Tutorials - Crunchy Frugalista

How to Blog: Writing a Successful Guest Post

June 21, 2012 By Ashley Sears 19 Comments

Just starting your business or figuring out how to blog? Well, guest posting is a fabulous way to get your business name out there, and expose your ideas to new readers and clients.

If you follow these few tips, your guest posts won’t only be fabulous they will help grow your business and get you the traffic you were looking for!

Pitch the “right” sites: When you are looking for guest posting opportunities, make sure have an idea who your audience is. You wouldn’t ask to post your favorite meat pie recipe to a vegan blog! (If you would, then we have more work to do) That makes no sense!

The best way to gauge your audience is to look at what posts have the most interaction! Where are the most comments and shares? After you have figured that little piece out make sure the website is one that you wouldn’t mind having your business associated with.

Guest post for a variety of sites: When you start trying to guest post, you will hear a LOT about Google Page rank. My two cents, ignore it! Just make sure that you guest posts for a wide variety of sites.

Look for sites with large readerships and some with smaller. Also don’t forget to look for different types of sites. Social media sites, blogs, business websites; mix and match the sites you write for to get maximum exposure. Just make sure that your content is amazing and relevant!

Include fabulous images: Articles that include great images are not only “pretty”, but they also keep the audience engaged. Have you ever looked at a wall of text and just died to know what the page held? Nope, me neither. Great images help catch the eye, and they give more time to lure your readers in! Just don’t forget to use your own images or give credit where credit is due!

Spelling and grammar count: There is nothing worse than sinking your teeth into a really interesting article and not being able to read it! Spelling and punctuation are a must. Even if write in a more casual style, you still need to write like you were taught how to read and write. Readers will run the other direction if they can’t wade through your bad grammar.

Write with passion and conviction: When you first start out, I highly recommend finding a topic that you are just biting at the bit to write about! Write about something that makes you salivate, and it will come through in your writing. There is no better way to get your audience excited than to write with passion!

Help Drive Traffic: When you agree to guest post, help promote the post! It not only gets your readers to the post, but it shows the other site that you are willing to develop a great relationship. You are getting access to their readers, and by promoting it as well, you are showing you go the extra mile.

Developing positive relationships is just as important as writing quality content. The more relationships you build, the more guest posts that might roll your way.

These are just a few tips to get you on your way to having a successful guest posting experience. Clear and open communications, concise writing, passion, and fabulous presentation are the key ingredients to seeing your posts take off! Next time you go to look for a guest posting opportunity remember these quick tips to make your next post fantastic!

Photo Credit: SEO Hacker

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Start a Google+ Hangout! How to Chat Online for Free!

June 19, 2012 By Ashley Sears 4 Comments

Thanks to the Internet, communicating with others has gotten so much easier over the years. Since Google+ started earlier this year, a new kid is on the block; Google+ hangouts. I was actually able to do my first Google+ hangout this week, and I have to say that it is how to chat with multiple people that aren’t in your area.

If you haven’t signed up for Google+, you should. So many people use Gmail nowadays, and Google+ is really easy to sign up for just using your Gmail account.

Once you log into your Google+ account, it’s pretty easy learn how to chat using your Google+ hangout! You do need to download the software to use the video chat. You can find it in the upper right hand corner or you can find it here on Google Video Chat Downloads. Once you download the video chat, you are ready to start your hangout!

Click the button in the upper right hand column that says “Start Hangout”

After you click this button, another screen will pop up. It will tell you are about to start a hangout, and that you are the first one to join. Click the “Join” button.

Learn how to chat using Google Plus hangouts

After you click the “Join” button, don’t forget to invite your friends. It’s a hangout after all. Click the “invite” button. This will send an invitation to your friends’ Google+ wall. All they need to do to accept the invitation is to click the button on their wall!

Learn how to chat using Google Plus Hangouts

Once your friends accept your invitation, they will show up in the bottom of the screen. They the option of using a microphone and a video camera or just the mic. The program is great because it rotates the upper picture based on who’s talking at the time. It makes it really easy to follow the conversation. It’s perfect for conference calls, and it’s really find the perfect way how to chat online!!

Learn how to chat using Google Plus Hangouts

Google+ Hangouts have everything you need ease of use, convenience, and great smart software. It really made my last conference call a breeze. It took me two seconds to download the information to use it, and we were able to use it the first time we tried.

Next time you need to get together for a conference call, or you just want to chat with a group of friends all at the same time try the Google+ Hangouts!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips, Google, Social Media

Setting SMART goals to get out of debt

February 17, 2012 By Ashley Sears 1 Comment

Goals are plans of action. They are the things that you aspire to do and get your blood pumping just thinking about how to get there. Setting goals is one of the most crucial, if not the most crucial, steps in doing something you would really like to accomplish in your life.

Setting and reaching goals can be one of the most fulfilling things you can do in life. It doesn’t matter if it’s financial goals, personal goals, or even career goals. Many researches have just found that setting, planning, and reaching goals are key ingredients to living a more fulfilling life.

Just wishing to do something isn’t going to get you on the road to success. To hop on the fast track to getting out of debt you need to set goals. The key thing to do when thinking about goals is setting SMART goals. No, that’s not calling your goals dumb. SMART goals are goals that are

S : Specific

M: Measurable

A: Attainable

R: Realistic

T: Timely

Let’s break each of these down to help you understand them a bit better. The “s” in SMART goals is for specific. You need to have a pretty specific idea of what you would like to accomplish. Just telling yourself “I would like to pay down my debt” really doesn’t give you a good picture of what it will take to meet your goals. Are you talking credit cards, student loans, medical bills? Or are you talking all of the above. Be specific! A specific goal would sound like this

“I would like to reduce my credit card debt overall.”

This statement tells you exactly what your goal is, and what you are hoping to accomplish! There really isn’t any gray area, so you can tell if you hit your goal or not.

The “m” stands for measurable. This one is a little tricky because its really only talking about measuring the goal itself, not the time frame. That is coming up later. If you don’t know where you started or how much progress you want to make on your goal it’s really hard to see if you have accomplished what you set out to do. Let’s make our previous goal measurable!

” I would like to reduce my credit card debt 10% overall.”

Now you know exactly how much you need to reduce your debt to meet your goals. If you owe $1000 on your credit cards all together, if you get it down to $900 you have hit your goal! $900 is a concrete number you can shoot for! It’s not something floating around in outer space!

The “a” stands for attainable. This is one part of goal setting that I think is the most important to understand, and it does take a little more insight and practice to get this one right. You want to make your goals something that you can actually reach. If you set your goal to be to get out of debt in 6 months, and you are $20,000 in debt, unless you hit the lottery that goal really isn’t attainable.

On the flip side, you want to challenge yourself as well. If your goal is to get out debt, you wouldn’t want to say it would be great to be $5 less in debt. Yeah, you can hit that goal, but is it really helping you in the long run. Cheating yourself really doesn’t sound like a fun way to get things done.

So is “I would like to reduce my credit card debt 10% overall” attainable? At this point, we don’t know because we haven’t set a time frame, but it sure seems like it’s something that shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish.

Now onto the “r”. “R” is for realistic. This one is pretty closely related to the attainable part of goal setting. It’s great to shoot for the moon, but you want to have a realistic idea of the situation you are in, and if your goal is realistically something that you can reach. In the world of weight loss, it wouldn’t really be realistic to set a goal to lose 100 lbs in a week. Even if you didn’t eat all week it’s pretty much physically impossible to meet a goal like that! Just be honest with yourself on this one. Setting goals is supposed to help you develop an action plan, not set you up for failure.

Lastly, “t” is for timely. Setting a time frame is crucial! You don’t want the timeframe to be too long so you lose sight of what you are trying to complete, but you don’t want it so short that there is no realistic way for your to achieve your goal. Now make your debt goal have a timeframe.

” I would like to reduce my credit card debt 10% overall in by August 17, 2012″

Notice there is put a specific date. It would be too easy to just keep rolling the goal plan back if I had put in six months, and where’s the progress in that. Don’t take that to mean that you have to be rigid and pass/fail in your thinking. Just hold yourself accountable, but at the same time understand that life does happen and you might have to reset your goal if something does interfere with your plan.

Go ahead, challenge yourself. Set those SMART goals! That is the next step to getting a little bit closer to Couponing Your Way out of Debt.

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Out of Debt

Couponing My Way out of Debt: Living beyond your means and how to stop!

February 3, 2012 By Ashley Sears 1 Comment

Last week, we spoke about how to stop the bleeding and digging yourself further in debt. This is the first great step in successfully starting to dig your way out of the never ending abyss that is credit card spending and debt. Congrats, you have made it this far! How does it feel? I know I feel a lot better since I have put my credit cards in a place out that my grubby little hands can’t reach! I didn’t even hyperventilate!

Now that wasn’t that bad was it? Here comes the real test of your drive to coupon your way out of debt! Living beyond your means! You know what I mean. When you convince yourself you absolutely have to have that sweater, that video game, or any other item you are dying for, but come bill time find that you don’t have enough to cover your bills let alone pay down your debt. Even though I am a self professed Frugalista, I will share a dark secret with you. This is the ABSOLUTE hardest step for me. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to repeat this step to try and get squared away again. I am not going to lie and tell you it’s an easy step, but trust me when you do conquer it and start to get the ball rolling you will feel so much better!

This guy named Murphy lives in my life, you might have heard of him Murphy, Murphy’s Law. Yeah, well because of how my income is and my family lives we rarely have the ability to plan for Murphy’s arrival and it’s usually at the worst time possible. Just last week, we found that Mr. Crunchy had a flat tire on his car. Didn’t have the $100 to buy the tire saved up, so yep had to borrow the money from a bill. THIS is how my family gets into trouble.

What’s your point your asking? Well my point is, it’s those little “I gotta have it” moments that cause Murphy to bite you in the butt. Most of the time that leads us to whip out those credit cards again. Hey you, put that down remember last week? We are NOT bringing those bad boys out again! Not at least until they are clean!

Like I said, I have practice at this step and I have finally come up with some sure fire ways to help stop living beyond your means. The first step to doing that is to sit down and really take a look at what is coming into your household income wise and what is going out for absolute necessities. Just to clarify this is how I break down necessities.

