Speaking Volumes

I wasn't positive what I was going to write about today. More blogs than I can count are talking about new years resolutions and frankly, not even one week into the new year, I'm already tired of that. Hey, I bet , you, like me, know what we have to do in this new year to reach our goals and really don't need a resolution to get there.

So instead of making resolutions, I decided to go shopping. Not go to the mall shopping but online shopping. I had some Christmas money to spend and decided to see if I could find a nice mp3 player and some new warm sweatshirts. I checked around several online stores for the mp3 player before visiting ebay. I had narrowed my search down to a Creative Zen V Plus and was still debating between a 4 and 8 gb. Ebay had a bunch to offer, some new, some refurbished, running between $69 and $80 for the 4gb. I wanted to pay less than that so started looking for a new player with free shipping in either a buy it now or best offer category. I came up with one that looked promising and made an offer. No go, offered a few dollars more, still no go and finally offered 2 dollars more. No, no, no. I waited a few days and tried again. I found a different seller, offered $5 less than their asking price. This was accepted within the hour. Along with free shipping I felt like a got a fairly decent deal. The Zen arrived yesterday and I couldn't be happier.

The sweatshirts were much easier to find. One seller had 3 of the shirts I wanted, all my size, with various prices, running from $12 to $15. (originally $30-$40). One had free shipping, the others were $4.50 to ship. I offered to buy all three at $9 each with free shipping. Offer accepted and the shirts arrived within the week. Oh, how I love a bargain.

How are you stretching your budget these days? Before I continue, I'd like to invite you to share any strategies you're using to make the dollar go further. Share your favorite money saving tips, bargains, websites, what have you, with our readers.

Given the economy I've been trying to watch my spending habits. I'm seeing where I can save a few dollars. I'm back to religiously cutting and using coupons and watching the ads to see what grocery store has the best food prices. I particularly like the websites that allow me to comparison shop grocery store ads as a whole or for certain products. One such is www.groceryguide.com.
I pick up printable coupons at http://www.ppgazette.com. If you have a favorite, please share. I laugh a bit at this as sometimes I'm penny wise and pound foolish as I'll save .50 here and there with coupons and then go out for a cup of coffee I could just as easily make at home. But I go out for coffee less and feel I deserve the outing now and then. One place I decided I could lower costs was ditching the pre-packaged salad mix. I eat several salads each week, at least one a day. I usually buy between 2 and 3 bags of pre-washed salad. I thought I was doing well by choosing a mix with the most weight. The brand I usually buy varies from 6oz. per bag to 10oz. Luckily I like the 10oz. bag mix as the 6oz. and 10oz. cost the same price. Beats me how, but they do. Still, they were getting more and more expensive and coupons are far and few between, so back to regular salad I went. I'm able to buy a nice head of boston lettuce, red lettuce or romaine for about 1/3 of the price of the bagged variety. I dragged out my salad spinner, washed my own lettuce and feel quite smug!

One good way to save money is to visit your library. We've got lots of books, both the read with your eyes kinds and those to listen too, cd's, dvd's and magazines; all for the borrowing. Watch our announcements as we will soon be offering downloadable audio (why I wanted a Zen) with a