Poor No More

Especially during times of economic downturn, the local news station always features a woman who is a self proclaimed coupon queen.  This woman has mastered the art of saving money at the grocery store.  With dedication determination, she rifles through piles of clipped coupons and the local supermarket circulars to find the best deals on grocery items.

This woman could be you.  The idea of combining grocery coupons, especially with double or triple coupon deals, and supermarket sales is not a new one.  While it does take some time each week, there are also online services that will do the bulk of the work for you.  One such is the grocery game.

The concept behind saving massive amounts of money with grocery coupons is threefold.  First, combining the best coupons with the best sales will get to the lowest price.  Obviously, that is wonderful thing to get your favorite product at a low price.  The real power of these grocery game programs comes when you consider bulk purchasing.  The more coupons you get for one item, the more money you will save in the long run.  The final important point is storage.  You need to dedicate part of your kitchen or house to building an extensive pantry.

How do you become a coupon queen?

The first up is to get coupons.  There are multiple ways to do this.  Most people can find coupons for supermarket items in their weekly newspaper, usually on Saturday or Sunday.  You can subscribe to the newspaper yourself, borrow a family member or friend’s paper, take part in coupon trains, or it even purchase coupon clipping services on the Internet.  A coupon train is a group of people who mail packs of coupons to each other.  Each person can remove the coupons they want and put in coupons that they don’t want.  The idea is that everyone gets some coupons that they don’t have.

After you get a bunch of coupons for products you’re interested in, it is time to study the sales.  Checked online or in the circular and matched the coupons to the best sales available.  After that, head to the supermarket and start shopping.  You might be surprised at the amounts of money you can save.

If you want to save money every day, you need to adopt the correct mindset.  Believing that doing without certain things, we’re spending last of the things you have, will somehow reduce your quality of life is that the defeatist attitude.  Living a life of true abundance doesn’t mean that you spend a lot of money.

Frugal lifestyles are 99% about attitude.  If one goes into money saving mode with an attitude that tells them they aren’t missing out on important things in life they won’t get far.  People that think this way, end up being resentful of their money and frugal lifestyle choices that they make.  It is even worse if someone else is making the frugal choices for you.  This is especially true in marriage situations where money can be a bone of contention to begin with.

When adopting a frugal or money saving lifestyle, the first step should always be to determine the attitude you will take.  If you are doing this for yourself, make a list of all the positive aspects that I threw a lifestyle can give you.  If you’re doing this as a family, work together and discuss these things.  Making a list of items that you could purchase with the money you will save is a good idea.  If you are mathematic lee inclined, you can determine how the money you save can actually impact your life.  For example, how much faster will you pay off your mortgage?  Or how much sooner will you be able to go on that great vacation?

If children are involved in the frugal lifestyle process, you might like to make saving money a game.  Encouraging your children to learn about saving money and being responsible with finances will serve them later in life.  Not only conceiving money as a family is educational, it can be fun as well.  Sitting down to clip coupons, go through sales papers, or count and roll coins can be a game for younger children.

The most important thing to remember when starting a frugal lifestyle is to enjoy it.  Get rid of the feelings of deprivation and stop thinking that you won’t be able to have any fun.  There are a lot of inexpensive ways to enjoy yourself.  A frugal lifestyle requires creativity and intelligence.  What it provides is immeasurable.

“End Poverty Now” is a phrase associated with existing charity organizations and, while ending global poverty would be fabulous, it is not the purpose of this blog.  Ending poverty is about sweeping changes to economies, communities, and countries.

“Poor No More” is about you.  And me.

By the most recent survey I could find, approximately 42% of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.  That means they can pay their bills, but have NOTHING left over to save or spend on wants instead of needs.  With the state of the US economy, that number will probably climb drastically.

While some may not consider living paycheck to paycheck to be poor, it is certainly not thriving, nor living with abundance.

There are two ways to become “Poor No More.”  First, spend less money than you are currently spending.  Second, make more money.

With tiny changes in your lifestyle, it is possible.  With bigger changes, the results are amazing.  Some effort is required of course.  But the most important thing that is required is a change in mindset.  Stop thinking of deprivation and start thinking about liberation from the stress of having no financial buffer between you and poverty.