Ways to save without changing your lifestyle

I have had so many people ask me how Sean and I are saving so much money, but we haven’t changed out lifestyle very much. We still go out to eat, go on dates, buy “toys” for ourselves, but we are still saving ourselves so much money!

One of the best tips that I give people if they don’t want to use coupons in your daily life, get DISCOUNTED GIFT CERTIFICATES!

There are so many companies out there that send out daily emails with a one day deal with discounts up to 75% off regular price. And these aren’t weird companies, or places you’ve never heard of. You can get gift certificates for the places you are already attending!

Sean and I LOVE to go bowling and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen discounted gift certificates for the places we bowl on a regular basis. So why not get it for half the price!
When I see a deal pop up that I know we will use, I purchase it right away before it sells out. And then keep it on hand for one of our nights out!

One of those companies is Groupon {Click Here to sign up}. They send you a daily email and the deal they send you is good for that one day only.

Today’s deal is for NYPD Pizza! I was very excited about this one, because we just got one in Layton and Sean has been bugging me to go. I told him that we couldn’t until I found a deal…SO looks like we’ll be going this weekend! Look at how {YUMMY} that looks!

Today only, you can get a $25 Gift Certificate for $10. That’s a 60% savings!!! This is why I made Sean wait! Now we can go out to eat, order whatever we want, and not worry about the price. Because it will only cost us $10!!

Remember, that you must be signed up to get these emails and find out what the deal is each day!

There are also companies that offer Gift Certificates at discounted prices until they are gone. There is more than one to choose from, and they have a huge variety of deals! One of these companies is City Deals!

The other day, I took William to the city park, and it shares a parking lot with Layton’s Surf-n-Swim. While William was playing, I watched a family of 8, Yes 8 go into Surf-n-Swim. I couldn’t imagine the money that they were spending that summer just to go to the swimming pool. I just felt like I should be yelling at them telling them that they could get each person a season pass for just $20 from City Deals (which is 75% off of the $80 regular price!)

I would highly recommend signing up for Groupon {Click Here to sign up} right away. Because you never know when they will have one of those deals that you’ve been waiting for, or use on a regular basis anyway!

Once I have all of my discounted gift certificates, I put them in a {fun time out} binder and I always organize them according to expiration date. I would be heart broken if one of them expired before we used it all because we didn’t know the expiration date.
This also helps Sean and I with out indecisions! We will sit and debate about where to eat, so sometimes we just go with the first certificate that is going to expire! It also helps with those Summer or weekend days when everyone is sitting around bored. You can flip open your{fun time out} binder, see where you have a certificate for, and head out for a great time! I PROMISE that if you follow this, you will save 50% off of your summer/weekend/date night spending!
This is also a great way to try out new places! You wont feel too guilty if you don’t like the new place you are trying, because you didn’t have to pay full price.

And last but not least, USE COUPONS!
Even though you are paying with a gift certificate, you can still use coupons. My all time favorite is to get a Rod Works gift certificate from City Deals {make sure to buy it for the one closest to you} and also use the 40% off coupons that come in the mail and newspapers all the time! You could get a $25 Gift Certificate for $15! That means you can buy a $45 item, use the 40% off coupon, which will take your item down to $27 and then use your $25 Gift Certificate {that you paid $15 for}. Then pay $2 OOP.
WOW, that means you got a $45 item for $17 cash!!!! That’s a 62% savings on an amazing item!

~Get your thrift on!