July Month End Summary

For the last couple months I haven’t really done a month end summary. Even this month I don’t have any actual numbers to report. This is something that I really feel that I need to work on. I have gotten lax with our budget and keeping up with the numbers and coupons and so forth. So in August I am working to improve that. I’m now tracking the budgets for my household spending on my iPhone. That should help keep me on track. I’m also working out ways to get more tracking on there. I have some ideas and if they work out well for me I will post about them next month. If not I will move on to something else.

For about two months now I haven’t really been messing with coupons or deal shopping. Since we’re selling our house I’m trying to use up our stock pile. Plus there are quite a few times where we wind up showing our house around dinner time and wind up eating out. It’s been crazy. I’m hoping that we get a good offer soon so that we don’t have to keep showing our house. It will make things a little easier for me.

Now lets talk about my goals for the month of August. Here are my goals in no particular order:

• Continue to track spending in Household and Personal categories
• Get back to tracking money saved
• Track extra money received during the month
• Get back to writing grocery shopping lists and stick to them
• Limit Costco visit to once during this month
• Limit Target visit to once during this month
• Limit grocery shopping to twice during this month

With a little luck and a determination, maybe I’ll actually be able to accomplish all of these. We’ll have to see how it turns out. I’ll update again at the end of the month to let you know how I’m doing. I may even do a mid-month update. We’ll see.

How did you during July? What things are you working on in August? I’m interested to know how everyone else is doing.

Month End Summary - March 2009

It's always interesting to see my totals for the month. Tracking all of this stuff just seems to suit my OCD nature. This month I added categories for You Data earnings, Swagbucks Earnings and My Points earnings. I love these programs because they are great ways to earn a few extra bucks without a lot of effort. I will be posting more information on these programs in the near future.

Here are my totals for March:

• Coupon Savings: $153.58
• Found Money: $0.65
• My Points Earnings: $10.00 JC Penney gift card
• Rebates Received: $5.70
• Rebates Submitted: $17.09
• Swagbucks Earnings: $5.00 in an Amazon Gift Certificate
• Upromise Deposits: $4.20
• You Data Earnings: $5.29

I don't think I did too badly for March, but I'm hoping to do much better in April. I haven't really been doing a lot of rebates lately because the ones I'm finding aren't for products that we use. And I've heard that April is the last month that Walgreens is offering their Easy Saver Rebates so after this month I will probably have even less coming back in rebates. It seems to be getting harder and harder to find the deals.

Now that it's the beginning of the month, don't forget to go print your new online coupons and load the new coupons onto your cards at Upromise. In April I want to see my coupon savings numbers and rebate numbers both go up. Let's see how I do.

Month End Summary - February 2009

I just finished calculating my monthly savings. For February being a short month, I don't think I did too badly. I always feel like I could have done better, but then that motivates me to try harder each month.

Here are my totals for the month:

• $225.10 Coupon Savings
• $1.00 Upromise Deposits
• $52.00 Rebates Received
• $4.99 Rebates Submitted

I have two more rebates that I need to get submitted. They both need to go out this month so that I can get them back. I don't want to miss the deadlines.

My year to date coupon savings is now $364.01. I still think this number is a little low because not all of my January receipts are accounted for. At least I did a better job in February with keeping up with my receipts.

Now that it's the end of the month, don't forget to go print your new online coupons and load the new coupons onto your cards at Upromise. In March I want to see my coupon savings numbers and rebate numbers both go up. Let's see how I do.

Tracking Your Savings

While I have used coupons for quite a few years now, it has only been this year that I have seriously gotten into couponing and looking for the deals. I also started rebating this year. To help me decided if spending time on my coupons is really worth it I decided to track how much I have been saving with my coupons. I only started tracking my coupon savings on September 24, 2008. I also believe I missed some of my receipts so these totals may be a little low. However, since September 24, 2008 I have saved $750.00 in coupons. Not bad for less then 2 months. I definitely think that this whole couponing thing is worth my time.

When you submit rebates you also need to track them to make sure that you get your money back. It was just this May that I started rebating so my totals are from May through today.

