Cash plan

[Well-Prepared Witch]

I don't remember who suggested it on here, but I've been trying the cash-only way of shopping. I've only been doing it for my gas and my groceries, but it's been a great success in the last 3 weeks. It's kept me strictly, almost painfully :-), to budget. In fact I walked out of the grocery store today missing several items on my list because I didn't have the cash for it. Nothing I couldn't live without for a week, but it's very interesting to have to count pennies again. I haven't done this since I was living on my own way before I met Mr. WPW.

The counting pennies thing is weird, but I'm really impressed by the savings I have. I've probably saved almost a hundred bucks this month so far. It's also had me eliminating unimportant errands and other trips that were just because I was bored, not because I needed to go somewhere. It's made me really watch my gas tank, if you know what I mean. So, I am putting this experiment in the win and keep column. Thanks for the suggestion whomever you were.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

[JohnyMac]

Great job Wellie!

You are right on when you write, "I've been trying the cash-only way of shopping...It's kept me strictly, almost painfully :-), to budget."

MrsMac and I are doing similar. The only thing we use cc's for anymore are large purchases like 4 new sneakers for the truck. I do use cc still though for gas as my truck can eat $100-+ very easily during feeding's. It has been a hard habit for MrsMac to break though but for all intents and purposes she has done it.

Another new thing we do religiously now we use a "shopping list" which you eluded to earlier. The only time we deviate from it if we both agree to buy X and it usually because it is on sale. A great example was our local supermarket near the cabin was closing out a specific brand of coffee for $5- a 12 oz bag. One of the roasts offered on close-out was Sumatra which is what we usually buy at $14- a pound from the big coffee chain. Well we bought one to try and it was good as the name brand. So the next time we went back we bought all of the Sumatra bags of coffee they had - Six, 12 ounce bags to be exact. 

Another thing we do is we know that grocery store we shop at in RI, which is a major super market chain, pulls all of their meat from the case with close to expiration date at around 8:00AM daily. They mark it down and then restock the case at around 10:00AM. Typically the price reduction is from 50-75% of the original retail price. This works everyday but the best day is the day before the new sale starts. I have noticed other chain supermarkets doing similar during our travels.

Great topic Wellie! 

What do you folks do to save a buck or two?    

[APX808]

In Argentina we get a 4% return of the buys you do using a debit card, and also banks provide some special discounts like 10% return of fuels buys.
Also many shops sell giving 12 payments without interest, considering our 30% annual inflation rate its extremely convenient, so I always use that when buying house appliances or electronic stuff.

So around here using your credit/debit cards is the way to save a buck or two

[Kentactic]

Interesting APX. Here in CA you can expect to pay a little more per gallon of gas if you dont pay cash. They know people are lazy so they charge for the convenience.

[JohnyMac]

Interesting APX.

The grocery store we shop at takes 10 cents of each gallon of gas we buy for every $100- we spend on groceries. My truck takes 35 gallons so that's a $3.50 saving's each tank load.