Case in Point: I usually spend $2.95 on padded mail envelopes at the post office. The dollar store sells three of these for… one dollar. Since I use four of these every year, that saves me about $10.

Pay for my home and auto insurance premiums with the PC Mastercard (so even more points, but ALWAYS pay balance in full each month); no extra admin fee by the insurance co. Use their PC bags for groceries, so extra 50 points each bag. The points really add up quickly when you use those bags, leading to more free groceries!

And yes, brown bagging lunch.

Our daughter wears mostly hand-me-downs, we’re lucky to have a friend with a few daughters! Some of the clothes we get are even brand new ones with tags on (too many gifts i guess!). For our son, I try to buy at the end of the season or buy used clothing.

For bigger ticket items, we think long-term, and tend to buy stuff of better quality, no point buying cheaper stuff that break down 6 months later.

10 years of NO FEES and lots of free groceries.

Then when we converted our home and auto insurance to PC, we saved over $315 a year!

I sound like a commercial but over 10 years that’s $1550 saves on bank fees. (We were paying $12.95 a month for unlimited checking at CIBC.) and $1890 saving so far on our insurance (switched 6 years ago) for a total of $3440 in savings with NO lifestyle change. That and we’ve cashed in over $900 in free groceries so far! We love PC banking.

Cheers!

When my girls were young I shopped at garage sales for clothing, books, toys and equipment. We were both students and were relieved to get clothes for $1 or less per outfit. You have to be careful,particularly with things like cribs because safety standards change. Those were the things we bought new.

As for eating less meat, I am well-read on the topic of nutrition and make sure we have plenty of quality protein. Zinc and B-12 are more of an issue when you cut out meat entirely, which we haven’t done. For many people, eating less meat would be a positive change. We know many healthy vegetarians; however,there are things to know before making a switch in that direction.

We are also taking advantage of inexpensive produce right now, both from the store and also from the garden. We have a community garden plot at a local church and it is amazing how much you can grow in just a small plot. I save by growing most of my vegetables from seed.

However, the greatest of all is freecycle. If you don’t know what it is, look it up and join. In summary, it is an online community devoted to reducing the amount of “stuff” that goes to the landfill. Alternatively, it’s a free online flea market. I replaced an old window in my house earlier this year. The old window was highly unlikely to make it to someone else’s house, even though it was unhurt. I refused to pay our local advertising rates for a classified ad to sell it, so I listed it on freecycle. A guy who was building a shed called, came and took it. Everyone wins.

Oh yeah, and let me be the first with the caveats on the dietary changes. Legumes are definitely cheaper but they don’t contain the same quantities or qualities of proteins. The proteins are pretty key when you’re going to grow 5% in a year. It’s excellent that your kids are feeling better, you’ve probably made the right call.

Lots of people here have commented that health is the thing they don’t skimp on. So it’s a good caveat that changing a healthy diet in an attempt to save money should be taken with the utmost of care.

We are also changing what we eat – less meat and more whole grains and legumes. It is less expensive and we feel better.

[...] Favorite Frugal Tip? (25 comments) [...]

We don’t have Safeway out here in Ontario (or at least in Ottawa where I live) so I can’t really draw any conclusions but I almost always never buy food from non-grocery stores for the exceptions of Costco. This includes Wal-Mart, Zellers, Giant Tiger etc. I simply do not trust the quality of the food in those places and in light of the recent scancals involving Chinese imports, all the more reasons to be careful and selective when it comes to shopping for food.

It’s something that we digest after all, it’s our health and we should not cut corners, IMHO. I would like to post this article by the Globe and Mail at this point.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070706.wlchina06/BNStory/lifeMain/home

It certainly doesn’t mean that expensive food = safety and peace of mind but it pays to be informed and as the old cliche goes…when something is too good to be true, it probably is.

Cheers!

P.S. Perhaps FrugalTrader can start another topic where we can discuss what aspects of our life that we should not cut corners or be too frugal about. An example would be if your kids ask you if you could bring them to Disney World in Florida, what would your response be knowing it will probably cost a good chunk ? but remember the memories, they stay with the kids for the rest of their lives!

We typically stock up on our meats when the AirMiles special is on (or the Saveon Foods points specials). Whoever has the cheapest meats when the points promotions come out can expect to see me with a shopping cart full of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

I’m surprised I forgot to mention this one in my earlier post: I created a spreadsheet on my Treo that records the “normal” lowest price we typically pay for our core foods. When the flyers come out, I check the prices against the spreadsheet to ensure that the promotions are actually savings. Since I started doing that, out grocery bill is down by about 15%. Here’s an example: my wife loves Crystal Light. We had been picking them up for about $2.50 each. However, I quickly discovered that there were regular sales at $1.97-$2.00. Now when I see them on sale, I buy a box at a time. 12 packages in a box means $0.50 x 12 = $6.00 savings.

As to Wal-mart prices, I’ve found that anything marked “Extreme Special” on the flyer is Wal-Mart priced and anything marked “Special Savings” (or such) is about Zellers-priced. Of course, the logic doesn’t apply to eggs & dairy.

Which actually brings up an interesting conundrum, I’m actually a Zeller’s shopper. I’ve been out of my way to shop at Wal-Mart a few times (they’re not close to where I live) and I kept coming back with crap: the folding chairs were a buck cheaper, but after a year the back just fell out on one, the standing lamp was inexpensive, but the threading on the “twisting parts” was quite bad so I ended up duct taping part of it.

Wal-Mart basically always has lines for the service desk and the checkouts and finding someone to help you is a huge pain. So all frugality aside, I just decided to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. The fact that the service desk is busy every time I walk in does not instill me with confidence and waiting 15 minutes just to pay for my stuff doesn’t appeal to me either. At some point I figure that saving 10 minutes walking around the store and 10 minutes in line is probably worth the extra 2-4% that Zeller’s seems to be charging me. Especially when I’m not going to have to wait in line for 30 minutes when something breaks and needs to be returned :)

(I guess that’s my “anti-frugal” tip)

By the way, it’s mainly thanks to Safeway and my Air Miles Mosaik card that I’ve accumulated those rewards. Safeway often has coupons that give you 100 AirMiles for spending $100, 200 AM for $200, etc. Also, lots of product specials where you buy, say, 5 of an item and get bonus AirMiles (I still compare to Wal-Mart prices first, though).