Saving Money - What Do You Do To Save Money For Your Family?

I have been on a mission for the last 10 months, like most of you during these more stressful economic times - to save money.

It's a practice that takes some practice :) I used to be a pretty impulsive buyer...at the grocery store, the salon, dining out. All of those things slowly started to get more difficult for us as the prices started getting higher in the stores & at the pump.

I went back to work part-time last fall to supplement our family's income and pay off some bills.

I started clipping coupons. I mean serious coupon clipping. I do it now like it's a sport. If there's a coupon for something or some place, well I probably have it.

I plan our family's meals around the sales at the grocery store. No more unplanned shopping trips that tack on $50-$100 additional expenses to our grocery budget.

Oh yes and that too - I am proud to say that we have a budget AND we stay on top of it now. This was a huge change in our lives. We learned how to budget every expense by going over our monthly expenses for the previous year and determining what we spent in each and every category. Yikes....I noticed some pretty extreme spending in a few categories {namely dining, groceries, medical and scrapbooking supplies} What can I say? I'm a scrapbooker & crop organizer so I spend tons of money on my passionate hobby. But it needed to be curtailed.....so along came the budget. It's been a blessing rather than the curse we were afraid of.

I now shop for deals on everything such as:

Dining out (which we do once or twice a month now. Not once or twice a week or even day like we used to.)

Personal care items - we are no longer loyal brand shoppers and it's been a welcome revelation that the less expensive products work just as well if not better! Eye care - check out Zenni Optical for fabulous deals on eyeglasses - the savings are impressive for my husband's ever-changing eye prescription. Grocery Stores - I used to exclusively shop at one or two stores in our area but since we are in such a central location to almost every chain on the East Coast, I shop where the best sales are. I stopped caring about the gas rewards at one store where I was paying triple for produce and started going to our local market for cheaper, fresher & organic items.

All in all, the economy has tightened our wallets but has made us smarter shoppers. We now make our money work for us. Good deals are not hard to find. Gradual lifestyle changes worked for us. What works best for you? How do you save money?

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Zenni Optical. All opinions are 100% mine.