The results are in for our second Thrifty Poll (just a refresher, we asked you how many times you eat out a month)!  Not only that, but we tripled the number of total responses – Go Team!!  So what were the results?  We actually had a tie between those that eat out ’6+ times a month’ and those that eat out ’1-2 times a month’.  But, if my statistics class reminds me (those five days I could stay awake!!), then those two less votes for the ’4-5 times a month’ category were merely noise and we essentially had a tie amongst those three.  Some of you exude true discipline by eating out only on special occasions (we salute you and know that’s the best way to “save money” by eating out).   And yes, the category ‘Does fast food count’ was more fun and truly invalidated the results – why we will never be asked to develop a Gallup poll.

But, at the end of the day I think the winner is…….Yes, we all eat out!

So, we thought it would be worth it to put some of our tips we use while eating out.  We want to hear some of your deals too!!  Please leave a comment and let us know some of your favorite tips!

Tip #1 – Coupons!!  (Go figure!!)

You knew we had to start with an easy one!!  However, many coupon sources may not be as obvious as it may appear.  But we’ll get to that.

First, we love our Entertainment coupon book!!  We buy 1-2 of these every year!  They are specific for your area and contain many coupons for your local coffee shops, have BOGO coupons for many restaurants, and many different coupon values for entertainment and events galore!  What’s specific here, however is their amazing coupons for different restaurants!  We love the fact that some restaurants that we may never have tried (e.g., I’m thinking of a nice little Italian hole-in-the-wall that has the most amazing Chicken Marsala and best Caesar salad I’ve ever had!!) had placed a BOGO FREE coupon in last and this year’s coupon books!!  If we had never had this BOGO coupon we probably would have never fallen in love with this place!!  Check the Entertainment book out…for us the value is truly worth it!

Second, local advertisers and coupon books will also have great deals, not to mention any coupons you might receive in the mail.  Have an extra file next to your coupon organizer(s) which contain all restaurant coupons.  That way as they come in the mail you can just toss them in and not even think about it.

Third, sign up on-line for their clubs and newsletters!  Very often when you sign up you’ll get a good high-value welcome coupon for a FREE appetizer, FREE dessert, and even sometimes a FREE entree.  One catch, however, is that you need to pre-plan.  We’ve found that restaurants may not send you the coupon for a few hours, so signing up the day you plan to eat out may not work.  We don’t know, but suspect this is to keep someone from signing up just to get a coupon for that night.

Fourth, call the restaurant and ask them if they have an promotions, deals, or know of any coupons available in the local newspapers/advertisers.  We’ve found both employees and managers to be equally helpful in pointing out which newspaper or ad has their coupon.  This is a great way to also learn how that specific restaurant advertises so you’ll have a better idea for next time!!

Now save 60% off Restaurant.com $25 Gift Cert. orders and receive a $15 FTD® Floral Reward. Use code BLOOM and Pay $4 thru 2/8/10.

Fifth, buy discounted gift cards and gift certificates!  We love Restaurant.com as they offer amazing deals on gift certificates.  Please note, however, that although you have a $25 gift certificate, there are usually terms and conditions that you must follow (e.g., $25 off when you buy $35 or more for one of our favorite restaurants).  We still love it as we can usually buy the certificates for $2-3.  Do the math….$25 off your bill and you spent $2….not bad!!

Last (and we know there are a ton more – but these are our favorites), check with your employer.  Just a few weeks ago I picked up a 20% off our total bill coupon from one of our favorites restaurants.  Sometimes restaurants are just trying to get the word out and drop off card/coupons to businesses as they are trying to be a preferred choice for hosting luncheons or just trying to get your company’s share of the lunch crowd.

Tip #2 – Restaurant Specials

As we said above, call ahead to find out if the restaurant is having a special.  Often there are limited time offers (e.g., 2 for $20 specials), free appetizers, etc that might appeal to you!

