find on clearance in August:

  • Gardening  supplies
  • Seeds for planting (they’ll last about 2 yrs)
  •  Summer apparel and summer toys & outdoor furnishing start to go on sale towards months end

 

Time-to-buy-sign

  • A good time to buy in August:
    • School supplies ( on sale)
    • Office supplies (on sale)
    • Juice boxes & pouches, lunch items like sandwich meats, lunch snacks, cereals bars, pudding cups, granola bars, fruit snacks, canned fruit, sandwich cheese slices
    • Breakfast foods like cereals, oatmeal etc
    • Tissues, disinfectants, hand sanitizers, sanitizing wipes
    • Ice cream, popsicles

Whats-in-season

  • Here’s a list of what’s in season in August:
    • watermelon, plums
    • strawberries, kiwi, plum
    • blueberries,  apricots
    • raspberries, radish
    • cantaloupe, apples
    • asparagus, avocados
    • basil, beets, cabbage
    • carrots, peppers, okra
    • lemons,   grapefruits
    • oranges, collards, pears
    • grapes, kale, onion
    • nectarines, passion fruit
    • peaches, potatoes
    • cucumbers, tomatoes squash
    • corn, beans eggplant, lettuce, figs

    Consider “pick your own” farms to stock up on inexpensive fruit and vegetables for summer canning & freezing

 

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    • Sign up for newsletters & emails from your favorite restaurants and businesses using a separate new email address you create just for deals & savings
    • Keep coupons for dining out in your purse or wallet.
    • Build up a 6 month stockpile;
    • Buy enough  food & toiletries when on sale at their rock bottom sale price for each person in your family  so you don’t run out (when you “need” a product you’ll be wiling to pay full price – don’t let that happen)
    • •Many states offer a tax free holiday for back to school shopping  – check with your local Dept of taxation for your state
    • •Close blinds during direct sun hours to conserve on cooling costs
    • •Shop  with a specific grocery list based on sales & start meal planning for a busy back to school schedule (quick meals for busy nights, easy breakfast foods etc)

 

National-Holidays-image-300x118

Family Fun Month

    • National Catfish Month
    • National Eye Exam Month
    • National Golf Month
    • Peach Month
    • Romance Awareness Month
    • Water Quality Month
    • National Picnic Month

    Weekly Events in the month of August:

    • Week 1 National Simplify your Life Week
    • Week 2 National Smile Week
    • Week 3 Friendship Week
    • Week 4 Be Kind to Humankind Week

    Special Day in August

    • August 4 Friendship Day – First Sunday in August
    • August 10 National S’mores Day
    • August 14 National Creamsicle Day
    • August 18th – Maggie’s Birthday! Lol
    • August 30 Toasted Marshmallow Day
    • August 31 National Trail Mix Day

 

FREE-Picture

    • Museums on Us Bank of America
    • Saturdays at  Lakeshore FREE workshop for kids
    • Pottery Barn Tuesday Story Times
    • Saturdays Michaels FREE workshops (Scrap In small fee)
    • Saturdays  Lowes Build and Grow workshop for kids
    • Wednesday Sept 18th (plan ahead there is no free night in August)  FREE Entrance into the Philadelphia Franklin Institute (Science center)
    • Weekends in August FREE workshops with Home Depots
    • National Night Out (August 6th)
    • The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC)  FREE shows every day at 6pm
    • Kids Skate FREE

Filed Under: Money Saving Tips, Thrifty Household Tips, Thrifty Thursday Tagged With: August Savings Guide, money saving tips, Save in the month of August, thrifty tips, what's in season

How To Save the Most When Shopping Back to School Sales

July 17, 2013 by Jenni 1,210 Comments

Back to School


How to Save for Back to School

Yep. It’s that time of year again! Back to School time can cost a fortune, especially if you have more than 1 child. Between pencils and paper, shoes and clothes it can cost hundreds of dollars per kid! There are many very simple things that you can do to save a lot of money! It just takes thinking outside the box and a little elbow grease. Okay – maybe not elbow grease, but you get my drift. 😉

Set a Budget for Back to School and stick to it:

Creating a Back to School budget is a really important factor in saving the most money. You don’t want to overspend, but you still want to be able to get everything needed. With each child being in different levels of school, their needs will be different. Don’t forget to budget for the teenager’s track shoes or calculator! Keep those kinds of things in mind.