Bills
Rent/Mortgage
Car Payments (if any)
Car/Home Insurance
Electric Bill
Gas Bill (if applicable)
Water and Garbage
Telephone (notice I didn’t say cell phone)

Other Necessities
Groceries
Clothes
Personal Care (basic hair cuts, personal care items)
Gasoline for automobiles
Mediciations and dr.s visit copays

Ok, now after you have all the NECESSITIES listed I want you to write down all the other stuff that you have in bills. This would be things like credit cards, life insurance, cell phones, gym memberships, etc. Any expense that you pay each month, write it down.

After you have it all written and have your monthly total of bills and expenses, I would you to subtract that from your monthly income. For you income, pull out a paystub. We want this to be as accurate as possible. Your calculations should look something like this.

Income 4000 (take home pay)

Necessities 2750

Non-necessities 1000

Total left after monthly bills: $250

Wow, this should open your eyes! At least it did for me. In our case $250 is NOTHING leftover after all our monthly bills. That doesn’t include anything for things like eating out, Redbox rentals, unplanned expenses. It’s no wonder when you add up all our extra purchases here and there that we can’t do anything but tread water!

That is why asking yourself some basic questions can be really key to getting your finances back on track and getting yourself out of debt. The very first question you should ask yourself “is there anything I can take out of my monthly bills?” Is there anything you can live without? I found that Mr. Crunchy and I had to have our cell phones since we do not have a home telephone, but I found that we were grossly over paying for minutes and data. By contacting our cell phone company and adjusting our rate plan I was able to save $60 a month! Now we’re up to $310 left over.

I was also able to take a look at our cable bill. We were getting charged for a lot of channels that we don’t even watch! I sat down figured out what we watched, and then found a lower package that had all the channels we really loved to watch. It saved us another $60 bucks chaching! Now we’re up to over $370 left! If you are daring, see if you can go without cable all together there are tons of ways you can still watch your favorite shows! That could save you hundreds of dollars a month!

After you have gone through all your bills and wittled down what you can, it’s time to take that “live without” mentality and take it to the store with you every time you shop. This is going to take some slowing down and challenging your “norm.” (It was your norm that got you in this bind in the first place wasn’t it?) This step can be a little uncomfortable. I found the first few weeks were the hardest for me, but once you start feeling a little more breathing room in your budgets it is so worth it!

Here are a few ideas of things that you can hold true to in order to stop living beyond your means:

~ Plan to never shop unexpectedly. Make all your purchase planned purchases. That way you can maximize your sales, coupons, and of course savings

~If you feel an impulse buy coming on, ask yourself “Do I really need this?” (no looking fabulous at the company party is not a need)

~Listen to your gut. Is it screaming at you that you probably shouldn’t buy this? Then it might be smart to listen

~Any impulse purchase you DON’T buy, use the money you would have used and pay down a credit card or some other bill. The money was about to be gone anyway. You might as well put it to good use and help your cause!

The beginning steps are some of the hardest to take, but they are also some of the most rewarding! Ever baby step you take closer to your goal, you will take giant steps toward feeling debt relief. You will start noticing you can breath a little easier and are on your way to Couponing your way out of debt!

Join me for the installment in the Couponing my way out of debt series: Goal Setting: How to make your Dreams a Reality

Credits:

Thanks to Paysource.net for the photo

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Out of Debt

Couponing My Way Out of Debt: Stop the Bleeding

January 27, 2012 By Ashley Sears 4 Comments

The decision to finally take charge and get out of debt is the first step in a life changing process. It’s not an easy step, nor a quick and easy process. Unfortunately the truth about debt is that it takes two seconds to get up to your eyeballs in debt, and can take YEARS, yes years, to get out of it. Nevertheless, you are here step one; choosing to change how you live and use coupons to dig yourself out of debt! Congrats, woohoo. You should throw yourself a party, well at least a virtual one.

Ever heard the saying that “a goal without a plan is just a dream”? This completely applies to getting out of debt. You aren’t just magically going to get there without having some set idea of how you are going to get there. Of course, it’s absolutely normal to have to adapt and change your plan over time, but having a plan is essential to changing that dream into reality.

Here I go, feet first into Couponing my Way Out of Debt. I am a completely visual person. Being able to SEE that I am making progress on this insurmountable pile of debt is a must. Without it, it’s no wonder a feeling like a SUV spinning it’s wheels in the sand consumes me. The only thing I gain with out something visual is eye strain and a migraine.

Ok, I am going to challenge you do to something scary. Don’t worry, I am doing it too. I want you to gather up every bill, credit card, bad debt collection you have and sit down with it. Yes, you are actually going to have to look at it. Be honest with yourself and what you have! Don’t rationalize and say “oh that one doesn’t count, I am gonna pay it off.” Grab them all. Then grab a notebook, and a computer (I heart Excel) and get it all on paper.

Writing it all down isn’t a step to torture you, it’s a step to show you where the beginning is. This is ground zero. Even if it turns out to be a rather large, scary number that you never dreamed in your worst nightmare you need to know! Don’t let this step send you into a spiral of despair. Think of it as the step where you CHOSE to take control. I don’t know about you, but one thing I am NOT is a victim. Our family has had a lot of bad things happen at really bad times, ie Mr. Crunchy’s unemployment shortly after moving to a new state, but I will always set my goals to move forward. (Even if life makes me take ten steps back)

Got your bills and papers? Great! Need a break? Too bad. You aren’t even done with the fun part yet. After you have written down all of your bills and balances, write the total down. Personally, I am going to write the grand total on a sticky and put it on my mirror in my bathroom and then put another one in my wallet. Why the heck am I doing that? No, it’s not because I am a masochist nor a sadist. It’s so I don’t lose focus. Every time I see that number it’s going to remind me how much I want to see that number go DOWN!

Now that you know where you are starting, it’s up to you to STOP THE BLEEDING! Think of it like this. Your in a sinking ship, and all you have is a pack of gum to patch holes with. Every hole you find, you patch it up, but another springs up. You’re soon to run out gun, but then you realize you are wearing spiked shoes that are CAUSING the extra holes! Don’t you think it smart to take off those shoes! It’s not your plan that keeps failing to get you out of debt. It’s your inability to realize you have other habits that keep sinking your ship. (That’s usually why most people hop overboard after their attempts to get out of debt)

I challenge you, stop the bleeding. The first step in stopping the bleeding is to STOP USING YOUR CREDIT CARDS! Impulse buying is the biggest culprit of charging up credit cards. My first step this week is to take all of the credit cards out of mine and Mr. Crunchy’s wallet. Think of the scene in Confessions of a Shopaholic. Take those bad boys and freeze them in a block of ice. Hide them in a place where even you will forget where they are. Sounds painful doesn’t it? It’s really not. Very quickly you won’t even realize that they are gone! I promise.

That’s it, grab your wallet hide those cards or for those that are really bold cut that bad boys up! Make credit card confetti. Feels much better doesn’t it. I know I do.

Notice that I did NOT say to close your credit cards. Part of lowering your debt is the added benefit of a higher credit score. If you shut down all the credit cards you are promising to no longer to use, your ratio of your balance to your credit card limit will automatically go to 100%. That really hurts your credit ranking. So, for this first step we are just going to make the cards inaccessible.

What about emergencies? Well, I have found in my career in banking and mortgages that very few purchases on credit cards are actually emergencies. Needing your nails done for your favorite cousin’s wedding does not constitute an emergency. Take a leap of faith and trust me. As you pay down your debt, and more of your cash flow opens up you will actually have the ability to save for true emergencies. Don’t worry about things that have not happened, and let it derail you from reaching your goal of lowering your debt.

Now that all the bandages are in place and the bleeding has stopped, you have made significant step towards couponing your way out of debt! The next step is to stop living beyond your means. I will teach you a few tricks to spot needless spending, and how stopping it can help you or hurt you if you don’t.

Tune in next time to learn more about how to STOP LIVING BEYOND YOUR MEANS, until next time!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Out of Debt

Couponing My Way Out of Debt: New 10 Week Series

January 23, 2012 By Ashley Sears 2 Comments

Since I was able to share a happy ending to my Couponing my Way Home Series, I thought it was time to start a new series to help you meet your goals. I have always had the goal of saving money and being frugal. It’s an ongoing process, but nevertheless the goal is there. Over the course of the next 10 weeks, I am going let you in on my next journey; Couponing my Way out of Debt. Yes, you read that right I have debt.

Even though I pride myself on being a relatively frugal person, I do still have times when I live beyond my means. I know shock and horror! I wish I could report that I could coupon my way completely out of debt in 10 weeks, but that isn’t mathmetically possible. What I can do is show you how I plan to make a large dent into some of our family’s debt over the next few weeks.

Coming from a finance education and professional background, I hear all the time how people can’t afford to pay off their debt or that if they can only pay $5 extra bucks a month, they might as well not try! That couldn’t be any farther from the truth. You can’t NOT afford to get out of debt, and every dollar extra counts. It’s interest you aren’t paying aka money you are throwing away.

Follow me on this 10 week journey to see how putting your mind to a short term goal like 10 weeks, can help you see how much you can pay down. The momentum might just be contagious and you will want to continue your journey to getting out of debt beyond the 10 weeks!

Couponing My Way out of Debt will be a 10 week series starting on January 27th and ending with the 10th edition on March 30th! Watch as I share my triumphs and stumbles and pick myself up to move one step closer to my goal of being 100% debt free!

Here is what you can look forward to during this series:

1/27/12: Week One: Stop the bleeding! The First step in getting out of debt

2/3/12: Week Two: Living Beyond your means, and how to stop!

2/17/12: Week Three: Goal Setting: How to make your dreams a reality

2/24/12: Week Four: Cutting back and still living: How to embrace the new you.

3/23/12: Week Five: Need versus Want: Questions to ask before making that purchase

3/30/12: Week Six: Changing your Mind set: Frugal is the new chic

4/06/12: Week Seven: Crunchy takes on Dave Ramsey: Is it for you?

4/13/12: Week Eight: Income Tight? A few tips and tricks to bring in more income

04/20/12: Week Nine: Building up that Nest! Getting out of debt and saving at the same time

04/27/12: Week Ten: Ten weeks and beyond!

I am really excited to get started on this journey and to walk it with you guys? What do you think, can you challenge yourself to learn and follow along? Stay tuned. Check back every Friday here at Crunchy Frugalista to see how I am doing Couponing my Way out of Debt and to get tips on how you can get there too!