But, if you are looking to take the family out, we’re finding that restaurants that appeal to families are amazing!!  We’ll try to post more of these as we find them, but we love the Denny’s Kids Eat Free nights!!  Some Denny’s only have one night (Tuesday) while others offer up to two nights (Tuesday and Saturday).  The great thing about Denny’s is that each adult entree will get two kids meals for FREE.  And, if your child wants the hamburger (which is just a slider), you can get an additional slider for FREE as well!

There are a large number of restaurants that offer kids eat free or cheap (e.g., Denny’s, Fuddruckers, IHOP to name a few).  Leave us a comment to let us know some of your favorites!

Tip #3 – Order water / Order out and enjoy your beverages / sides at home

Depending on how often you eat out, you might answer this differently.  Say you eat out as a special treat – you might want to order a drink as it is a time to relax or celebrate!  However, some/many of you wrote that you eat out more often.  When you add up a number of $1.99 sodas (or A LOT more for alcohol) you’ll find that much of your bill is going to those items.  We’ve found that either getting water or taking our meal home (for a date night in!) has helped us save a lot of money on our eating out!  Its up to you, but when you do the math on your total drink bill (say for a year – ACK!), getting the FREE option isn’t a bad choice. 

Tip #4 – Split an adult entree or dinner between kids or a couple

We’re really starting to find that kid’s meals are a very expensive part of a meal (yes, you more experienced parents may chuckle!).  However, we are finding that often buying an adult entree and getting a couple of extra plates can prove to be another money saver.  For example, we just went out to Red Robin, a burger chain; we found the kid’s meals were close to $5 whereas the adult burgers were just a couple of dollars more!  Not only that, but the portions of the adult entrees were significantly larger as well!  Well, we divided between our kids and sure enough, came up with a cheaper night on the town with the family!

Well, the same can go for us adults as well!  Thrifty Cas and I sometimes will split a dinner and add a salad to get a very satisfying meal.  As the dinner portions are generally larger in portion sizes (think of the doggy bags you usually take home), we’ve found one to be just the right size for us both.

Tip #6 – Check our blog as we will continue to be searching for these deals (and looking for your help too!!)

Finally, keep checking back here.  One of the reasons we started this blog is because we were already doing much of the legwork and wanted to share our findings with others like you!  We’ll keep searching for those amazing deals that we love and hope you will share what you find as well!  Together we will make eating out as painless and CHEAP as we possibly can!

Bon Appetit!!

Our next Thrifty Polls “How Often Do You Eat Out Per Month,” ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. Get your votes in – it is a tight race! Find the poll in the top left corner of our page!

PLUS come back tomorrow for a fun post with the results and money saving tips for eating out!

We want to get to know you better! We just posted a new Thrifty Couple Poll, “How Often Do You Eat Out Per Month?”

Vote now and see the fun results!

*You will find the poll in the top left corner of our page!

Well here is the final result of the Thrifty Polls New Year’s Resolutions – Be a Smarter Shopper! First, WELCOME! The first step in being a Smarter Shopper is researching and finding out how and where you can cut or get more for your shopping dollar! So that may be what has led you here! Again, Welcome!

First, we have provided this site for us to share our experiences with saving money and couponing as a couple. We post deals and various other money making and money saving tips. However, we do not claim to be experts – we are not! We’re just out there like the rest of you trying to be Smarter Shoppers! We have been gaining experience as the Thrifty Couple for many years now, and we still learn new things everyday. That is the process of being a Smarter Shopper!

I want to refer back to the last Thrifty Poll result as much of the information regarding “Save More Money” also applies to being a Smarter Shopper! Key things to remember is to just get started! If you need help, have questions or anything else, let us know.  Also, if you find or know something, please share with us to share with everyone! We can all glean from each other’s knowledge and experiences!

