Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Supersaver Secrets

Think you know how to stretch a dollar? Wait till you see the ways these clever moms saved thousands on everyday expenses!

By Bob Trebilcock

 

How she did it: First, she analyzed. McCoy, 49, started meticulously saving grocery receipts, recording the everyday and sale prices of the foods she bought regularly. This enabled her to identify which markets offered the best deals on specific products. Based on her research, she established a list of preferred stores and reorganized her family’s meals around their flyers — each week, she would cook whatever was featured in the mega-bargain ads on the front and back pages. (The purpose of these “loss leaders” is to get you into the grocery store; once you’re there, companies figure, you’ll buy lots of items that are not on sale.) But this shopper stuck strictly to the bargains. “By planning menus around them, I could save 35 percent on the average grocery bill,” says McCoy, who now runs the Website Miserlymoms.com.

McCoy also began cooking two meals at a time: one for dinner and another for the freezer. “That way, when you’re short on time, you can microwave a meal in a hurry rather than spend money in a restaurant,” she says. McCoy lowered her grocery bills even more by making family favorites from scratch instead of buying more-expensive store versions. A month’s worth of homemade chocolate syrup for the kids, for instance, costs just $1.

Biggest challenge: “Finding less-expensive substitutes for the name-brand cereals that my kids really love,” she says. “We compromised. I buy in bulk when the name brands go on sale.”

Not worth the effort: Food prep that takes time with little financial payoff. “Although creating granola from scratch was a bargain, making marshmallows from scratch was a waste. They took four hours, didn’t taste very good, and a bag at the store only costs $1,” McCoy says. Nor is she a warehouse-club fan. “I’ve done the math,” she says. “You can save more buying a month’s worth of toilet paper or peanut butter on sale at your grocery store than paying the warehouse club’s everyday bulk price.”

Bottom line: In year one, McCoy saved $3,000-plus on groceries — more than half her usual bill.

There are two kinds of shoppers in this world: those who look for a bargain and those who live for a bargain. Think of the second group as guerrilla savers who’ve found creative ways to cut their costs and still get the things their families need. Here are three of these savvy savers — and the secrets that help them save a bundle.

SUPERMARKET SMARTY: Jonni McCoy

Why she became a guerrilla: One day 17 years ago, McCoy told her husband, Beau, that she had a plan: In order to quit working and stay at home with their two kids, she would learn to live on half their income. “He gave me four months to figure it out or we would have to move,” says McCoy, of Colorado Springs. Before her time was up, she and her family were living within their new means withoutdrawing on their savings.