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Couponing my Way Home: Battle of the Wallpaper

January 9, 2012 By Ashley Sears 1 Comment

This weekend was the first weekend where we actually had the keys to start moving in some non-essentials. It also meant that we could begin the battle of the wallpaper!

First off, I am not usually one that is driven crazy how a home is decorated. I mean, I am like most people and would love to have say in what my home looks like, but I am ok with it being an ongoing project. It’s not usual for me to want it done asap! This was true until I saw this home.

Don’t get me wrong I love this home! It is perfect for my family. It’s like it’s own little paradise, matching the quiet suburban lifestyle with a natural wooded bliss, but the wallpaper in our master bedroom had to go!

Our home was built in 1977, and I think this wallpaper has been in that bedroom from about the time that Boy George was popular! It was this horrid blue wallpaper with flowers all over it, and I am a floral kind of girl. The telephone and electrical outlets were even covered in this stuff! It was just plain awful. It screamed from the walls, “Ashley, take me down now!” Fathoming one day with that dreadful stuff on my walls was making my stomach turn! Bedrooms are supposed to be places of escape, not something that’s gonna help you develop a twitch just at the sight of it!

This weekend hubby and I head to the local home improvement store. We grab our scorers, our wallpaper attacking spray, and our death to wallpaper scrapers. We are all set, or so we think!

I began scoring the wallpaper with the circular scorer. It took almost 45 minutes to score it all. I felt like Daniel-son from Karate Kid, “wax on, wax off”. Feel the burn in those arms. Of course, about 35 minutes into scoring, my husband realizes the scoring and gooping method is NOT removing this kryptonite based wallcrud. I was a little perturbed but at least I will have buff arms at the end of this experience. Boom, boom FIREPOWER!

After lots of toil and trouble, we finally figured out we had to scrape the dry wallpaper first with the supa scraper to separate the top designed layer from the paste and paper backing. THEN we could spray the holy crap out of the wallpaper and it peeled right off.

The spray that we put on the walls reminded me of ectoplasmic goop circa Ghostbusters. (How fitting since that was probably when this wallpaper was put up) It was sticky and nasty, but heck it did the job so what did I care.

8 hours, lots of goop, and two big guns later we finally removed all of the dang blasted wall paper. I am finally envisioning what my room is going to look like now that the screaming meme wallpaper is gone. The room is now a clean slate! We were able to putty the holes in the wall, and are going to put primer up today.

I just wanted to share with you that even though I have whined, ok a lot, about removing this wallpaper, that it is actually a really frugal thing to do. My room is about 12X15, and to pay a contractor to remove wallpaper and paint the repaint the room (not counting the cost of paint) is almost $800! That’s just for paining. That doesn’t count the cost for removing the wallpaper!

I found this neat tool that calculates the price difference between doing it yourself, and paying a contractor. It even adjusts for the cost of living differences in the area. This is what it said for my area.

You can check out Do It Yourself or Not to check out this calculator, plus they have links to Lowe’s and Home Depot’s paint calculators as well. They were really helpful to us, and we saved a bundle because of these tools! Check them out!

Now the Crunchy family is off to paint primer, and finally pick a color that is a harmonious Earthy blend to bring a natural feel to my beautiful new abode!

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Couponing My Way Home: Exciting Update

January 2, 2012 By Ashley Sears 19 Comments

Life has a way of making funny twists, and I was really happy that this story has a happy ending.

After having not the best luck, my husband and I will be moving into our very first home together. We are really excited! We currently live in the cutest, little house, but little is the key word there. It’s only 1200 square feet with 3 bedrooms, and we have 3 growing children. Needless to say things are a wee bit cramped.

I started the “Couponing My Way Home” series, when my husband and I started searching for our first home. Due to credit problems, and budget restraints we weren’t able to qualify for anything that amounted to more than a cardboard box. Not sure how that is considered an “approval” but I am not a broker. What do I know?

Hubby and I were really devastated that we couldn’t get an approval on our dream home, so we had consigned to being ok with our smaller home. It was definitely settling because the home is cluttered and cramped, but I do love the yard. We had completely forgotten about the other home. It was the only way to cope. We just acted like it didn’t even exist.

We also knew it was a done deal because right when were going to ask if we could lease to own, we were told someone had put in a bid on the house, and the offer had been accepted. It was over

Fast forward to the end of December, we are in the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Actually I was finally starting to relax because Christmas was gone, and New Year’s is a really low key event in our house. I was pretty surprised when a familiar number came across the caller ID.

I was sitting at my computer blogging, go figure right, and my realtor’s number popped up on my phone. I sat there for what seemed like 15 minutes debating on whether to pick up the phone or not. Why is she calling? Is she just trying to find a house we can settle on? Or rub salt in the wound? (Though neither is like her, just my paranoia speaking) After ruminating on why she was calling, I decided to pick up the phone. She had always been wonderful to us, wouldn’t kill me to see why she was calling.

To my shock and surprise, she was calling to let me know my dream home hadn’t sold. The last offer had fallen through, and this point the seller just wants to lease to own the property. The phone almost hit the floor. My jaw certainly dropped. I think I was in a state of shock. For the past THREE months, I had acted like this house didn’t even exist on the planet, and now it was falling in my lap almost literally!

I spoke with my husband about it, though inside I was silently begging, and told her we would love to let our kids see the house. So we set an appointment for them to see it.

As soon as they hit the door, the kids raced up the stairs to claim “their” room. So much for telling the kids it wasn’t a done deal yet. They LOVED the house, and wanted to know when we were going to move in. Try telling three anxious kids that details aren’t ironed out yet. No thanks!

We let the realtor know we were definitely interested, and the dance began. Off to talk to the seller.

Being a holiday weekend, I didn’t expect to hear anything back until at least Tuesday. I was quite shocked when the realtor called and said the owner just happened to be in town (even though he lives 6 hours south), and would love to talk with us about the house, could we come over? Um, yes!!!!!

We ended spending almost three hours going through the house with the owner. He was an amazingly funny and warm guy, that you could tell had put a lot of love and care into this home. He wasn’t hesitant to tell us the quirks of the house (even though their weren’t many), plus shared family anecdotes about raising his children and grandchildren in the home. I really think that every home sale should be this personal and special. It was amazing to see how much he loved his home, and how he really wanted a family like us to be the next to have it. It almost felt like a right of passage.

The owner really made my 2012 start off in a wonderful fashion. I couldn’t help myself but hug him for all the generosity in letting us move in until we can get everything settled financially. It still seems like a dream. I have had to pinch myself several times to feel like this is all real, but I can’t wait until we actually move into our home!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Home

Optimizing your SEO

November 2, 2011 By Ashley Sears Leave a Comment

When I first started, I had no clue what SEO even stood for, let alone how to “optimize” it. SEO stands for search engine optimization. In simple terms, it means how easy it is for search engines to find you.

Search engines send out these bots that “crawl” websites looking for keywords. It sounds kinda creepy thinking of bugs crawling all over your site, but they are actually kind of helpful. This is how search engines like Google discover the content of your site. That is why it’s important to take steps to make sure search engines not only find you, but rank you higher than other pages.

Here’s a few tips on how to do this

1. WordPress versus Blogger: I started out on Blogger because it seemed like a less complicated platform, which it was. The only problem was that Google was asking, “Crunchy, who?” I got virtually NO traffic from search engines while on Blogger. The SEO design of WordPress is much better. If you aren’t afraid to take a leap, I HIGHLY recommend having your page on WordPress over Blogger. You can thank me later!

2. WordPress Plugins: For those on WordPress, there is a great plug in that really helps with SEO. I use the All-in-One SEO plug in. It’s a great widget that appears at the bottom of each of your drafts where you can pick your own keywords (we will go over keywords in just a moment)

It also allows you to put in your own description. This is what the bots are going to see that the article is about. Make sure you that your description is concise and explains what the article is all about.

3. Strong Keywords and Anchor Text: Keywords are the words that people use to search. You want to keep that in mind when you are writing. The more often you say a keyword in your post the more likely that the search engine will pick up that keyword.

You don’t want to be redundant and obvious about it. It really is an art form to get strong keywords in there without sounding like a broken record, but you will get the hang of it as you post more often with keywords in mind.

A great tool to use when trying to find keywords is the Google Keyword Tool. This tool allows your to see how many searches a month Google gets for particular keywords. It also tells you the competition level for that particular keyword.

For new blogs, you are going to want to find keywords with a decent amount of searches and a relatively low level of competition. This will assure you will be on the first few pages of Google, and people will be more easily able to find your page!

Anchor text is keywords that have links attached to them. These are really the ones that pop out to the search engines. If you want to learn more specific information about anchor texts, check out the post I wrote about making strong anchor texts here.

4. Forums: Forums are a great way to get more rank to your page. Every time a site links into your page a little bit of that page rank is given to your site. So, in theory, if you link up to a site that has higher page rank than you do, you get a little bit of it’s juice. It’s also a great way to spread the word about your blog. The more you get your name out there, (without sounding like a used car salesman) the more traffic you will get to your page.

These are just the basics to get you started on optimizing your SEO. It is definitely worth your time to invest in researching this topic and being more aware of it when you post. Before I started working on SEO optimization, I would get less than 10 visitors a day from ALL search engines. Now I average a 100 visits a day from Google alone.

Give it a try! You might just find that with little changes you see a great growth in the amount of traffic you receive from search engines, and we all like traffic right?

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Top 5 Reasons you aren’t getting pitches by PR companies

October 28, 2011 By Ashley Sears 5 Comments

Most bloggers love the feeling they get when a PR company pitches them to share a product with their readers. It’s a true sign that you actually are seen by others out there in the blogosphere, but why aren’t you getting as many as you want? Not getting any at all? There are a lot of reasons why that is happening!

1. They don’t know how to contact you: If your contact information isn’t easy to find on your page, unless you are telepathic you aren’t going to get any pitches. Add a simple “Contact Me” tab on your page, and you will be amazed at the increase in PR contacts. I added a tab on CF, and literally the next day I got a PR pitch!

2. They can’t find you: Low SEO (search engine optimization) is another main reason you may not be getting any pitches. The harder it is for people to search for blogs in your genre, the less likely they are to stumble upon your blog. Spending time increasing your SEO is time well spent if you want to increase how much PR exposure you are getting.

