Smart Shopping is one of the key requirements of being human in today’s world. We have to shop almost everything and it is unavoidable. Shopping is an integral part of everyone’s life. With so much dependence on shopping in everyone’s life, it is very important for us to shop smartly. A smart shopper can enjoy the desired lifestyle while saving big bucks instead of spending more. In this article, I am going to list some of the Smart Shopping Ideas. I am hoping these ideas can be easily adopted and help everyone living a debt and worry free life.
Shop Only What You Need
One of the most important Smart Shopping ideas is to focus of shopping only what we really need. There is a common misconception among most of us that buying in bulk always save lots of bucks. It might be true for some specific items but its not always true. Several times, we forget what all we have stuffed in the basement and buy same things again and again. Also at times, we realize that many items become outdated over the time before we even use it. No matter what could be the case, eventually the money spent on such items goes in vain.
We should only shop what we really need and simply avoid spending on items that we hardly anticipate to use. These days with most of the stores and online shopping portals offer next or same day delivery. We can always buy items and have them picked or delivered anytime without hassle.
Don’t get Trapped in “Huge Sales” for Everything
Everyone likes to do smart shopping using discounted prices and huge sale items. But always remember the shopkeepers are even more desperate to sell their inventories than the shoppers to buy. This is one of the key reasons why we see so many promotions involving huge sales, discounts everywhere. As a shopper, we should only focus on shopping what we really need and not everything we see as sale items.
Majority of shoppers buy more items than what they intend to shop. Thanks to those attractive huge deals and savings tags. These additional shopping items only increase your bills when they weren’t even in your list of items to shop. Try to avoid such temptations and always go for shopping with full research on the items we intend to shop. Using this approach, you will not only get the best possible price for your planed shopping items.
Food Should be Healthy but Not Always Expensive
Eating healthy food is one of the main objective for everyone. But that doesn’t mean we have to always spend extra bucks to find healthy food. There are so many ways we can enjoy healthy foods both outside or at home. Few simple tricks listed below will always help you to save bucks while still enjoying healthy food for yourself.
- Always check the local grocery stores in your area. Most of the grocery stores have a section where they keep read-to-eat food items which are due to expire soon. Most of the times, the grocery stores put a discounted price on these items.
- Look for discounted meals (fresh and frozen) in local stores and supermarkets in your area.
- For fruit lovers, simply grab healthy fruits from your local grocery store to eat, for salads or use them to make shakes at home.
- Some stores also offer huge discounts in evenings for certain read-to-eat food items. These are good items to be part of your dinner on any day for a fraction of their regular price.
- Shop around for other available affordable but healthy food items that include rice, beans, soups, pulses, salads etc. These are some of the most budget friendly and healthy food items for everyone.
- Try to make delicious dishes yourself at home. Not only it costs less but it is also considered more hygienic and will suit your style of flavors.
Cars
Cars are one of the integral part of our everyday life. When it comes to buying car, the possibilities are endless and so are the prices. You can find a wide range of cars based on their make , model and the luxury items available in the car. For many, the car could also be a status symbol. I am listing some of the key characteristics that I look when I shop for the car. Not everyone might agree to me on this but these will definitely help for those looking for a budget friendly car.
- We only spend time inside the cars when we are outside and commuting from point A to point B. Money should be wisely spend on cars to ensure they are reliable enough to fulfill the commuting needs for us and not the show-offs to others.
- Every car in the market complies the safety guidelines set by NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Therefore we should not be thinking that cheaper cars are less safer than expensive cars. Most of the States also have yearly inspection requirements to ensure every car meets the standard safety guidelines.
- A decently managed used car is also as good as a brand new car and serves our commuting needs with a lesser price tag.
- The loan on the car should always be affordable. The loan amount should not force us to cut our expenses on daily need items.
- A luxury and expensive car comes with high maintenance over the time.
- We should always focus on the TRUE COST TO OWN for the car, and not just the upfront down payments.
Cashback and Reward Cards are your Best Friends
We all shop, there is no escape to shopping. Simply by using smart shopping ideas, we can make it even better. Smart shopping using certain cards that provide us cashback $$ for further spending. There are certain credit cards and cashback based applications, that provide us additional money based on our spending as cashback. These cashback amount can be used to buy gift cards or use them for more shopping. This is one of the smartest ways to spend additional money for shopping without breaking our bank. Another cool way to shop is using the deals that refer to main-in-rebate offers. It needs some patience and efforts to property process mail-in-rebate applications but its worth the effort.
Coupons and Deals
Always keep an eye for coupons and deals in your local grocery stores , supermarkets and in online subscriptions and magazines. These coupons really help us to save a lot of money on our daily need based items. You can google and find several coupon savings based websites explaining how to effectively use coupons and save money while shopping. One of my favorite website is The Krazy Coupon Lady. Shopping smart should always be a fun and never a burden on our bills and payments.
