Ahhhh, I have one hour of uninterrupted, quite time to sit and write this post! I have been devoting my other free time after the kids are in bed to catching up with the emails for the past two weeks. If you haven’t yet heard from me I am almost to you, I promise you’ll hear from me this week. I just love you guys and your excitement to learn how to save money!

This is my second favorite step of all, The PreShop. Again with this step I will be breaking it up into sections; What is on Sale, Making your List, and Gathering Coupons. Breaking it up like this really is the easiest way to prevent information OVERLOAD!

What is on sale:

 If you can remember from my Trick of the Trade #2, we maximize our coupons by combining coupons and sale price. How will I know what is on sale you ask?  Well, again if you live in Utah or Las Vegas this is done for you on The Lists. (side note to this, I have had comments lately from people in Idaho and Washington state who say that the Utah list for Albertson’s is very close and works for them, LOVE IT!) If you live in The List areas then let me just have you view this video to show you what to do. To the rest of you stay with me here and lets get you taken care of.

Stores put ad flyer’s out weekly as they change their sales. If you want to know when their sales run you can look at the bottom of their flyer for the dates or you can call the store. In my area some stores run sales from Wednesday to Tuesday and the others run Monday to Sunday. You will find these ads in the newspapers and/or the mail, or sometimes right inside the door of the store. You can see a picture above of what I am talking about.

You will want to choose a store you would like to shop at, and keep in mind that a store that seems expensive to you now may not be so expensive when you start using coupons with sale prices. As you go through the ads, it would be best if you had a budget amount already decided upon. I recommend you ask yourself this question, “Does my family eat/use that?”.  If your answer is yes, then write down or circle the item. Also be thinking of recipes you can use with the items that are on sale that week. By planning your menu like this you will save more money than if you ate out because you couldn’t think of what to eat that night. I wrote a post a while back on this subject you can check it out here. Once you have all your items chosen then it is time to create your shopping list.

My hour is up. I am off to pick kids up from school. Check back Friday as I go over how to create your list.

Filed under: PreShop, The System