3. Lack of content: Posting 10 posts a day with nothing but links to coupons, is rarely considered good content. PR companies are looking for people that will not only share with their readers, but that can do it clearly and concisely. If you have very few articles on your page, the PR companies have no idea what your writing style is like. Add some articles every now and then to give PR companies a true sense of what you are all about!

4. Inactivity on your blog: If your blog looks like a ghost town, or there are a lot of pages saying “I am sorry I haven’t been blogging, but…” PR companies don’t know if you have an active following or not. Make sure to write regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day, but make sure to write at least one article or post several times a week. That way PR firms can tell that your page isn’t abandoned!

5. Poorly written reviews: Once you do have some reviews under your belt, if you don’t take the time to do a proper review other firms are less likely to want to work with you.

What is a poorly written review? A poorly written review is something that looks like you spit it out in less than 10 seconds. Make sure your reviews are personal. Include a lot of detail, and try to put yourself in your readers’ shoes. What would they like to know about the brand you are talking about? How can you help your readers make a decision about using this product?

Most of all, make it an honest opinion. Don’t think that you have to make every review a positive one, but at the same time remain professional when putting up a less than stellar review. Don’t trash the company, just share your opinion.

These are just some of the main reasons that PR companies may not be beating down your door. It does take time to build up your blog and your writing style, but it is definitely time well spent. Spending the time to develop your blog will not only increase the number of PR pitches you receive, but it will also create depth in your blog!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Get the most bang for your buck this holiday season!

October 17, 2011 By Ashley Sears 2 Comments

Having three kids, the holidays always tend to be a more expensive time of the year. I have to make every buck count! So I thought I would share how you can make your bucks go farther and get the most bang for your buck this holiday season!

1. Black Friday: Every one and their brother knows about Black Friday. Ok, well almost everyone. This is a great time to get amazing deals, but make sure you know how to score the really hot deals. I do this by starting to price the items I know my kid would like. I try to price them throughout the year so I get an idea of how much they cost normally. Then I am off to stalk the Black Friday ads. That way, I know if something is a really hot deal or not!

2. Free items: Even if something isn’t an amazingly hot deal, if it comes with a free item it might make it a hotter deal. Toys ‘r Us is really great at this. If you buy a certain dollar amount of toys, you get something free. Last year my youngest daughter was obsessed with Hello Kitty! I was able to get her some really neat items on sale that day, plus score 2 free Hello Kitty items. I saved over 85% with all the items.

3. Coupons: You may not know this, but there are actually coupons for toys. Watch your local circulars, online printing sites, and store coupons for awesome coupons with expiration dates through the end of the year. Use these coupons on top of really great sales to score even more!

4.Earn free gift cards: I swear by my Swagbucks, Mypoints, and Superpoints accounts. I am usually able to score at least $100-$200 a year in free cash and gift cards. If you aren’t a member of these sites, there is still time to sign up and score gift cards. Remember every dollar you earn in gift cards is money not out of your own pocket!

These are just a few tips to get you started! Crunchy Frugalista plans on having a great holiday gift guide as well as some hot tips on finding the hottest deals this year! Make sure to use these tips and watch Crunchy Frugalista to score some really hot deals this holiday season!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

Couponing My Way Home: Sleepless nights and pre-approvals

September 27, 2011 By Ashley Sears Leave a Comment

It’s been a little bit since I have updated this series, but honestly it was because I didn’t have much to update. We had paid down a few of my husband’s credit cards, and we were waiting to see if we did enough homework to get his score high enough to qualify. Well the oustanding news, is we did at least get it up high enough to send to an underwriter. Yeah, woohoo! So right now we are waiting to hear if we can get pre-approved so we can make an offer on the house that we want. Let the sleepless nights begin

I am trying not to over think it, and just leave it up to the fates that be. We have done our homework on the credit part, nothing else can fix it but time, so no need to worry. If it will happen, it’s going to happen!

As a tip to make our situation as best as we can, our broker told us to start socking away money so we can cover costs, have savings, and maybe pay more items down. Being the financial enthusiast I am, I started pouring over how we can save money. The number one thing it made me realize is that if we chose to buckle down and save we really could save quite a bit. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable existance in history, but it would be manageable.

I guess that is just the point. A lot of us turn to being frugal minded, because we are tired of the rat race. We are tired of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Every now and then though it is really a good idea to check in with yourself. Have you let a few of your frugal habits slip? Are you forgetting to ask yourself if you really “need” something before making an impulse purchase? Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with treating yourself every now and then. The problem lies when every now and then becomes the exception rather than the rule.

I find that I am more financially disciplined when I have a financial goal. Two months ago, my goal was to save up for a new set of tires before winter. Guess what? Without really trying I was able to get my new set of tires. Now, my goal is to save up enough money to get into my new house (thinking positively that we will get pre-approved), move out of my old house, and cover application fees and such. In the five minutes I sat in front of my computer to figure that out, I found a way to have $1500 in savings in less than 2 weeks. (Don’t let that statement make you think we are rolling in it, because that is SOOOO far from the truth)

Having short term financial goals, helps keep things in perspective. It also helps keep you motivated. Nothing, ok well almost nothing, feels better than challenging yourself to set a short term financial goal and seeing how fast you can reach it. At least that keeps me motivated. Maybe I am just a financial dork, but I happen to be proud of that because after spending many years living paycheck to paycheck I feel like I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the light at the end of this short-term tunnel will be a pre-approval call at the end of the week!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Home

Facebook Changes: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly!

September 26, 2011 By Ashley Sears 3 Comments

Facebook has been something near and dear to my heart ever since I have started blogging. I have to say even in my personal life I am one of those that would list Facebook as one of the top things in my life that I couldn’t live without. I would probably even give up television before I would give up my Facebook. I am addicted to it’s social networking ways, and virtually lurking in the lives of those I had long ago lost touch with. Oh Facebook, why oh why did you have to change things on me.

I will fully disclose I am a Type A personality that absolutely doesn’t do well with change. I have gotten better over time, but I am the type of person that likes old familiar favorites, unless I choose to venture out and try something new. Even having said all that I didn’t initially freak when Facebook changed yet again.

I was slightly annoyed when my newsfeed was full of people that I had long ago followed, and didn’t even recognize their names. I was a bit peeved when I couldn’t find my favorite, familiar faces that graced my wall regularly. I was ok with getting used to it until Facebook messed with my awesome Crunchy Fans!

I spent over an hour yesterday trying to “fix” my wall. Deleting, unsubscribing, marking as “top news” click after click after click really didn’t do much to restore my newsfeed to any simblance of normal. I consider myself relatively technologically adept, and I was left scratching my head on how to fix my precious fixation that is Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still full of joy that Facebook still exists and is still free to use, despite all the vicious cycling of spammed wall posts that said otherwise yesterday. I just wish that Facebook would quit over thinking the virtual social experience! It’s become more and more complicated, and less user friendly.

As a blogger, I feel like my world has been dessimated! Facebook has always been my number one way to get the posts of Crunchy Frugalista to like minded peeps! I had faith that the Facebook changes wouldn’t deter the awesome people that are fans of Crunchy Frugalista, but alas after the days went on I found more and more fans got lost in thefray. Unlike personal Facebook pages, if a fan page doesn’t show up in your feed you can’t just subscribe to it! This is where I think a lot of the fans got lost.

If you want to hear more about Aunt Sally’s life you can just go to Aunt Sally’s page and subscribe to her feed. Walah! She will show up on your wall again. For fan pages, such as Crunchy Frugalista, it is a little bit trickier! Call me an optimist, but even as I am typing this I am hoping once I post this post on the CF fan page, it will find it’s way into your newsfeed so you can at least learn how to add back your favorite blog fan pages!

The easiest way to get your updates on all of your favorite blogs is to make a list. It is a lot less painful that going to each and every blog you really enjoy and manipulating them into your feed again. So Crunchy is here to save the day and make sure you get all those awesome savings deals and of course my whitty sense of humor in one happy place where you can find me again!

The easiest way to do this is to make a list!

On the front page you see when you log into Facebook, look in the left side bar. You will see a section called “Lists.” Click a little to the right of “lists” and you should see the word “more” pop up. Make sure to click that word!

Once you click lists, where your news feed was you will see a group of lists. Click the button that says Create List. A pop up box will appear, enter the name that you want to name your list. I chose Blogs I Love so I can keep up with all of my favorite blogs. Once you have picked a name, hit Create list!

You will come to an empty screen that has what looks like a it has a newspaper in the middle of it. Under the paper you will need to click ADD Friends. Yet another pop up box will appear. At the top right corner where it says friends, click that and a pick list will appear. Pick pages. This is where you will find all the pages your are a fan of! You just click your favorite pages you want to be in this list. When you have clicked all the pages you want in your list, click done!

Now instead of searching through your newsfeed to find your latest Crunchy updates, you just go back to the left side bar and click the list you placed your favorite pages in! That list will be nothing but whatever pages you listed to be in that list.

That is the good part of the Facebook changes. You can really personalize how you want to see different pages by making neat lists. I find that I use lists much more often for my favorite fan pages than I do the newsfeed. That way I can see them all in one place and get all the updates until my hearts content. So what are you waiting for? Give it a whirl!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Blogging Tips Thursday: Foundational Content

September 23, 2011 By Ashley Sears 1 Comment

Foundational Content: you might’ve heard of this term. You might not have. Some people call it “Pillar Content.” Regardless of if you have heard of it or not, it is really important when trying to establish your blog.

Foundational content is what it sounds like, something that is the basis of your whole blog. This is the content that you write when initially start your blog to get people interested. When I first started Crunchy Frugalista, my foundational content was the Couponing 101 tutorials. I started my blog as a way to teach others how to save money and shop they way I had learned to over the years. This is why I started the tutorials. It was more than just listing hot deals. It was the ins and outs of couponing and the philosophy behind it.

There are several reason why foundational content is vitally important to your blog. Foundational content is what makes readers want to come to your blog, and it’s what makes them stick around. Writing your foundational content establishes regular, consistent content that you readers can expect from you. This doesn’t mean that you have to be chained to a desk blogging until your fingers bleed, but it does mean that you need to remain relatively consistent about when you post and telling your readers about upcoming posts. The goal is to develop some articles that your readers are just biting at the bit to read!

This is especially important with deal and coupon bloggers. There are a bajillion bloggers in this genre. Scooping other bloggers on deals is becoming more and more difficult. Foundational content is what is going to set you apart from the competition. It is what is going to make readers want to come to your site first before they search other blogs for their deals, and foundational content is going to change a casual visitor into a loyal long term visitor!