Our take on how to be a Smarter Shopper:

• Have a realistic budget for every area of life (we will be sharing insights to ours as time goes on)
• Use coupons as much as possible, whenever possible! Especially in conjunction with sale!
• Don’t assume a price is the lowest just because you have a coupon
• Do your research
• Ask questions (of the store associates, other friends, and even us)
• Start slow and ease into the process to not overwhelm yourself (or your family!)
• Track your spending closely as this keeps you in check and on track!
• Don’t get caught in the trap of trying to do all of the deals or buying something just because it is cheap – if you will not use it, you just wasted it!
• Shop with cash! This really keeps you on track with your spending
• Eat BEFORE you shop! Whether you are grocery shopping (to prevent impulse buying) or shopping at the mall (to prevent fast food splurging). Take snacks for the kids (and yourself).
• Keep restaurant coupons and Entertainment books in your vehicles!

The list could go on and on, but this is what comes to the top of my mind right now from our  own strategies. Please share if you have more thoughts!

We enjoyed hearing your thoughts via our Thrifty Polls.  We will be running more polls soon as we want to get to know our readers more – so check back!

Here is result #4! Save more money! This can mean two things “save more money….in the bank” or “save more money ….. in every area of life!”

Not sure how you interpreted it, but want to share a few things about both and one way to get to both ends!

So how can you save more money …..in the bank and …… in every area of life! Couponing! By saving on the things you buy everyday, you can invest the saved money! We know many people that do this.  Whether it is a general savings account, or saving for a trip, or something special.

For example, let’s say that you currently spend $500 a month for a family of 4 for groceries, household, toiletries etc.  If you were to cut this down by half (which is easy to do with a little bit of effort and a little bit of time), then you could literally be saving $250 more a month! What could you do with that extra money!

Well, how do you get to be the type of couponer to drop your current budget by half? Go HERE to see our information on how to get started! We also offer FREE classes, we personally teach in Utah and NV. There are also classes in many states.  We also have many fellow blogging friends who teach classes in their areas – if you are looking for this type of instruction, send us an email and we will try to find a class for you.

Our site, along with many of the sites of our friends (see links in posts plus our Blog Roll) can offer and help you to save money in every area of life! ThriftyAl and I are here to help – poke around our site for many of the answers.  If you can’t find something or have a question, send us an email!

• Couponing is a process – start small and add a bit more as you are comfortable and have the time. On the very basic level and little time invested, can yield you incredible savings!  The place to start first is with your grocery budget, this is the easiest and fastest way to drop your budget and “save more money.”

• Don’t try to do it all at once – again, take baby steps! There was an article by our friend Lesley Mitchell from the Salt Lake Tribune regarding this exact thing, her article talks about real life examples of taking baby steps. If you take it in stride, you will more likely stick with it.  Honestly, this is hard for me as I am a “all or nothing” kind of person. But you need to be realistic about what you can do and then gradually add more money saving tasks to shave back your spending, therefore saving more!

• Don’t wait, just get started doing something!

• Have fun and get your family involved.  Make family goals and brainstorm ideas on where and how to cut.

• Visit our site often for deals, ideas, tips, advice and also share with us!

I wanted to close with one final thing.  We found this fun site advertised in a magazine and was very intrigued by the idea – SmartyPig.com. Ever heard of it?

It is a way to save money like you would in a bank account,  but with a little spin! You create an account, then you name your goal from a student for college, trip, wedding, whatever your goal is. You set a date as to when you want to achieve this goal with the approximate cost of the special occasion. They have calculators that will figure how much you need to save to get to your goal in time! Your account accrues interest while it is open!

This is where the fun part comes in: you can then invite friends, family or whomever to view your account, your goals and deadline and invite them to help you get to your goal.  They utilize the online social outlets like FaceBook and MySpace or you can just email invites. You can even put a widget on your site showing how close you are to your goal!

Once you reach your goal, you can send it to your bank account, or purchase retail store cards with a 12% bonus on them or divide the funds between the two options. For more information, they have videos, FAQ’s, etc. HERE.

