Saving money in tough times

John Ewoldt and I spoke to a crowd at Ridgedale Library last night about saving money. The tips apply in any economy, but the library asked us to head over because of the large number of folks who are currently out of work.

John had a list of tips a mile long, and perhaps he'll share those on his blog. Here are a few of my favorite ideas.

Embrace coupons. For those who know me, it's no surprise that this is tops on my list. And I'm not alone. According to a story in the Northfield News:

National coupon processing company Inmar forecasted that more than 3 billion coupons will be redeemed this year by American consumers, after the company recorded a 23 percent increase in coupon usage during the first half of 2009.

John, who isn't a big fan of coupons, did point out that Cub still accepts expired coupons. That's an important point because the best way to get the most savings is to hold onto coupons and wait until a store also puts the item on sale. It isn't often, but sometimes getting the best deal involves an expired coupon stacked on top of a store sale.

Coupons have also headed online. Sites such as coupons.com and redplum.com, as well as manufacturer web sites are good places to go to look for savings. And as online coupons have become more sophisticated, with their own barcode and other features, I've not had trouble getting merchants to accept them.

By signing up at my favorite store web sites, I even receive coupons for mall stores such as Ann Taylor Loft, The Gap and JC Penney. Annoying to have to print out coupons and drag them to the mall, yes. But I'll do it to save $10 or 25 percent off.

You may be thinking that culling all of these coupons must be a royal pain and a time suck. In some ways, yes. But there are some sites I frequent that do a lot of the dirty work for me. Here are my faves, in no particular order:

• dealseekingmom.com
• commonsensewithmoney.com
• northerncheapskate.com
• pocketyourdollars.com
• couponmom.com
• couponcravings.com

All of these gals are also on Twitter.

Aside from coupons, I suggested everyone create a price list so you know when a sale is really a sale. Basically, you jot down the price of frequent purchases at various stores by unit price, so you can compare apples to apples. You'd be surprised by the discrepancies. One store's cash cow is another store's loss leader.

For the iPhone crowd, programs such as Grocery IQ and Grocery Gadget make this chore a little less tedious.

Finally, two other pretty self explanatory money-savers that you may not have considered:

Reshop your insurance policies from time to time. After we decided to let go of the Camry, my current insurer was going to up the premium for insurance on my grocery getter by $100 because we no longer had two cars insured with them.

Phooey, I said. So I shopped Geiko and Progressive, known to be pretty cheap. Well, it turns out that USAA had the best deal by $120 and is known for great service. When we shopped for insurance several years ago, they were the most expensive. Go figure.

My last tip: Get rid of the home phone. The audience complained about cell phone reception being lousy, but I rarely have a problem in my house. We've been cordless for 8 years and haven't looked back.

Have money saving tips? You know what to do.