No, you don’t have to write a mini novella to establish foundational content. Just make sure you have some! Here’s a few tips and tricks to think of and to get started:

1. What is something that you would enjoy writing about?

It could be a quirky anecdote about your family, teaching others about a new skill (ie Couponing Tutorials), or just a list of tips and tricks.

2. How often do you want to post it?

You can do it weekly, every other week. Plus remember loyal readers, will also forgive you if you are a day late. (Look at me it’s Blogging Tips Thursday on a Friday!)

3. Why would your idea for foundational content set your blog apart?

To most the whole point of blogging is getting read, right? Well what will set your blog apart? Why would someone want to read what you have to say over others? Answering these questions are sure to make your content even stronger, and have you on your way to being a bloggy superstar!

4. What kind of readers are trying to attract with your foundational content?

Each blogger has their own goals when it comes to fans. Asking yourself this question, is key to figuring out what your audience is. This is actually one of the first questions you should ask, because it will help your foundational content be more consistent. Knowing who you are and who you are writing for equal consistent awesome content!

The great thing about foundational content is that once you feel that you have expanded as much as you can on the first part of the foundation, you can add more. Crunchy Frugalista started with Couponing 101, then expanded to CVS 101 and Walgreens 101. Every now and then, I think of something else to write and go back to add onto those tutorials so the blog is constantly changing and evolving. That is a sure fire way to guarantee your content will not grow stale. It also helps expand your audience over time.

So don’t be shy, get to writing. It may just be the key ingredient you need to set your blog apart from the rest of the blogosphere!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Couponing unethically, is it worth the bad karma?

September 9, 2011 By Ashley Sears 3 Comments

After the introduction of that “great” show TLC Extreme Couponing, and I use that term VERY, VERY loosely, there have been so many reports of unethical couponing happening all across the country. It really blows my mind how much people take the sensationalized aspects of television, and think that they can instantly do those things or that in fact they are even real life scenarios.

Don’t get me wrong, I love couponing, and I love everything frugal shopping has done for my family’s quality of life. You really at some point though have to ask yourself a question, are you couponing ethically? What do I mean about couponing ethically? Well if your gut is screaming at you that you are doing something wrong, then you probably are!

I am not one to get into the debate about how much of one type of product one household needs. When “Extreme Couponing” came out, there was a furor across the Internet asking why would one person need so much stuff. Names like “hoarder” among others were tossed around at the show’s participants. My two cents, is it’s nobody’s business how much someone else buys or if they need it or not. I just think that a few basics should be covered. If you are going to buy that much, don’t clear the shelves or make sure to special order from the store. Other than that the quantity you purchase is really a personal decision. You never know what that person intends with the product and frankly it’s none of your beeswax . Let them do their thing, and you do yours. As long as you shop ethically don’t have to worry about anyone else!

The shelf clearing seemed to be the first ripple effect of the “Extreme Couponing” copy cats. The next one, have to say that I am truly shocked about. I had read some articles about people stealing newspapers for the coupon inserts. There was even a recent article of a woman arrested after asking the store’s permission to take unsold papers. I read these articles and thought how sad, but never thought it would affect me.

I don’t normally buy papers locally because only one store carries the Indianapolis Star, which is the only “local” paper worth buying. Plus the store that carries it is on the other side of town. Well this week was a good coupon week, so I went to grab some papers. I checked the regular newspaper rack. I saw the New York Times, USA Today, and a local free paper, but no papers that had coupons in it. I was bummed. I thought they had sold out since I was there in the afternoon. Just as a last ditch effort, I asked the lady at customer service if they happened to have papers anywhere else. To my surprise, she told me they had to keep the papers behind the counter because some lady had been STEALING the coupon inserts. She even had the audacity to say she didn’t understand why it was stealing because people didn’t want them anyway!

Ok, woh, stop the presses! It’s not stealing???? These were papers that were not EVEN SOLD YET and still in the store! What blows my mind is that people don’t seem to understand that all this trickles down hill. If newspapers don’t get paid for their coupons, they will stop putting them in there at all. Where does that leave us?

I was lucky that I stopped to ask the customer service desk if they had more papers, but what about other people that just assumed, like I almost had, that they were sold out. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is absolutely nothing wrong getting inserts for free if you do it ethically. Ask your neighbors if they use their coupons, check recycling centers, coordinate a coupon exchange. There are some many ways to score free coupons without the black mark on your karmic slate!

So to end my rant I compiled Crunchy’s list of unethical couponing practices:

Using coupons for the wrong product: If it says a 6 oz jar, but it will scan for the 4 oz. that isn’t just unethical it’s coupon fraud. Trust me you don’t wanna go there.

Stealing Newspapers: I don’t care if it’s out of your neighbor’s driveway, abandoned houses, or the grocery store. This is definitely a karma no-no.

Copying printable internet coupons: These coupons are meant to be printed to the limit, and then that’s it. If you need more you can always go to great coupon forums to trade for more. This again is coupon fraud, and I don’t know about you I don’t want Mr. Policeman on my doorstep.

Teaching others any of the above as a way to coupon: You may feel like you are doing nothing wrong, but eventually things like this roll down hill. That means less coupons and/or less stores that accept coupons. So if you are saving your family substantial amounts of money by couponing why would you jeopardize that, and on top of that why would you teach others to defraud the system too. Shame on you!

I don’t get on a soapbox very often, but this one is something I am passionate about. I love couponing, and I love how much it saves my family, but if just a few bad apples continue to lie, cheat, and steal to save a dollar they are going to ruin the entire system for all of us. So what do you think about this? Do you think it’s fair for a few to blatantly disregard the rules? Curious minds want to know.

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

Best way to get HOT High Dollar coupons!

September 6, 2011 By Ashley Sears 4 Comments

If I had a dollar for every time someone said that couponing wasn’t worth it, or they just didn’t have the time to write to companies for coupons. I would be a very, very rich woman! My retort to that is you can’t afford not to! I try to write about 15 manufacturer’s a month and tell them how much I love their products. It is one of the essential ways to learn how to coupon! This is the absolute best way to score some amazing high dollar free coupons!! I thought I would take the time to show you where to find free coupons!

Every thing you see above are products and coupons I have received for FREE! About two weeks ago I took 20 minutes to email 15 companies to let them know how much my family loves their products. An easy way to get started is to go through your cabinets. Find products that you actually use, and search the web for their website!

Most company websites have a “Contact Us” section! I use this form to let them know how much my family likes their products. When contacting the companies make sure to take a little extra time and follow some tips. Their are definitely some key things you need to include to have the highest chance of getting a free coupon or two!

First and foremost be sincere! Take a second to think of something specifically you like about the product. You would be amazed how far a sincere, specific comment goes. These companies get hundreds, if not, thousands of emails a day asking for coupons. Make yourself stand out from all those emails! On a side note, don’t specifically ask for coupons, this almost guaranteed to get you nothing from them.

Next, make sure to include your address and name. If the form doesn’t have a space for your address on it, make sure to include at the closing of your email. If they don’t have your address you can’t get coupons!

Here’s a sample email that I use when I write to companies with the goal of getting coupons.

Dear {Insert company’s name here},
I just wanted to let you know how much my family loves your {insert product name here}! We have been loyal users of {product name} for many, many years. As a mom to three busy kids (or other unique detail about your family), {product} makes my life so much easier. We specifically love {insert product specific comment here}.It’s nice to know that companies like you strive to make such a great, quality product that families can count on!

Sincerely,
Suzy Que
123 Main Street Anytown, USA 12345

The most important tip is to never give up! I get about 50% of companies that promise coupons. The other 50% just send “Dear John” thank you for contacting us notes. Of those 50% probably about 25% send coupons too, but just didn’t mention it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that just because someone else had success in writing a company doesn’t mean the will mail you coupons too. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to be Debbie Downer. Just want to let you know don’t take it personally. I have had several people ask what they are doing “wrong?!?” You might have just picked a few companies that weren’t giving out any more coupons or you asked directly for coupons which is a sure way NOT to get coupons. You might not get that company, but get lucky with another company that hardly ever sends coupons out. The key is to JUST KEEP TRYING. I can guarantee if you email 50 companies, you will won’t turn up empty handed.

Like I said, I emailed 15 companies about 2 weeks ago. From those 15 companies, about 10 responded to me. About 6 of those promised coupons. I have only gotten some of them, but all of the coupons had at least one FREE item coupon in it! For that 20 minutes I saved over $40 in FREE products. I don’t know about you, but I don’t make $120/hour! That’s how much it was worth for me to email those companies if you broke it down into an hourly wage!

Sometimes I get great results like this, other times I only get a few free coupons and the rest are “Dear John” notes without the coupons.It doesn’t bother me though, because even one free coupon saves my family money. This is a great way to make sure you are saving money even if you don’t see Sunday coupons that are really helpful for your family.

We Use Coupons, has a great list of a manufacturers from A-Z and link to their websites. This is the list I normally use if I can’t find the manufacturer’s website on my own. A good way to start is to start at the top, and email 15 a month! Try it for at least 2-3 months, and I can almost guarantee you will be tickled pink with all the coupons coming in your mail box! Just ask my mailman, I think he thinks he has a stalker as much as I wait for the mail to come everyday.

With writing to manufacturer’s for free coupons, you just need to know what to write about and coupons will come! It’s a little about faith, a lot about luck, and mostly about perserverance! It’s a critical point to learn when you are learning how to coupon!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

Starting your blog!

August 30, 2011 By Ashley Sears 21 Comments

So you’ve decided to start a blog! This can be a really exciting time, but it can also be a really disillusioning time if you don’t really understand what you are getting yourself into. A lot of people think they will blog, and that thousands will amass to their written word within weeks of putting up their .com! There is a little bit more to blogging than that! I have been blogging for about five months now, and I wanted to share with you what tips I have learned along the way to get people to come to my blog, and things that I have learned to keep my sane in the process.