This is a completely FREE service – they claim you can go from beginning to end without being charged a penny! We don’t have personal experience with it and just found out about it ourselves – so be sure to research their site for the answers to your questions.

It is a unique idea and possibly a fun and motivating way to go! Let us know if any of you have experience with it and any comments, suggestions or ideas you have on this subject!

*We will be taking a break tomorrow, but check the final result of the poll on Monday!

Alright, I am already feeling guilty. This happens to be the next Thrifty Polls post on a Friday night when we are having “date night in” and indulging on take out and sweet treats (thriftily of course)!

If this was your resolution, many of you are a week into it! Keep going – yay! For us, our main goal is a healthier lifestyle as a family (with hopes of weight loss!).

We have made a goal to do the following in our diets (as a family):

• Healthier snacking by choosing fresh produce first
• Use Turkey options (like ground turkey, turkey bacon, etc.) in at least 1 meal a week to replace a beef, pork meal (Thrifty Al was raving on the turkey bacon last week!!  That’s a huge step!)
• Use more brown and wild rice
• Replacing sugar/butter in our cooking with applesauce and honey (where the recipe allows)
• Cut out sodas
• Drink lots of water
• Be more committed to taking our vitamins
• Replacing everyday staples with the low fat or no fat versions (i.e. sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.)
• Incorporating natural and organic in our diets even more!

One thing that I would like to mention is that we have had these goals in mind and have been slowly incorporating them into our diets over the past couple of years.  There is always room for improvement and more incorporation of the above. We will be posting more about couponing and saving money with the natural and organic in mind (and we have in the past) – we don’t want to make this post a book, but a glimpse!

We want to also stay within our budget.  We have a weekly grocery, household, toiletry and diaper budget of about $60 = $240 a month.  We hardly went shopping the last couple of months in 2009 and so it was nice to be able to save even that much more! But as we have already been buying organic and healthier alternatives, we hope that taking that step a little further may change our budget slightly.  We will see what happens (and so will you as you keep following us!)

Also, exercise and activity is important to us. We want to do more physical activities as a family, like bike riding, hiking, walks, outdoor sports, etc.  We also love swimming! Thrifty Al loves to run in the free outdoor air and I work out at home to try to get more exercise incorporated into our lives for general health and well being. This is definitely a more practical option for me as I am a busy, homeschooling, deal seeking, coupon shopping, blogging mom! I have found great resources cheap (like equipment, videos, etc) from deals and sales (watch for them here or let us know if you find one!) and Amazon.com always being a good resource for affordable options!

So……we shared a little with you about our goals for this resolution.  We want to hear your thoughts, plans and ideas.

We have been collecting and saving some fun information to help you get to your goals the “thrifty” way!

First, keep checking our blog regularly to find out the current latest deals and coupons for the grocery, household, personal care and baby items and those deals as they relate to diet and health (like the healthier options, diet foods, vitamins, etc.) as there are soooo many and they rotate constantly, that this post isn’t the place for them.

Second, we will be giving tips, ideas and sharing any ideas that you send us on this topic.  We want to help you save money in EVERY area of life, including this one.

Third, figure out a plan, discuss it with your family and get going!

Fourth, here are some FREEBIES and DEALS to get you started, going, and continuing on this process:

For research, information and encouragement

Amazon.com has a deal on Fitness Magazines for only $5!! This is good through tomorrow, January 9th! – go HERE to see our previous post for the details!

This is a Diet Sample Pack and this is what they say about it! “Finally a diet system that fits into your life! Lose up to 30 pounds in 30 days starting with three easy steps! Finally a diet system that fits into your life!” Go HERE for more information. Worth looking into!

