Thrifty Tuesday

As I've mentioned several times, my whole couponing adventure was mainly an attempt to lower our average monthly expenses for groceries and other household products. When I begin to cut coupons each week it's easy to see how if you were cutting coupons and watching ads and then subsequently buying something everytime there was a great deal, you would probably never save any money and you would simply have these huge stockpiles of things you don't need or things you won't need to use for a year or more...I'm sorry, 10 tubes of toothpaste should last quite awhile.

So...this week, I've decided to completely forego my trip to Walgreens. While they have some good deals, it's certainly not anything I can't live without & most of what's on sale I already have stockpiled in my home. In addition, I've got some extra grocery expenses for various holiday gatherings so in order to keep my average near the budgeted amount Walgreens & it's bonus Jingle Cash program will just have to wait.

I do want to share a quick tip that Hubby & I use to get through Christmas finances quite painlessly. When we were married Hubby opened up a secondary savings account to be used only for gift purposes. Birthdays & Christmas are where the majority of this money is spent and let me tell you...it has been a lifesaver! Each month a pre-determined amount of money is automatically deposited into this account and so at the end of each year we have this sum of money that is used solely for Christmas presents. Hubby & I are also very fortunate to have fairly significant Christmas bonuses from our employers. This money is partially designated for our gifts to each other at Christmastime. I am so glad that Hubby had the foresight to open this account as it really does prevent any stress from the financial side of things during the holiday season.

Whatever the system is, I would highly recommend developing some sort of Christmas club account...it's definitely worth it and with the monthly transfers being automatic we don't even miss the money!