 

Back to School

How to Save on School Supplies:

School supplies vary upon the age of your kids, but they all need them. The best ways that I’ve found to save on school supplies are to watch sale fliers for sales and use coupons at places like Staples or Office Max. Buy bigger bulk packs of some supplies that get used a lot. Yes, you may be spending more up front but it proves to save quite a bit overall. This works great, especially if you have 3 or 4 kids in school at the same time.

Use printable coupons on supplies at stores like Walmart too or other big retail stores. If you’re shopping online for supplies, I highly recommend Amazon or Discount School Supply for your items. Both are great places to find great deals. If you have Amazon Prime, you’ll get fast FREE 2 day shipping. If you don’t have it, you can get a FREE Trial of Amazon Prime now!!

Stick to practical and not CUTE. Cute can cost a fortune when it comes to pens, folders, notebooks, backpacks, and the like. Give the kids a limit on the cutesie things they are allowed to buy and then the rest…stick to practical. Check this blog post out too for lots of other great ideas for saving on school supplies!

 

Back to School

How to Save on Back to School Clothes, Shoes, and Accessories:

Clothing and shoes are your biggest chunk for back to school spending! Especially if you have teenagers! They want what their friends have so it’s always a battle. I know…I used to be a teen.

Rule # 1 is to never pay full price and always watch for sales! Keep an eye out for coupon mailers to help save a few extra dollars here and there.

Thrift Shop. Most of the time you can find really nice namebrand clothing in thrift shops that even still have the tags on them. You’ll get those goodies at huge discounted prices than you will off the retail store rack!

Shop Year Round. Every couple of months, head out and grab a few sales. Scope online deals out throughout the year and when you find a nice deal, snag it. It’s smarter than paying full price WHEN you need the actual item!

Shop clearance. That’s a no-brainer, I know….but sometimes people just need to be reminded. Most of the time you can still even use coupons or coupon codes on clearanced items. Think outside the box too. Don’t just look for clothes that are on clearance. Look for shoes, jewelry, accessories and other things that are generally clearanced too.

Think outside of the season. While you’re doing back to school shopping now, you’re looking for fall outfits. Hit the sale racks for the summer things that are on sale or clearance and buy the next size up. The kiddos can wear those things NEXT year and you won’t be paying full price next year for summer clothes.

Shop Online. I get my biggest discounts most of the time from shopping online, especially when I can score free shipping. I do the majority of my shopping at these spots, and often through Ebates for Cashback!

Amazon

Payless Shoes

Crocs.com

Walmart

 

What are your best tips for saving on back to school supplies and clothes? We all love to learn from others, so leave your best tips below in a comment! Can’t wait to hear them.

Filed Under: Baby/Kids Deals, Money Saving Tips, Online-Deals, Other Deals, Retail Deals, Thrifty Household Tips, Thrifty Thursday Tagged With: back to school, money saving tips, Save on Back to School deals, School Supplies

Ways That We Reduce and Reuse Everyday Things – Our #EverydayEffect Challenge

April 21, 2013 by Jenni 888 Comments

Everyday Effect


I’ve always been on the “frugal” side of life for the most part. Part of being frugal, naturally, includes finding ways to reduce and reuse things. I won’t say that I’m an avid recycler – because if I did…I’d be lying. I do try to green things up a lot around here though. I’m the one who wears my tennis shoes until the sole comes off (literally, TRUE story). I’ve been known to walk plum out of my shoes.