When I started my blog, it was merely to share deals and shopping tips with friends and family because I had family all across the country. I didn’t really go into blogging with any specific ideas or goals about what I wanted my blog to be, or what I specifically wanted to write about. That was my first big mistake. Before you start your blog, you should really do the prework! What do I mean by prework? Decide for yourself these few questions:

Why do you want to blog? :Are you blogging so you can share your ideas with the masses? Do you really care if anyone ever really reads what you put out into cyberspace? Are you trying to earn income from blogging? Asking questions about your motivation to blog, will really help you later on to decide where you want to spend our time on your blog.
How are you going to set your blog apart from the millions of other blogs out there?: If getting traffic is your goal, this one is really important. It’s not as important if you really don’t care who reads your blog. If you are a deal bloggers, there are thousands if not millions of deal bloggers out there. Why would someone come to your blog over others? What can you do to make it different? Maybe you have a different writing style? Maybe you talk about another topic of interest that others don’t? This will really help to create the brand for your blog, and make you stand out among the crowd.

After asking yourself these few questions, you really need to figure out how much time you have or want to spend blogging. This is where I think a lot of people have a misperception on how blogs work. When I started blogging, I put in well over full time hours getting my blog started up. As I said, at first it started as just a site to share deals with family members, but I quickly realized I loved blogging, and I did care people read what I wrote. Bottom line you will need to put in a lot of work to get your blog traffic. It’s up to you how you space out this time, and it’s really important to avoid burnout. When you first start blogging, here are some tips for traffic and to avoid getting burnt out and giving up!

Traffic

Blog hops: Blog hops are where I started to get traffic when I first started. For those of you who have no clue what a blog hop is, it is a place where you list your site on someone else’s blog. Other blogs also join up, then they “hop” to you site to check it out and follow you. This is a great way to get to see what other bloggers do out there. It’s also a great way to network! Crunchy Frugalista offers a different blog hop everyday, so if you need a place to start this is a great place!
Networking: Networking is huge in blogging. This does not mean email every blogger that you can get your grubby little hands on. It means building genuine and lasting relationships with other blogs. When you are blog hopping, it means taking the time to actually read a bloggers post and sincerely comment on their blog. Don’t just leave a comment “I am so and so from the hop, follow me back.” Networking does take some time, but it is time well spent! Through networking I have met several blog friends that have helped host events, have shared companies contacts, and even shared my page with their readers. If you spend your time doing anything at first, networking is a great place to spend your time!
Facebook: Almost as soon as you get your blog up and running, I would recommend a Facebook page. Facebook is still my number one source of traffic. You can find various vehicles to post your blog posts to Facebook, and it will help send them over to your page! I personally recommend Hootsuite because it allows you schedule what you post on Facebook, so you can space them out. It even allows for a brief description of your post.

Ultimately traffic is the number one spot I would spend time when you first start blogging. Obviously you need to have content on your blog, but no matter how amazingly wonderful your content it is no one is going to come to read it if you don’t spend time getting your name out there.

I wanted to clarify about traffic though. It is really easy to burnout as a beginning blogger if you are spending too much time obsessing about your numbers. I would get so upset because I was spending hours and hours building up my blog, but felt like no one was reading anything. I would post a question on my Facebook page, and no one would respond. It was really driving me crazy! Here are some tips to avoid some of the mistakes I made as a newbie blogger. It will help you keep your hair and avoid burnout!

Burnout

Get a good analytics established on your page to track traffic, but DON’T stare at it 10 times a day. Ok, so maybe you’re only staring at 9 times a day, but don’t focus on the negative when you first start. Installing a good traffic tracker on your page is really important to help you see where your traffic is coming from, but don’t get discouraged when you have spent 12 hours blogging and only had 4 visitors all day. We ALL had to start somewhere. Google Analytics is a great tool to help you see where your traffic is coming from, but don’t let it discourage you. At the beginning, I would check it maybe once or twice a week. Then I would only check it to see what is working and what isn’t, but don’t obsess about the fact you don’t have hundreds flocking to your blog.
Don’t assume no is reading, because you are getting silence: When I first started blogging, it would frustrate me so much that I never had ANY comments on my posts. I would sometimes put a question up on my fan page on Facebook, and get crickets. I felt like NO ONE was reading my blog. That’s where Google Analytics is good. Even though I felt like no one out there even cared if I wrote another single word, I could see that people were indeed visiting my blog! Don’t take the silence personally. It takes time to get your readers engaged enough to comment. A lot of people enjoy lurking through your blog, and getting what they need even if they never, ever share a word with you. So just remember someone out there is glad that your blog is out there!
Pull yourself away from the computer: I promise you if you step away from your blog for a few days it will NOT spontaneously combust! You don’t have to sit there for hours and hours waiting to see if someone is reading or commenting your blog. If you need to take a day or two off to spend with your family, your blog will still be there when you get back! I wouldn’t recommend leaving it for weeks at at time because your traffic will die down, but if you are a little spread thin TAKE A BREAK! It’s ok, your blog WILL be there when you get back!
It’s ok to miss a deal: This one is for my fellow deal bloggers! I would spend hours upon hours on my blog, for fear of missing a hot deal. It is ok to miss out on a hot deal! Your readers will forgive you. I know my readers love getting hot deals on my blog, but they are not going to run for the hills if you miss a deal or two. The idea with a blog is to build loyal readers that truly enjoy how you write and what you share. So if people do run, it’s ok. For everyone that runs, you will find a loyal reader that loves you anyway.
Find support in your fellow bloggers: Again, this doesn’t mean to send a whiny email to every blogger you can get your hands on, but hopefully through the networking you have done you have built at least a few good relationship that if you need some support and motivation you can ask for a shoulder to cry on. I would be pretty confident to say almost all bloggers have had times when they needed motivation or wondered why the even bothered blogging at all. When you need an extra kick in the pants, reach out to your blogging buddies. I am sure they have been there too!

Blogging can be an amazingly rewarding hobby or career if that’s the direction you want to take it! I love blogging because the sky is truly the limit. If you have something to share or say you can be a blogger! It’s just important to realize that blogging does take time and patience to become successful at it. Even the really big blogs didn’t get there overnight. So with these tips, a little time and patience you will get your blog where you want it to be!~

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Couponing My Way Home: Update #1

August 16, 2011 By Ashley Sears 4 Comments

Well things are at least moving in the right direction! We have continued to save, and I am proud to say our savings account has hit over the $500 mark, which for us is a huge milestone. I was also able to pay of 2 of the 4 credit cards that my husband has. We have contacted a broker to see if we could qualify for a mortgage, and were told not right now. At least it’s not a no. We just have some “homework” to do in order to get a little closer to making our dream a reality.

Through this journey I have learned a lot about myself. I tend to obsess on a goal, and that is all I can see. So when that goal doesn’t happen, I am totally and utterly devastated wondering why I even bothered in the first place. My husband calls it tunnel vision. Well with this round, I refuse to get tunnel vision, and I am going to use my financial know how that I have learned in my career to take active steps towards getting into our first home.

We are putting the cart before the horse in our journey, we should’ve pre qualified for a home first and then go house shopping, but in good ole Ashley fashion we went house shopping anyway. Of course, I have found a house I LOVE which is in our price range. So we definitely need to get our “homework” done! Here’s some homework you all can do before you go house shopping to make your experience a little bit easier!

1. Pull your own credit: When you pull your own credit, you don’t lose any points. This is a great way to see if there are any mistakes that you need to get corrected before you try to apply for a mortgage. Many sites offer free credit reports if you try out their monitoring services. Credit Karma is a great service to try to get your report and your free credit score. You can also get your own credit report for free once a year at Annual Credit Report.

2. Don’t be afraid to shop around: When you shop around within a two week period, your credit takes less of hit from the inquiries because the credit bureaus lump them all together. So don’t be afraid to question the deals you are qualifying for and get several offers from several different types of lenders.

3. Figure out how much you are comfortable with: I love the mortgage calculators at Bank Rate! They have calculators to help you see how much your mortgage payments would be based on your down payment, amount, and interest rates. They also have a great calculator called “how much can you afford?” This one takes into consideration all of your monthly payments, and lets you see what payment range should work based on the information you inputed.

4. If the answer is not right now, don’t get discouraged! Don’t be afraid to ask what “homework” you need to do in order to qualify. With how the economy has been over the last few years, lenders are extremely tight on their lending requirements. Ask advice on how you can improve your situation in order to qualify. It might be something as simple as paying of your credit card balances or saving a little extra cash.

5. Keep your eye on the prize: Make sure to set your goals, and write them down! You may get sick of eating chicken every night because it’s inexpensive, but just remember every step you take to live frugally gets you one step closer to your dream of homeownership. Ideally, through sites like Crunchy Frugalista, you can learn to live frugally while not feeling like you are living as a pauper! It is possible to live frugally and still feel like you are living!

I can’t wait to write the post where I share with you all that we have actually pre-qualified to buy a home, but until that time I will just keep plugging along and taking positive steps toward my goals instead of dwelling on what a trying journey this has been. I feel like we are finally getting closer to making our dreams a reality.

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Home

Couponing my way home!

August 8, 2011 By Ashley Sears 5 Comments

Yesterday my husband and I spent most of the day going to open houses in our area. I have had the dream of homeownership ever since I moved out when I was 18 years old, but due to many unforseen circumstances, and bad choices of my own, that dream has not become a reality! I am now at a place in my life where I can do the leg work, and get our finances on the straight and narrow to make things happen! So I thought that this was something that I could definitely share with all of you guys! I know many people out there have had their financial goals be the pipe dreams that mine are, so maybe we can take this journey together.

I am on a mission to make this happen for my family. My home that I rent currently is nice, but my family is growing and we need a change. So I am going to do everything within my power to make sure that this happens. We have been a family that until recently really wasn’t able to save any money. Of course, with lenders being so tight right now, having savings is a huge way of selling yourself into a mortgage. So over the course of the next few months, maybe even the next year, I am on a mission to live as frugally as possible, but still manage to feel like we are living!

The first thing my husband and I did was sit down and write out our goals! Goals are a great thing to write down if you are trying to get your finances in order. The one thing about goals though is that you have to write down what you are going to do to help you get there. If you just write down what your goals are with no plan, then they are really just a dream you have not a goal. It’s like putting your faith in the universe that things will just happen. It reminds me of one of my favorite jokes! A guy prays every day to the powers that be to let him win the lottery and nothing happens. In the end, the guy asks “why won’t you help me out, and let me win the lottery?” A big booming voice comes down from the sky and says, “Can you help me out, and BUY A TICKET?!?” Same concept! A goal needs some action steps that you are going to hold yourself to that is going to get you a step closer. I wouldn’t make it anything drastic, but don’t be afraid to push yourself a little outside your comfort zone.

