Show & Tell: Steal & Splurge

Hello Monday, hello to a new week! I’ll be linking up with Andrea for her Show & Tell topics again in 2017, first up is all about how our family saves and what we feel is worth a little splurge!

SAVE

I LOVE to save a little money, I think I probably save much more than I splurge which is a good thing! I try my best to meal plan for a week at a time, I actually just meal planned for 2 weeks (we just started in on week 2). I believe that meal planning helps me stick to a budget, stay healthy by not eating out, and save because I plan with leftovers in mind to pack for lunch. When I sit down to meal plan I also take a look at current sales and use those to my advantage. That way I’m planning meals around items that I can save more money on and get a better bang for my buck!

Another big help I use is coupon and discount apps! We grocery shop mostly at Kroger so I’ll browse and “clip” any deals they have online/on my app – I’ll keep these in mind for when I’m meal planning too of course. I LOVE Target’s Cartwheel app and always keep my deals up to date on that. I also really love to browse the clearance racks at Target, I almost never buy anything full price in that store, I’d rather wait for it to go on clearance 😉

A really important thing to remember and that I am good at is not just buying things because they are on sale – I’ll carry something with me all through the store and then evaluate if I really NEED it.

I also use various cashback/reward type apps, like Ibotta for example. With Ibotta I just have to scan some of the items I buy and snap a pic of the receipt, then I get money back to my account to accumulate and eventually redeem via giftcards or to my paypal account. It takes less than 5 minutes and I can easily earn money. Use multiple apps and get even more credit for your purchases!

I recently started using Grove Collaborative for my household items like soap, cleaners, and health type products. Not every item is cheaper through it so I make sure to be aware but they often have deals or freebies and its easy to make sure I stay stocked on the items. Use my link to get $10 and I get $10 too 🙂

SPLURGE

I would say we’re pretty frugal so we don’t splurge a lot but there are a few things that we do believe are worth a little more money. A big one for us is meat. We really prefer to buy our meat at our local butcher or a store like Whole Foods. I don’t mind buying produce or regular groceries at Kroger but the quality of meat is just so much better if we spend a little more. Plus then I have more confidence that we are getting meat that is better (or perhaps not as bad) and it tastes WAY better. Seriously I never noticed it until we started buying higher quality meats but you can tell the difference and its just worth it!

 

 What things do you do to save and what’s worth a little splurge? I’m always interested in more ways to save or hear about things that I should consider spending a little more on! Below are the topics I’ll be linking up with for the rest of the year 🙂