A lot of my kid’s clothes are hand me down (not too proud to admit) and I love to find good deals at the local thrift shops. I’m just always finding ways to get good use out of what we have until it’s flat not any good to use anymore. If Eli gets a hole or a stain on his shirt, it goes in his play clothes pile. From there it will eventually over time make it’s way to the “cleaning rags” pile. Just another easy way to reduce and reuse!

eli's paint and play shirt

 

P&G (Procter & Gamble) has an awesome Every Day Effect Conserve it All challenge going right now that I’m proud to participate in. This challenge is just one way to let others know that doing just simple, ordinary things daily can and DOES make a difference. P&G believes the most effective changes don’t necessarily start with grand acts and can start much closer to home, by changing the way we think about things like waste. Ordinary actions like washing your laundry in lower temps and doing the dishes with a more concentrated product can help allowing us to reduce energy and waste!!

Save some Green Everyday Effects P&G Challenge

For the Every Day Effect challenge, I wanted to challenge my family to leaving the lights off during the day. Our house is surrounded by trees so we have alot of shade during the day. I knew that this would INDEED be a challenge. Surprisingly enough…I’ve been the one having the most difficulty with it. It’s not that I don’t want to do it…it’s just a force of habit to turn the lights on in any room I’m in even when there’s plenty of day light coming in through the windows. Goes to show how much we just take for granted, huh?! I’ve posted sticky notes on all the light switches saying “Save some GREEN!” and it has been a nice reminder. Making a concerted effort towards something can create a habit, so that’s what we’re shooting for.

I also wanted to share a few other simple things that we do every day (simple things that YOU can do too) that makes an impact in greener and all around healthier living. Really, if it’s something I can do it’s something that you can do too! Reduce and reuse!!

Ways we reduce and reuse around our house:

  • Use cold water for laundry (except for whites and/or towels)
  • Make my own laundry detergent (much cheaper, plus I don’t have to throw out all the plastic bottles)
  • Let dishes air dry vs. using heated dry in dishwasher
  • We don’t have a compost pile, but you can add cut grass and food scraps to the pile if you have one (This is something I am interested in doing…need to do some homework!)
  • Reuse my coffee creamer bottles
  • Reuse my coffee cans
  • Reuse plastic bags
  • Use vinegar as my MAIN cleaning product…it does it all (awesome cleaner and all natural)
  • Turning TV’s and lights off when not being used (we’re working on the light issue)

 

flower

Doing these everyday things like I said DOES make a difference! No, you might not be saving the whales by re-using your coffee can for some awesome reason – but you have to look at it as a chain reaction. You never know – the next coffee can you throw out could possibly end up in the ocean eventually! Honest….just think about it that way. Over time your small efforts pay off.

We’d love to hear your comments…let us know how YOU try to make a difference. Leaving comments always gives others ideas as well. We can all definitely learn from one another! While you’re still here, make sure to head over and enter yourself to WIN an awesome prize. P&G #EverydayEffects Pinterest Giveaway! Some lucky person is going to win a washing machine!!! You can connect with P&G on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date in all the latest news!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post for SheSpeaks and P&G.

Filed Under: Hot Topics, Miscellaneous, Money Saving Tips, Thrifty Household Tips, Thrifty Thursday Tagged With: #EverydayEffect, green living, money saving tips, P&G, recycle, Reduce and Reuse, thrifty tips

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Double Duty Divas Mom It Forward: Contributor

the chick behind this blog! I'm your ordinary, everyday wife and mom to an incredible pair of stinky guys! I am a self diagnosed coffee addict with a ginormous sweet tooth, preferably baked goods!! My hope is to help you, teach you, and entertain you on your way to a more thrifty and frugal lifestyle! Along the way, you'll find awesome recipes, great tips, and tons of randomness! We have loads of fun, so ya'll come back now, ya hear?!

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