The goal that my husband and I set for our first goal was to save $2000! It’s been a long time since we have had any savings let alone $2000! We put our heads together, and what we came up with was anything that is leftover from the previous paycheck when we get paid again goes into savings! Since my husband is now getting paid weekly, we have found we aren’t spending quite as much. Last week we were able to put $146 in savings! I was so excited. So I am happy to share our savings is up to $146 bucks .

Well, I shared with you our first goal. This is how my husband, and I decided that we would help ourselves reach this goal

Reduce our day to day spending
Take our debit cards out of our wallets. (This reduces impulse spending)
Eat out only 3 times/month, and when we eat out use coupons!
Stay home more often to reduce gas! Need ideas on staying home? Check out my post here about staying home more!
Ask ourselves if really NEED something or just want it before making a purchase
Put any money left over between paychecks in savings!

So take the journey with the Sears family! What are some of your goals that you have been putting off that living more frugally might help you attain? Challenge yourself and maybe, just maybe you can coupon your way towards your financial dreams too!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing My Way Home

How to get your blog started!

August 4, 2011 By Ashley Sears 5 Comments

So you want to start a blog? Now what? Deciding to start a blog is such a great and exciting time. People decide to start blogs for so many different reasons, but the most common reason is because the author has something they want to say. I started Crunchy Frugalista because I am an avid coupon shopper, and I had so many friends and family members asking me to teach them how to do it I thought it would just be easier to start a blog so they could reference the information anytime they wanted. What started out as a simple idea has quickly grown into so much more! The main thing I missed out of the gate is I never asked myself what I wanted Crunchy Frugalista to be or why I was truly doing the blog. I figured I would share with you all some questions to ask yourself with you first get started, and not do when you first get started so you might have a smoother transition as you are putting your blog together!

1. What are you going to write about?I thought I had this question answered, but as I got further into blogging my reasoning changed so I had to go back to the drawing board. So really take some time and ask yourself why you decided to start a blog! It will really help you set your goals down the road.

2. Who is your intended audience?: A blog can’t be everything to everybody, so decide who you are writing to. Do you want it to be a family friendly blog? Do you want to cater to a more adult audience? This is really important because it will shape how you write your articles and what types of topics you include on your blog.

3. What kind of topics are you going to write about: This is another biggie! If you pick a subject that is too narrow you could quickly run out of these to write about. Of course, that would mean the end of your blog. On the other hand, if you write about too broad of topics, you might have a harder time getting a loyal reading audience. The best advice I was given when I first started blogging was to start with your “Pillar content.” Heidi from Little People Wealth gave me this advice, and she didn’t steer me wrong. “Pillar content” is the foundation of what you initially want to write your blog about. When I first started, my first pillar was Couponing 101. It was a series of posts that taught those new to couponing the ins and outs of learning the lingo, how to shop, and how to maximize their savings. After you finish your initial pillar, you can move onto other pillars that build up the general topics on your blog. This is why readers will continue to return to your blog.

4. How will you get people to find out about your blog? You might write some amazing articles, but how is your blog going to grow if no one knows about your blog? Networking and getting your name out there is the second most important thing you can do to get your blog’s name out there. Here are some ideas on how to do that:

Set up a Facebook page: Facebook is one of my top referral sites to my blog. I post a link to my blog content on my Facebook page, and they click the link and hop on over to read the post. Facebook is everywhere so it should definitely be a part of your blog plan.
Twitter: Twitter is another great way to get your name out there. I had NEVER used Twitter before I started blogging, but I found I was missing out on a lot of people by not having a Twitter account. Plus you can get your Facebook feed to sync to your Twitter account, so anything you post on your Facebook page automatically is posted to Twitter
Blog Hops: Blog hops are a place you can list your blog to get other blogs to visit. They are a a great way to increase your followers and expose your blog to other peoples’ readers. This is how I started getting my blog’s name out there. Basically you link up, then you visit the other blogs and “like” their Facebook page, become a reader on Google Friend Connect, or a follower on Twitter, whatever the blog hop is about. Then in turn those blogs return the favor. I host a series of blog hops each day here with my co-host Money Savvy Michelle.
Network with other bloggers: This one takes some time and patience, but it definitely pays off! I started out by emailing bloggers, but didn’t get many responses. I just kept doing blog hops, and eventually I began to develop relationships with other bloggers. This is the best way to get your blog buttons displayed on other bloggers’ blog rolls or on their homepages. Don’t have a blog button yet? Check out this great tutorial on how to build your own blog button. A blog button is a 125X125 square that links to you blog when posted on other people’s blogs. It’s a great way to get your name out there.

5. How much time do you want to spend blogging?: This is really up to you, but I can tell you how much time you spend will definitely affect how fast your blog grows. If you are ok with spending what free time you have then great! If you want to make it a full-time job, that’s ok too. Just try to at least blog once a day. You want your readers to know that your blog is still active. There is nothing worse than working so hard on a blog, then losing readers because your last post was a week ago. And no, writing a quick post about “sorry I haven’t been blogging” doesn’t count! You want to keep your readers engaged and show them that you really have an interest in putting up new material.

6. What is the name of your blog going to be?: I spent a LOT of time on this one, and I believe you should too. I wouldn’t personally recommend a blog name that can change. A blog name with a number in it, like the number of your children, or about the younger stages of your children may sound like a good idea, but would a toddler stage name be a great title when you are writing about your kids when they are teenagers. You want a blog name that will grow with you, not something that you would have to change because changing your blog name means getting your name out there all over again. There are plenty of wonderful blogs out there that don’t follow this rule, this is just my personal opinion, but I think it’s good advice.

7. Where are you going to post your blog?: Two of the most common blogging platforms are Blogger and WordPress. They both offer free blog sites, but make sure to check out the pros and cons of both. I started on Blogger with at crunchyfrugalista.blogspot.com. I started there because I found that that the initial template was really easy to put together for my non-tech brain, but I found that very quickly I would find neat things on other blogs I wanted to add, but couldn’t because Blogger wouldn’t support that. WordPress is my home now, and I find that the search engines are finding my blog a lot better. This is a huge thing for me, because having the ability to have Google find your page means more people reading your blog! So where you go is really up to you, but think about the long term when picking a blog home.

Now you are on your way to getting your blog up and running! Putting in a little extra time to ask yourself these questions before you blog is crucial to running succesful blog. These tips are great whether you want your blog to eventually become a full-time paying job, or if you just want to share your anectdotes with friends and family. Ask yourself these few questions before you start your blogging journey, and you are sure to enjoy your blogging adventure for many years to come!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Blogging Tips

Tutorial Tuesday: How to lower your out of pocket expense

July 26, 2011 By Ashley Sears 6 Comments

Most people learn to couponing to save money, but they don’t learn the tips and tricks to save the most amount of money possible. Don’t get me wrong any money saved is a great thing, but wouldn’t it be even better if you could lower your out of pocket expense with just a few simple tips to follow! We all want to save the most amount possible right? I am going to share with you a few tips that I have learned over the years to get you to the absolute lowest amount spent out of your own pockets. The steps do take a little bit of extra time to prepare, but after you start seeing the savings rolling in, I am sure you will find it to be time well spent!

1. Multiple transactions: This is one tip that I never even thought about when I was a new frugal shopper! I just went to the store, used my coupons and left. I cringe to think about all of the money that I was missing out on. Multiple transactions are important for many different reasons. Some stores have coupon limits on like items per transactions. Instead of doing your one transaction and coming back another day, you can do more than one transaction and score more products in one trip. I use this in my area because my local Kroger triples coupons. They will only triple 2 like coupons. If I have a lot of coupons for one item that would triple, I break it up into separate transactions that way I get as many coupons that will triple to triple. In an area where there are no doubles/triples? This will still work for you. Some manufacturers like P&G, have limits on their coupons of so many like coupons per trip. This tip will help you be able to use more of those as well! When using this tip though, just remember to be courtesy of your other shoppers. Don’t take 20 years to check out, and if a line develops be kind enough to let others go in front of you before you start another transaction.

2.Roll Extra Care Bucks, Register Rewards, and On your next offer catalinas: What do I mean by roll? I will use a scenario to explain this to you a little bit better.

~Say Kellogg’s cereal is on sale 4/$8, and when you buy 4 you get $2 to use on your next shopping trip. Rather than putting all your groceries together, I would buy the cereal first! That way with coupons, you only pay a few dollars out of pocket, plus you instantly get that $2 ONYO coupon to use on the rest of your groceries.

I use this trick A LOT at CVS and Walgreens to get my out of pocket as low as possible. It’s especially useful if you don’t have an Register Rewards or Extra Care Bucks to start with.

3. Get the family involved: My kids love to go shopping with me. Being a homeschooling family, we use our shopping trips to teach basic life skills and math. If I happen to have a coupon that has a limit per trip on it, my kids love to pitch and do some transactions too. Some may think this is weird, but my kids have become actively involved in learning how to save money. They think it is neat to help shop, plus it helps keep our family’s out of pocket lower. When I go on large shopping trips, my husband comes with me and we do two separate transactions that way we don’t slow down other shoppers, but still get all the savings of two transactions. Family not interested in shopping with you? Get a friend to come along. Not only will it help you out, I can guarantee they will be amazed at all your savings and want to know how you do it all!

These are just a few tips to get you started on lowering your out of pocket. Your trips don’t have to be anything elaborate. Just start small and see how your savings gradually begin to improve! Trust me, the little bit of extra time you spend preparing for your shopping trip will be well worth the extra money you save!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

Top 5 Couponing Excuses

July 22, 2011 By Ashley Sears 2 Comments

In my couponing experience, I have found that people are either hot or cold to the idea of couponing. Some are extremely excited at the thought of saving money and can’t wait to get started. Others are hesitant that it will not make any difference or have a billion excuses as to why they dont’ or “can’t” coupon. Here’s my thought, you can’t afford NOT to coupon!

Rather than preach at you guys, I figured I would share the top 5 couponing excuses that I have come across in the last four years. In the end, even with all these excuses, there really isn’t a good one not to save yourself some money!

