THUNDER BAY – LIVING – School is almost here. The cost of new clothes for school. School supplies, and moving to a more formal schedule that includes student lunches can put a real cramp into the family budget.
There are ways to save money to work toward ensuring that there is still some month left at the end of the money.
Less Order-in More Home-Made
Making great tasting meals at home can save a lot of money. Not to put down any of the great takeout pizza restaurants in our city, but feeding a family of four can easily cost up to six times more than ordering delivery. Time-wise the savings are really not that much if you prepare.
If you invest in a couple of ceramic tiles, check the sale aisles at Home Depot, you can bake your home-made pizza on a stone and have that same kind of crispy tasty crust that your order-in pizza had when it left the oven at the restaurant.
Another way to save is using coupons when shopping.
Now there are extremes for some with couponing. There are television shows where people spend hours gathering coupons and then shopping where they get hundreds of dollars of products for free or almost free.
That might work if practice but perhaps if you consider how many hours those people spend looking for coupons, even at minimum wage the cost would add up in time.
There are many coupon sources you can use however to trim a few dollars off your monthly household costs.
Visit www.smartcanucks.ca – On their coupon page, you can print off coupons offering savings on some of the most common household products you probably are already buying.
(http://couponscanada.smartcanucks.ca)
At Proctor and Gambles’ website the coupon page will let you save on P&G products.
There are coupons available online for many things. Take the time to find them. When you take the time online off Facebook for gossip, and invest a little of that time into saving money in your home, the real benefits are powerful.
Another simple way to save money is in trimming some of the “junk food” from your household.
Making soft drinks and other sugary drinks a treat rather than a daily staple will not only save money, but especially for children and teenagers can put them on a path to healthier living for the rest of their lives.
Putting your food budget together using the sales at the various grocery stores using their flyers can let you save too. Often staples that you are going to need all the time go on sale.
Toilet tissue for example is usually on sale. Stock up when it is on sale, and you can save a fair chunk of change every month.
Be creative, as school starts, getting the family back to a routine and figuring out ways to engage the teens especially in the kitchen will make home life far easier.