• Rebates Requested: $762.61
• Rebates Received: $652.42
• Rebates To Request: $99.40 (Rite Aid & Walgreens this month + Caregivers)

Judging by these numbers I could possibly hit $1,000.00 back in rebates this year. That is just amazing to me. Most of these rebates are for freebie items I picked up at Walgreens and Rite Aid. I love their rebate programs.

So how much have you saved this year? Do you track your savings and rebates?

Photo courtesy of Morgue File

October Summary

Here's My October Monthly Summary

Rebates:

• Requested - $130.26


• Received - $151.21


• Outstanding - $148.29 + Secret Loyalty Reward + Herbal Essences Free Hair Cut
  Doesn't include October Walgreens because I didn't request it yet

Coupons:

• ECB Used - $14.25 (I think this number should be higher)


• Coupons - $237.14


• Gift Certificate - $20.00 (an old one I found when I cleaned out my office)

Special Savings: $35.00
This is for weight loss/food journal and not eating lunch out. This money will be used for a reward once I reach my weight loss goal. Right now I'm thinking about a ring, but that could change.

Ebates: $16.19

Upromise: $2.61 (This should be higher, but not all of my redeemed coupons are showing up yet)

Summary:
I feel like we're doing better in sticking with our budget. For the last two weeks I have been sticking to cash. Once a week I take out our cash for the week and this is what we have to spend. This seems to work best for someone like me. When I use my credit or debit card I have a tendency to think, oh, it's only $10 (or some other small amount), it's no problem. Well, all those small amounts add up. When I stick with cash I can easily see how much I left. Besides, it's pretty hard to overspend when you stick with cash.

I love rebates and it amazes me how quickly they can add up. I especially love the rebate programs at Rite Aid and Walgreens. It's just so easy to get your money back since both of these programs allow you to submit your rebates online. I had been putting the rebate money back into our household money, but now I am going to try to save the rebate money. I figure the money comes out of our budget when I buy the stuff and we didn't miss it. So there shouldn't be any problem with me saving the money. At the end of a year this money could really add up. Yes, I love to save money. Sometimes I feel like a squirrel putting away nuts for the winter.

So how did you do this month?

September Monthly Summary

I don't have a complete monthly summary for September because I didn't start most of my logs until late in the month. The only log that I had going for the whole month of September is my rebate log. So here are my rebate totals for September

Rebates Requested: $221.79
Rebates Received $168.83

For October I plan on also keeping a savings log. I want to see if all my time clipping, filing and sorting my coupons is worth it. I think it is, but it will be nice to have a number to go with my thoughts. I'm also keeping a log of the various "freebies" I get and the source. Hopefully this will help me determine the sources that are worth my time and those that aren't. I also like numbers so that I can track my progress.

Do you keep track of any of your savings and spendings? Do you think coupons, rebates and so forth are worth your time?

Tracking The Savings

When I got home from all my shopping on Sunday I started going through my receipts. I try to keep them organized so that I don’t lose out on any rebates. When I was clipping my ECB’s off of my CVS receipt I noticed that my annual savings is now up over $500. My husband was standing there at the time and I read him my totals from the receipt. He was surprised at just how much I had saved at CVS this year. So I decided to start tracking my savings to see just what kind of return I am getting for all the time I’ve invested in my pillaging. I plan to start tracking these figures immediately and posting a monthly total here. I think it will be interesting to see just how the numbers work out.

Do you track your savings? If so, what methods work for you?

May Monthly Summary

I have been keeping a spreadsheet listing all of my expenditures and savings for the last few weeks. I just completed it for May and I am completely surprised at how much I spent. My savings is currently at 48%, but my spending is still too high. So for June I am going to work on getting my out of pocket expenditures down. I need to be much more careful in the future. Since I was $200 over budget this month, I would like to make that up in June.

Do you track your spending and savings? Do you find that you ever spend more then you anticipated in your excitement over a deal? I'm taking this as a newbie mistake and I will work on improving my self control.

Since we are pretty much stocked up on everything I do not need to buy anything unless it is very cheap. I'm supposed to be spending less money, not more. I'll console myself with the realization that half of my overage was for formula which is an expense we didn't really have before. Now we have enough to last her through the summer as long as I can keep nursing as much as I am now. Formula is just crazy expensive even when it's on sale.