Welcome to Day 245. I had to stop and sit down when I realized I have been fighting this debt freedom fight for 245 days. In just another 100 days I will have had this site for one year and although some progress has been made I want to make more and I think that recording the days might help me pull up my socks a bit.
The good news is I still have 755 days to redeem myself and get out of debt
I have come a long way and I have a lot more focus on the debt freedom plan, or should I say I still have focus. Who knows if I work hard enough I can be out of debt in 1000 days and I’ve got 3/4 of the time to do that.
So now that we have this wee bit of administrivia out of the way, I want to talk a bit about coupons. I’m a coupon convert. Or I’m becoming one anyway. slowly.
Folks, this is FREE money.. You’re going to spend the money anyway and you need the toothpaste or shampoo anyway, so you might as well save some money. The manufacturers are paying you to buy the stuff you need it makes sense to try it and see. And even if you don’t want to use coupons at very least get to know what stuff costs. After a while you get to realize that raspberries at 5 bucks for about a dozen is not that great of a deal, but three boxes for four bucks might be a better bargain.
Managing your debt all comes down to education, and what the market is. Let’s use real estate for an example. If you just move to town, and have no idea on the better neighbourhoods are, you might think that the price alone on a house would be the best bargain. But if you wake up to drunks on your driveway and your car broken into every morning than your cheap house might not be such a deal. The same goes with anything you are in the market to buy, steaks or houses it doesn’t matter.
Saving money on anything whether it’s groceries or gardening equipment becomes a lot easier if you are a smart shopper and spend the time to research. And that’s all using coupons really is – is a bit of research. You can do as little as check the weekly flyers to just get a feel on the groceries and the pricing or you can go all out and clip coupons and organize and alphabetize.Whatever works, is fine. As long as you save money and you’re comfortable with your savings.
It’s no sense being debt free if you’re miserable with the life to get there. It’s easy to read and preach about how if you live poorly now you will rejoice later when you’re debt free. But if you would rather put a gun to your head than clip just one coupon than don’t clip coupons. But find what works for you, and do it. If you find that you can live on a dollar a day that’s great do it. But if you find that $100 a day is more your style but it will take you a bit longer to get out of debt, that’s OK too.
Personal finance is personal and everybody’s story and comfort level with frugality is different, but there’s no harm in at least trying some frugal stuff to see if you like it. I don’t know that I will become a coupon expert but I do know that if I need something I will look for it on sale before I buy it or see if there’s a coupon readily available.
And if you shop online searching for coupons online should be your default strategy. How much effort does it take to search for a product in a search engine and type the word coupons and see what comes up. You are just spending money needlessly if you don’t do the research to find the best deal you can.
And that’s all the use of coupons is: It allows you to get the best deal on the best stuff available today. For less.
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