A Different Way to Save

After a couple of long posts, I thought I would make this one a short and sweet one.  No need to overload on info just yet! I hope you all have been applying some of the suggestions I've given to save money on clothing and accessories. I also hope they have been helpful!

Now for today's post....As many of us have come to realise, there are so many ways to save money these days. From couponing to going to seminars and reading books about how to get the best deals. there's just so much to take in!  Amidst all of these many ways to save, I feel as though there's one trick to save money that has gone overlooked by many. What is this trick? Signing up for emails from your favorite stores!   What most people forget is it's a great way to get in on sales before it's announced on their website. What's even better,  is a number of the websites do member only sales with huge discounts. Through member only, or secret sales, I've been able to buy countless items on websites like Modcloth that almost always have clothing that is way out of my budget. Through their member only sales I was able to purchase two gorgeous dresses for $40. Each dress was originally around $50 each before the sale. Even stores like Potterybarn will give you advanced notice of when a big sale is going to happen. A lot of the stores will even do big online only sales when they are getting ready to clean out their inventory in preparation for the next season. Something else these stores do, is have huge warehouse clearing events at the end of the year. Which means HUGE discounts for you. The only way you can find out about the warehouse events is through the email memberships, or if you know some one who works at the store. Some times they even post it on Twitter, but then you have the chance of missing out on that Twitter post if you're not on there all the time. I know I have! Another cool thing about becoming a member on a website is most of the websites will send you coupons for your Birthday or to celebrate the Anniversary of you signing up to be a member. Pretty cool, right?

 There is one drawback for most people about signing up for the email notifications, the fear of getting spammed. I completely understand that concern! I've been guilty of signing up for to many store's emails and getting my inbox filled with unnecessary emails about stores. Or even having them sell my info to other stores who have spammed me. Through those experiences, I've learned a few ways to avoid both getting spammed, and signing up for to many store's emails. 

1. Only sign up for the stores that you buy an item from a once a week, or at the very least twice a month.

2. Read through the member agreement (if they have one) to see if they are going to give your info to other sister stores, or to stores you 'might be interested in'.

3. If you do sign up for email notifications, make sure to set the preferences for how often you want to be emailed and what you want to be notified about.

I hope you all can use this info to help you save some money! Have an awesome week!!

Having a 'Shopping' Budget While on Vacation

Yes, you read that right, a shopping budget while on vacation! I don't mean shopping as in buying souvenirs, I really am suggesting setting a clothes or shoe shopping budget for your vacation. I'm sure this may seem taboo to many of you, but it has been a huge rule for us when going on vacation. I know most of you are reading this with major skepticism, but that's why I'm writing this! So to the best of my ability, I'm going to explain exactly why you should consider making this a part of your vacation budget.

Neither one of us is huge on souvenirs, we mostly just like to take lots of photos, go on tours, and do as many beer or wine tastings as we can. The only items we bring back from a trip are gifts for the people who watch our animals while on vacation and a fun travel mug from each place we visit. Like I said, we're not big souvenir people. After our first major vacation together as a married couple we realised how big of benefit a shopping budget could be. We started to notice that each major city we visited had an abundance of thrift stores, and on the outskirts of the city there was always some sort of outlet mall. As most typical girls would do when they see either one of those places while driving, they make their husband do a pit stop there. I mean, how can you say not to a Kate Spade bag that is brand new and 75% off? Or, how about Men's skate shoes that are half off? Then throw in the fact some states don't charge sales tax...we couldn't say no to any of that! Not to mention all the thrift store items! Seriously though, how can you beat those prices? Well, you really can't here in Orange County. Especially when they were things we had really wanted or needed. Making these pit stops is also a great way to go way over budget on a vacation. Which is what happened several times on a few of our trips.

After our third vacation in a year, and third time blowing our budget way out of the
water, we sat down and talked about putting an actual shopping budget into the vacation plan. Since then we've only gone over budget once in our 3 years of going on trips and have also found amazing deals we pretty much would never see at home. Deals such as, a Kate Spade purse for $65, Hunters boots for $40, or even Vans shirts for $2 a piece.

 For each vacation each vacation we now set the same amount as before, or increase/decrease it according to where we are going. For example, when we went to Idaho we set a budget of $20 to spend. We spent exactly that and not a penny more. What helped us decide that budget? We asked friends who had been there what there was to do for entertainment, they told us pretty much nothing but hiking and farm museums. Based on that review, we decided $20 was probably a good budget.

Now that you have heard my case, I hope you're able to pull some useful tips out of this post. If you do decide to put this budget in place, please keep some things in mind:

1. It doesn't have to be a huge sum of money. Something like $40 is even appropriate if you only go to the thrift stores in town. Just be sure it's a sum you can afford.

2. Try to make sure that sum of money is pulled out of your account and in cash before you leave. Some times a visual of just how much you have to spend can help you not go over budget or get too crazy with spending.

3. Just because you set that sum of money to spend, doesn't mean you have to spend it all. It's okay to have money left over when you get home.

Welcome to The Art of Being Thrifty!

Welcome to the Art of Being Thrifty!

I thought I would start this blog off by explaining a little about myself and why I created this page. I'm a working wife married to an awesome man who happens to be a physicist. We've been married for almost three years now, how time flies! As a married couple we have had our share of struggles, especially in the budgeting realm.

My husband is a very money conscious, budget oriented person. I on the other hand, am not. In the beginning of our marriage adjusting to living on a budget was incredibly difficult for me. So difficult, that I was the sole source of us overdrafting on our accounts almost every paycheck. I was also not allowing us to get on track with paying off several of the credits cards we had at the time. What made it even more unpleasant, was my lack of a job. Due to multiple sudden health issues, I had to have a few different surgeries to fix some old injuries from my athletic days. After struggling for almost a year with money and budgeting, I finally was able to get on track with lots of help from my family and God's scripture.

It wasn't as though I didn't grow up with some set of rules for money, or have any budgeting resources to pull from at our Church. I had several resources for money saving, budgeting, and paying off our debt forms everywhere around me. It was my expensive taste and drive to only have the best things in life that put me in the big fat red negative place in my account.

 Having an incredibly materialistic mindset didn't help me out much either. It wasn't until I read a verse in  the book of Luke that I was brought back to reality.  Since then, I have applied just about every budgeting technique that has been given to me and found what works for us and what doesn't.  My hope is that through this page, you as the reader are able to gain some wisdom to apply to your struggles with budgeting and daily purchases. To learn how to be frugal, but also be able to buy those high end items you may really want.

Until next time, I will leave you this verse to chew on;

Sell all your material possessions, and give them to the poor. Make yourselves wallets that don't wear out! Make a treasure for yourselves in heaven that never loses its value! In heaven thieves and moths can't get close enough to destroy your treasure.  Luke 12:33 GWT