Weekly Bet Ya Didn't Know: Home Remedies That Work!

So I've been slacking on the "weekly" part.  Well, I'm back on track.  I was sick for the past two weeks and my mom pulled out her book of home remedies.  My first thought is "Oh, goodness.  What is she going to make me drink now?"  But, surprisingly, some of them actually work.  So this week, I look at what home remedies fix common problems.  These tricks also save you money!  After all, the name of the blog is Flirting with Frugality.  Here's a few that really do work.

Photo: www.herdaily.com

This Strange Concoction Helps Laryngitis.  My mom swears by this and I had always thought she was crazy.  Well, I was wrong.  This odd mix really does the trick.  I have to give props to "Food Your Miracle Medicine" by Jean Carper.  (Fantastic book with other ideas).  Pineapple juice, ginger, nutmeg, rosemary, spearmint and you can add a little licorice as a sweetener.  I didn't add the licorice, that's too weird for me. Try it the next time you have a sore throat and are losing your voice. 

What Should Really be in "Goo Gone."  Skin So Soft by Avon is like a miracle liquid.  Goo Gone has nothing on this stuff.  Use it to get gum, stickers and other gooey business off of anything.  I've also seen my mom use it to clean the inside of her car and polish furniture.  I swear! Just be sure to do a stain check first if you are using it for the first time.  You'll save money buying just one bottle of Skin So Soft for all these different purposes.  You can order this magic potion from anyone that sells Avon or on the website avon.com. 

Here's How to Get Oil and Transmission Fluid out of Your Driveway or Garage Floor.   There are certain products you can buy at the store for this, but why waste your money when you can use things you already have at home.  My car was leaking transmission fluid all over the garage.  Not good.  So I tried a few different things and this is what worked best:  Pour down some Cat Litter and stomp around on it to soak up the access, then scrub with Dawn dish soap.   Voila!  I've heard you can also use saw dust or sand in place of cat litter, but I didn't try those myself.  What didn't work: Baking Soda, Green Works Cleaner and Palmolive.

There's plenty more.  We'll save those for another day...I'm off to Vegas!

 

Extreme Couponing Update...I'm tired

Photo: http://consumerist.com

It's been one week since my trial run of couponing.  I have spent a total of 4.5 hours clipping coupons, looking up store prices and organizing.  It's exhausting.  Here is what I've noticed so far:

This is so Freakin' Time Consuming:  This process takes so much work and so much time that I wonder how the people on the the show "Extreme Couponing" do it.  They must not have full time jobs.

Sometimes There are Better Deals Than Using a Coupon:  So you spend all this time getting the coupons together and then you realize that a generic brand at Walmart or Target is cheaper than a name brand with a coupon..lame.  So it can feel like you do all this work for no reason.

Buying Large Quantities is the Best Deal.  Most of the time, you get the best deal when you buy large amounts.  For example, if something is 10  for $10 at the store and then you have a coupon on top of that, you're going to pay next to nothing.  But I am one person and in a small home.  I don't have the need or space for large amounts of anything.  Fail.

On the Bright Side....  OK, so it may not be possible for me to ever be the extreme of couponers, but I'm still saving myself a lot of money.  Yesterday, I used $7.75 worth of coupons at Walmart and spent $63 (I should mention that pets are really expensive).  At Target, I saved $3.27 and spent $8.58.

Dominick's is My New Best Friend:  My biggest savings of all came from Dominick's, where I saved $15.12 and spent $12.39.  Saving more than I spent was quite exciting.  Dominick's has a program online so you can put the coupons on your Fresh Values card, and they also have special deals that are only online for you.  I got a free carton of eggs for no apparent reason.  They also honor other store prices and you can load those deals onto your card, too.  I printed out my shopping list from their site, didn't have to carry any coupons with me and saved a bunch of money.  Yay!    

One week down and 7 weeks to go.  Maybe I'll get better at it by then.  Happy shopping!

Is Extreme Couponing "Worth" It? A Trial Run.

www.smythapples.com

OK.  So I have my own blog on saving money, yet I have never attempted "extreme couponing."  That's a problem.  Sure, I use coupons whenever I think about it and I've seen portions of the television show, but I've never actually tried the real deal.  Yesterday, I decided to start.  Now, I will not be able to be a full fledged extreme couponer, as I essentially live alone and will never have space for 25 bottles of Gatorade just because they are 10 cents each.  However, I am going to do a scaled back version.  The Goal?  To determine if extreme couponing is really "worth" it.