1. I don’t have the time to clip coupons: My response to this one is that you don’t have the time NOT to! We all work hard for the money we earn. It doesn’t matter whether it’s taking care of our kids or working a part-time or full-time job. Why would you give more of your wages to companies for their products? If you broke it down, you are giving more to these companies on their products than you are paying taxes! Idon’t know anyone who likes paying taxes. Plus there are so many ways that you can save money, without clipping a single coupon!

Cellfire: Coupons that load directly to your shopper’s loyalty card. You just log into their site, click, and save!
Savingstar: This is a newer company, but you load “coupons”, that again attach to loyalty cards. After buying the product, Savingstar puts the amount of the coupon into your account as cash rather than taking it off at the register.
Coupons.com: This is my favorite site for Internet printable coupons. You just take a look, see which coupons you can use and print! There are several other sites too like redplum.com and smartsource.com! Plus many manufacturers now have printable coupons on their websites.

2. There are never coupons for products that I use: Then you are probably looking in the wrong place! Most products have some sort of coupon out from time to time. If you happen to love a product that doesn’t come out with coupons, take 2 seconds and write to the manufacturer. I have scored some of my best coupons, including items for free coupons, by emailing companies to let them know how much I love their products. I usually email them on their “Contact Us” tab on their website!

3. All the coupons are for “junk food”: While I will agree with you that a lot of the coupons out are for processed foods, but there are also a TON for other items. I get the bulk of my savings on home and beauty items. My family doesn’t eat a whole lot of processed food, so coupons for Hamburger Helper really aren’t valuable to me. Having said that, I am able to find a ton of coupons for food items that I use everyday including healthy items. A few months ago, I did a trip just to show how much you can save on ;healthy items. I bought a ton of fresh, lean meats; produce; and other items you don’t normally find coupons for. I spent $180 and saved almost $160! So I think the proof is the in the pudding on that one!

4. It takes too much time to match sales to coupons: The best part of this one is that you don’t have to do this alone! I am definitely a work smarter not harder kind of girl! There are so many forums on the Internet that you can join that do this for you! I share a lot of the HOT sales tips here on Crunchy Frugalista, but for complete listing of coupon matchups I go to the different forums I use. It takes two seconds to go to your store’s section, and see all the coupons that matchup with that week’s sale. They even tell you where to find the coupons!. Here are some of my favorite forums!

We Use Coupons: This great forum is friendly, and has great sections on many stores including most grocery stores, CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens. They also have sections on where to find coupons and a traders’ forum
A Full Cup: Another great forum that has pretty much the same sections as We Use Coupons, but sometimes they have different deals on this forum. That’s why I use both

5. I won’t save that much, so I might as well not even try: Everybody has to brush their teeth right? What about using shampoo and body wash or soap? If you wash your clothes, your hair or yourself you WILL save money! I really don’t understand the all or nothing logic either. If you found a $20 bill on the side of the road, if you are anything like me you would be doing a happy dance on the side of that street! So why is it not as awesome when you save $20 on your everyday products that you do use! Not everybody saves 1000s of dollars overnight, but every little bit counts. Ever little bit you save is that much less of your hard earned money going to someone else! My family is NOT an “Extreme Couponing” family, but we have saved enough to be able to send all 3 of our children to camp every year. We are now able to save, which NEVER happened before, and we are able to pay off our debt. Sounds like saving might just be a positive thing no matter how big or small your savings!

I shared these top 5 couponing excuses with you guys, because I don’t want you to be a couponing negative nelly! Couponing and saving money is really not anymore difficult than writing out your grocery list. You just have to know how to do it, and where to look for help. Just remember you don’t have to do it alone, and the next time you start to hand out an excuse tell yourself you can’t afford to NOT coupon!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

How couponing can change your life!

July 21, 2011 By Ashley Sears 2 Comments

With all the talk about Extreme Couponing, and people asking me if I am an Extreme Couponer, I thought I would share how couponing changed my life, and how it can change yours too!

Like most I started couponing out of necessity. My husband was between jobs and we needed to save money fast. That is when I went to my good ole friend Google, and searched “how to save money.” After that quick little search, a TON of articles about couponing and how to coupon appeared before my beady little eyes. I immediately began soaking it all in, and my life hasn’t been the same since.

Since I started couponing, my life has completely changed. Before couponing, I wasn’t able to do many things. We were living from paycheck to paycheck. We weren’t able to do any “fun” activities with our kids, and I wasn’t able to really get enough food to feed our family of 5. It wasn’t as dire as it may sound, but it definitely wasn’t a fun life.

My first month of couponing I hit the street running. I wanted to test this new found love out, and see what it could do. Within in my first month, I saved over $1000 on home and beauty products and groceries. 1000 DOLLARS! That’s a part-time job income, and you don’t have to worry about a new boss or even leaving your house! Well you have to leave to shop .

Over the years, my savings has grown and I save on average $12-20,000/year on everyday items that my family uses. I have even been able to save on things like dining out.

Not a believer yet? Well here are the top ways that couponing has changed my life!

Food budget: I can feed my family of 5 on a food budget of less than $300/month. Our cupboards are always stocked, and we can even splurge on great cuts of meat and stay within that budget.
Extra activities: Before couponing, we couldn’t ever go out. We are now able to send our kids to camps, go to the movies, take vacations all because I save money on these things and our budget has more room.
Donation: It is very important in our family to give back to the community. Because of couponing, I am able to get so many items for free that I can donate all the free toothbrushes and other toiletries to a local woman’s shelter. We also donate regularly to our local food pantries as well.
Debt: Couponing has allowed our family to strengthen our financial position. It is still a work in progress, but we are able to make progress that didn’t happen before.
Savings: In our house, this used to be a four letter word. We just didn’t have any room to save. Now we can put a little bit away each month to prepare for those rainy days!
Family: Clipping and saving has allowed for me to stay home part-time with my children. Even though our kids are older, they appreciate having me at home, and it’s been a blessing. The time I spend clipping coupons, I earn over double what I do at my part-time job. So don’t think couponing is worth it? Break how much you save into an hourly wage. I am sure you will change your mind.

This is how couponing has affected my life, but ask yourself what horizons could open up for you and your family if you just took some time to clip some coupons. Vacations, college, being able to breath? The best part is you don’t have to do it alone! I decided to start Crunchy Frugalista to teach others how to save just like I have. So if you are ready to start, or want to learn some new tricks make sure to check out the couponing tutorials, like Couponing 101, CVS 101, and Walgreens 101, that are provided here at Crunchy Frugalista! So let’s get started, and see how couponing can change your life!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

Crunchy Frugalista: What it’s all about!

July 20, 2011 By Ashley Sears Leave a Comment

I have only been a blog for about four months now, but I find that Crunchy Frugalista is constantly growing and involving. I started Crunchy Frugalista as a way to share my savings deals and shopping tips with friends and family. It has very quickly grown into a site that offers so much more.

Ever since I was a really little kid, I have always loved nature and the environment. That’s why I incorporated the word “crunchy” into the title of the blog. My family does the best it can to live a greener life, and in turn it usually ends up saving us money.

What’s a greener life you ask? It’s just making small, manageable changes in your life that can equate to better ways to take care of our planet. So many of us are too wasteful or buy new items just because it’s the latest and greatest. At Crunchy Frugalista, I talk alot about reusing, repurposing, and conserving items you have to last longer. It helps the enviroment, plus it helps save you money too!

When I decided to write Crunchy Frugalista, I also wanted to teach people to do what I do. I have been saving hundreds of dollars a month couponing for about 4 years. It started when my husband was between jobs, and I was a lender in the mortgage industry. Needless to say times were tight. I did a Google search on ways to save money, and I came across my first couponing forum.

Four years and a lot of clipping later, I have been able to learn how to get many items for free and save my family enough money to enjoy some extras in life. No, I am NOT an extreme couponer, but yes I do have a stockpile and I am proud of it! Being able to score deals at rock bottom prices makes me feel good, because I am not only helping my family, but I am teaching to help yours as well.

So pull up a chair, sit down, and enjoy all the Crunchy Frugalista has to offer. A great place to start is the New Here tab! It’s a section that overviews a few couponing terms, and shows you all the great tutorials that are available here at Crunchy Frugalista.

Ashley

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Couponing 101

Walgreens 101: Learn the Ropes

July 19, 2011 By Ashley Sears Leave a Comment

For the new couponer, Walgreens can be a little intimidating. There are a few more “rules” that you have to be familiar with in order to become successful at couponing at Walgreens. So I thought we would go over some of the key ones you should know in order to make your first trip a successful one.

1. You can combine Walgreens instore coupons and manufacturer’s coupons: These coupons can be in the monthly booklets found at the front of the store, in booklets near the pharmacy, and even in the sales ad. They are called Instant Value Coupons or IVCs.

2. The number of coupons you have must match the number of items total: Best way to explain this is to give you an example. Say you are buying Colgate toothpaste. You have a manufacturer’s coupon for Colgate, and there is a Walgreens Instant Value Coupon that you can use as well (see #1). You have 1 item, but TWO coupons. Because of this you need to find a cheap filler. A filler is a small item you purchase to make sure your number of coupons equal the number of items. I usually use the Vanilla Caramels that sit at the front of the registers. Yum!

3. Using a Register Reward counts as using a coupon: Use the example from #2. Instead of an IVC, say you are using a Register Reward to pay for your toothpaste. Your item count is one, and your coupon count is STILL two. So you would still need to pick up a small filler.

4. Walgreens does not allow for overage, so make sure to cover your overage if paying with Register Rewards: This is especially important, if the amount you purchased is LESS than what the value of your Register Reward is, the system will NOT allow them to accept your RR. So be extra careful when calculating your totals to make sure your RR can be accepted.

5. Walgreens coupon policy does NOT allow overage with coupons: With coupons it’s different though, they don’t allow for overage, BUT their coupon policy does allow for them to mark down the credit they give you and still accept the coupon. So it Colgate is on sale for .98 cents and your coupon is for $1, they are still allowed to take your coupon, but they would only credit you for .98 cents.

6. Always keep a copy of the Walgreens coupon policy with you: I find there is sometimes the need to educate the cashiers on their own coupon policy. I always kill them with kindness, but this way if someone argues about things especially #6, you can just whip out your corporate policy, and let them know you are trying to follow the rules and not afraid to stand up for yourself. Get your copy here

These are just a few of the tips to know on your first trip. With Walgreens, it’s best to write up your scenarios before you go, that way you are prepared and can double check that everything matches up!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: Walgreens 101

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