To get you movin’ – Music and Workout DVDs

Go HERE to get 1-hour FREE Workout mp3 music downloads sponosored by the Biggest Loser and Subway

TO GET THE WHOLE BIGGEST LOSER CREW IN THERE:

FREE DVD and Fat Loss program from former biggest loser trainer Kim Lyons. This is a great FREEBIE as it is totally free for a DVD and Silver membership into her program which gives you FREE workout plans, tips, tricks, weight loss information, etc .  You can pick to watch the DVD online for FREE or have the FREE hard copy mailed to you buy paying for the shipping at $5.77.  This is a good way to go, especially since it is FREE! For more information go HERE.

Of course Amazon.com is a good place to go to find everyday deals. Again, we will let you know when we find a hot deal or a FREEBIE somewhere out there.

Go HERE to see Workout DVD’s and resources from Amazon!

To give you the works: Gym FREEBIES

This offer is now expired!

Curves is a great place to go for a less intimidating, but great work out for women.  We actually posted previously on this deal, go HERE to get a FREE consultation fitness plan and 30-days of working out!

Bally is offering a FREE 7-Day Pass. We don’t live near a Bally, but for those of you that do – check it out for 7 days and see if it is what you need! Go HERE and fill out a quick form and request your 7-Day pass.

Keep up the good work, share with us and have fun!

Okay, so the #2 spot on the Thrifty Polls “New Year’s Resolutions” was to GET ORGANIZED! First, I can 100% totally agree with you! We put up the poll options because those are our top picks! This is definitely one area that we can improve on…..

Anyway, there is literally soooo much to cover on this subject, so I am just going to highlight (and try my tips myself!) and then throughout the year we will have posts regarding more organizational tips!

Here are some little things we try to do in our home:

• First, we have a basement that is a throw-all, you know the ones…the unfinished basements! Anyway, over the few months, we have set a little money aside from each paycheck to purchase plastic bins (wait until they are on sale) and then fill a bin or two every payday to get the basement organized. This was ThrityAl’s plan as he is the “bin stacker” and wanted a uniform system that we could easily label (and relabel) and be all the same size. By attacking it both financially and time wise in the small bites, it is not so overwhelming!

• Also, each season, we rotate the clothes in everyone’s closets and dressers with these bins that get stored in the basement on the off season! This allows us to “reorganize” those problem spots up to four times a year and give-away things we don’t need and allow us to reuse items for the future. It’s kind of like a forced clean out!

• We have used utensil trays to organize more than just utensils! Like the “junk drawer,” hair thingy drawer, kids activity drawers, any drawer or shelf that holds those little odds and ends!

• We have also slowly been purchasing these plastic 5-shelf systems from Walmart for around $24.  Each set is five shelves high and they can connect to each other.  We started with these in our basement food pantry (we actually have six in that little corner of the basement filled to the brim! – What a Blessing!). Anyway, we also started putting them in other areas as well! We have a library/school room and a play room and this makes great storage for the kids things. We actually purchased open storage bins in red and blue color from IKEA for $1.00 (IKEA has many great and affordable storage options!) and labeled them based on the toys (i.e. potato heads, legos, little people, blocks, etc.).

• Finally, our last tip for now is regarding the pantry and food storage organization. See the previous bullet point regarding the plastic shelves from Walmart. We have taken these shelves and dedicated them to be similar to the grocery store.  When we come home from a shopping trip (after taking a picture for you to see!) we put them away and rotate them so the oldest is in front. This is important so items don’t go to waste! For example, here are some of the shelves:
  • The cereal shelves (this is actually one full set of 5 shelves!) and grouped the “like” cereals together
  • Snack
  • Baking
  • Rice
  • Pastas
  • Sauces and dressings
  • The personal care items (another full set of 5 shelves for each level having a certain type – hair, tooth, body, etc.)
  • The household corner (we try to separate the household items from the food in an area under the stairs: cleaning products, toilet paper, home fragrance, etc.)
  • Baby items
  • Medicines and vitamins
  • Canned good (another full set of shelves!)
  • Other breakfast items
  • Desserts
  • PLUS, TWO (yes 2!) 7 cubic foot chest freezers – one for meat, one for everything else (more on this later!)