The Trial Run.  I decided to first do a trial run.  This way I can figure out what sort of things I need to keep track of in order to assess the worth of extreme couponing.  The first step was finding coupons.  I opened up the Chicago Tribune and pulled out all of goodies inside.  I spent approximately 15 minutes going through all of the booklets, tearing out coupons that seemed like really good deals and for items that were already on my shopping list.  This leads to the first 2 things to assess:

• Time spent gathering and organizing coupons.

• Whether to buy something just because you have a coupon even though it's not something you need and/or the brand you prefer.

Next, I gathered my coupons and decided to go to Walmart because it is usually the cheapest, but not always.  This lead to my realization of what else needs to be assessed. 

• Time spent determining which store has the each item for the least amount before you add the coupon in order to get the best deal.  
• Time spent going to multiple stores in order to get the best deal on each item.
• Cost of gas spent going from store to store.

My head started spinning at that point.  For this trial run, I decided to just stick with Walmart.  Later on I can decide whether to spend all the time necessary to find out which store has each individual item for the least amount of money.  Off to the store.  As I was shopping, I took note on each coupon of what the limit was on number of items you can use the coupon for. There's another factor to think about.

• Whether to buy the maximum number of items allowed just because it's so cheap.  In other words, do I really want to store all this crap?

Then I was off to the check-out.  I present all my coupons and one of them won't work.  Oh great, here we go.  I didn't want to waste everyone's time that was behind me, so I just skipped using the coupon.  That meant I had to then go to Customer Service and wait for them to fix the issue.  This all for one dollar. That leads us to the last factors to consider. 

• Time spent and frustration created dealing with all the issues using coupons creates.
• Finally, how much you end up saving versus all the time and effort put into it.

I don't have the space for this.  (Photo: newzofday.com)

Cost/Benefit alaysis:  In order to determine whether extreme couponing is really worth it, I will attempt extreme couponing for two months and keep track of all the above listed factors.  Then I will report back as to whether I think becoming an extreme couponer is really a good idea.  I'm exhausted already. 

Trial Run Outcome:  In my trial run yesterday, I spent 15 minutes organizing coupons, only drove to one store, which was 3.5 miles each way.  I had to wait in two lines and ended up spending $16.66 after saving $5.65 in coupons.  Therefore, 15 minutes of work saved me $5.65.  Clearly, this does not put me at extreme couponing status quite yet. 

When you SHOULD pay full price.

Shocker.  There are times when paying full price or paying more may be in your best interest.  Here's when:

When you are paying for better quality.  Now, just because something costs more that does not mean it is better quality.  But there are times when paying more may save you money in the end because it was good quality.  For example, paying more to have a decent winter coat while living in the city of Chicago makes perfect sense.  If you pay less to have a coat that isn't going to keep you as warm or stand up to the weather and fall apart after a few weeks, it is not worth the money you saved because you'll have to buy another one.  If something will last longer and make your life easier...spend away!  But don't waste your money on name brands unless you know for sure that it is actually better quality.  After all, no one is going to care about your fancy Ralph Lauren jacket in the dead of winter as you're freezing your behind off.

Perfect example.  (Photo: http://www.foreignperspectives.com)

When you are spending for a good cause.  Anytime you can spend money and some of the proceeds go to a good cause, I think it's worth it...as long as you have the few extra bucks.  It's when those extra few bucks are going to a large corporation instead of staying in your wallet that we have a problem.

Not tempting enough.

Photo: http://www.google.com

When you will get something free that you actually need.  Lots of places offer you a future discount at their store or some free cheap gift to go along with your purchase.  Most of the time, it's not worth the money because either a) you had no intention of returning to that store; or b) the free gift is something useless that you will never use.  However, there are those few times when a store is offering a very nice and useful gift along with a purchase. I have found this to be the case when I buy perfumes from department stores.  Often times, they will give you a makeup or travel bag with items in it that you will actually use.  So instead of going to Kohls to get your perfume for just a couple dollars less, check out Macy's or other department stores to see if your brand has any free gifts or specials at the time.  Office supply places often have deals like this too.  You can get a free office chair with the purchase of a good quality desk or free office supplies with a purchase of electronics.  So be sure to do your research first before just running to the cheapest store possible.  You never know what you could be missing out on.