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Baby steps

September 23rd, 2010 at 05:27 pm

Tuesday was a no spend day so yay for that.

Also on Tuesday I called Costco/Ameriprise to get a homeowner’s insurance quote in hopes of consolidating our auto and homeowners insurance. Unfortunately they weren’t able to provide a quote because we have a wood shake roof. Boo! And unfortunately we don’t have $10,000 for a new roof so for now I will have to have separate auto and homeowner’s policies.

Wednesday was “a spend very little and get a lot of stuff day”. I bought almost $22 worth of stuff at CVS and between coupons and Extra Care Bucks I paid about $6 out of pocket. I started CVSing this month and am finally getting the hang of it.

I’d like to get to having more “no spend” days then “spend days” each week.

I’ve been trying to form the habit of entering receipts into Quicken as we spend money and not waiting until my weekly appointment with myself to do that on Saturday nights. I also have been entering them into my Excel budget spreadsheet. It’s a little redundant but since Quicken’s budgeting feature is so crappy I have to do this in order to stay on top of cash flow.

Still haven’t transferred the cash out of checking yet although I’m getting more comfortable with doing it since I’m almost 100% sure that I’ve accounted for all expenses and have entered all receipts into Quicken.

Posted in Budget, Insurance, Quicken, Spending, Expenses | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Baby steps”

  1. ThriftoRama Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 08:07 pm 1285272423
    1285272423

    I read about people using the CVS bucks to get deals but for the life of me can't figure out how it works. Any tips?

  2. Little L Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 08:15 pm 1285272923
    1285272923

    You have to spend a little money at first by buying items that pay you Extra Care Bucks (ECBs). ECBs print at the bottom of your receipt. Once you have some ECBs you can use them like money to pay for future purchases. Combine the ECBs with coupons and you can get stuff for free or almost free.

    You need an Extra Care card (like a grocery store rewards card) too.

    I make my lists by using various websites that tell you what the deals are and where to find the coupons(check out i heart cvs dot com). Sometimes I make several transactions in order to use the ECBs I earned in the prior transaction (I get back in line so I don't make people wait).

    There are many websites that can explain it better than me but that's the gist of it.

    Try it. I'll never pay full price for household/personal care items again and I think I can eliminate a lot of Costco purchases this way.

    You have to change your mindset to buying things you will use when they are cheap instead of buying them when you run out and then paying full price.

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