I am not an expert in this field (boy do I wish I was!) but hope that these tips can get your ideas going – share with us – PLEASE! We want to know anything that you all are doing! This is just a start, so check back throughout the year for more ideas!

Until then, let’s learn something from the experts….. here are some “thrifty” book resources from Amazon – there are many, but I am going to just list a few – go HERE for a complete list. These are all eligible for FREE Amazon Prime Shipping – details HERE.

Organizing Plain and Simple on sale for $6.78 on Amazon.com (60% off – down from $16.95!) Go HERE to see it!

Organizing from the Inside Out on sale for $10.20 on Amazon.com (32% off regularly $15) – go HERE to see it

Finally,

Organizing for Dummies on sale for $14.95 on Amazon.com (32% off, regularly $21.99) – Go HERE to see it

Well, we just closed our first poll concerning New Year’s Resolutions.  We thought it would be appropriate to take the opportunity to give tips and tricks and some of our experiences on each of the options that we selected.  We probably selected each of the available options because partly they are goals we have each year.  And, it appears our top resolution is the same as many of yours – Get Out of Debt!!

Thrifty Cas and I truly know the meaning of Proverbs 22:7 where it states “the borrower is servant to the lender”.  When we started our marriage over 10 years ago, we thought we needed to have everything our parents had.  Of course, when we realized that meant a mortgage, two car payments, and other loans to pay for furniture and trips, we started to feel the servanthood to our creditors.

It was soon after the dread started to set in (not seeing an end in sight!!) that I heard a talk-radio host talking about something called the debt-snowball, referring to a journey to financial peace, and talking with people that knew many of the problems that Thrifty Cas and I were facing!  Yes, many of your already know who I am referring to, but this host was none other than Dave Ramsey!!

We bought his book “The Total Money Makeover” ($15.74 at Amazon) and devoured it!  What was great about this book is that his advice went against some of the things we had tried before.  I’ll list his first couple of steps and explain what I mean.

1. Get $1,000 to start your emergency fund – This totally went against the grain of our thinking because we always thought that when paying off debt, put all your money towards debt and go back to debt if you have an emergency.  I can personally say that the first time we had a car repair (ironically a month after we first got our $1,000 emergency fund) the freedom to pay out of savings was immense!!  Not only that, but it starts to train you that we shouldn’t rely on the slavery of debt!
2. Pay off all debt using the debt snowball – This one is crucial and we hope to accomplish by March 2010 (excluding the house…that’s step 6)!!  You list your debts from smallest to largest and throw all you have at the first; once that is paid off, you roll all your spare cash into the second debt, and so on!!  We always thought it would be wisest to pay off the largest interest rate first, but the rationale for the smallest debt first is to build the momentum!  You pay off the first debts quickly and start using those payments against the larger debts – what an amazing thing to watch!!

You can read about all the other baby steps HERE!!

Something that Thrifty Cas and I never did was attend any of the classes offered which teaches these principles.  If you check with a local church you might find the course.  Right now Dave Ramsey is offering the Financial Peace University Lifetime Membership for only $119.  Click HERE or on the image below for more details (with FREE shipping)!!

Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a post trying to push Dave Ramsey.  Its just a post that we wanted to share on one method on how we became excited (and nearly successful!) at getting out of debt!  We believe we need to seek to provide an inheritance for our children and children’s children (Prov 13:22) and that we need to be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us.  These are the reasons why we work so hard to be The Thrifty Couple, so that we can pass that on to our children and our children’s children.

We pray that you can be successful in your resolution to get out of debt this year (or at least get closer) and finish with Dave Ramsey’s closing statement of each show:  The only way to true financial peace is to walk with the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

* Keep checking daily as we reveal results and tips from our Thrifty Polls New Years Resolutions!

Hey Everyone!!!

Our first poll ends tonight at midnight! Vote now for your New Year’s Resolution!

Results and fun, related information to be posted starting tomorrow!

*See the poll on the top left side of the homepage!