Eavesdropping can save you money...well. that’s what I discovered last week while I was waiting to get my printer cartridge refilled. The customer who was being served ahead of me had a box full of old cartridges that she was trading in.

Wait...trading in? I knew I could drop off my old cartridges for recycling, but trade them in...you mean for money? Good thing I overheard that and then asked about the trade in deal. Every cartridge you take back to the store earns you $3 toward your next purchase. This lady had so many to trade in, the store owed her money, which was given to her in coupons. I’m such a Budget Smart Girl that I not only smile when I save money, but when I see other people saving money too. That lady gets the Budget Smart Girl of the Month Award.

And not stopping there I did a little more eavesdropping and found out if you’re a business owner...yep, that’s me, you can open a corporate account. They send you money saving coupons each month. I signed up and also got a bonus of a $25 gift card. Oh and I found out the owner sends out a newsletter, so I found another potential customer for my writing services.

The moral of the story, no matter where you go, eavesdrop, ask questions, it can sometimes save you money and you might just find the odd sales lead or two. Not bad at all.

Oh and you’ve probably heard me whining about the price of refill cartridges compared to the actual price of printers. I heard about a new line being manufactured by Kodak, the black cartridges sell for just $9.99. Check out the line of Easy Share printers at www.kodak.com. Good for you Kodak, maybe some other manufacturers will now reconsider printer to ink cost ratio too.


If you’ve been reading The Budget Smart Girl’s Guide to the Universe for a year or more you might remember that earlier this year the blind on the sliding glass door snapped. I did what every Budget Smart Girl does and repaired them rather then buy a new one. But the sad news is the cord snapped again and was well beyond repair this time. Along to the nearest DIY store we went. I thought we might get lucky and find a ready made blind, but alas, our sliding glass door is wider than average so we ended up having to order a custom made one. Cost- $290, but we did get a free upgrade to a cordless system and the assistant gave us a coupon for 10% discount. I really like the fact the new blind is cordless; I hoping this one will have a long and happy life.


For money saving tips visit www.gardenandhearth.com/Bargain-Shopping.htm and www.gardenandhearth.com/EatingWellonaBudget.htm

It’s at this time of the year I start thinking about ways to save money in the garden next spring. I have a few more empty spaces in the back yard and know one way to fill the gaps is to divide some of the older more established plants rather than go to the garden center and buy new. I planted some hollyhocks a couple of years ago and they’ve self seeded and filled in some areas without me having to do a thing. Another plus, I started these plants from seed, so they’ve really stretched the gardening budget. I do love to see hanging baskets filled with annuals, but this year the prices shot up, plus a lot of the plants died because we had a hot summer without much rain. While I don’t like to spend too much on annuals, I’m thinking next spring I’ll start some from seed and hopefully will have enough to put in all my hanging baskets and planters without spending a penny at the garden center.

I keep mentioning how great the library is for saving me money on my ‘book habit’, but I found another great feature while I was on the library Web site. You can go to the Barnes and Noble Web site to look for books and then check if the library has a copy before you buy it. I always do this anyway, but it’s great to know I can do the whole thing in one click and on one site.

If you like eating out, but think prices are going up, try ethnic restaurants. We’ve become big fans of our local Indian restaurant. The selection is great, so is the food, and for the amount of food you get, you can’t beat the prices either. Yesterday we went to their Sunday brunch buffet...once again great selection of entrees and desserts, and just $10.95 a person. If I had to buy all the ingredients for everything we ate, plus, my time in the kitchen, I really don’t think I could have beaten that price. So sometimes eating out does pay, and it gives the cook, yes me, a break.

For money saving tips visit www.gardenandhearth.com/Bargain-Shopping.htm and www.gardenandhearth.com/EatingWellonaBudget.htm

Buying produce on sale isn’t always the best deal in town...or so I’ve found out recently. My local supermarket has been offering what looks like super good deals on lots of fruits and veggies. I’ve bought them but been disappointed that they’ve gone moldy just a couple of days later. I’ve quickly realized that if I want to take advantage of these low prices we’ve got to eat the produce within 48 hours of me buying it.

Speaking of produce, have you seen the TV commercials for Debbie Meyer Green Bags? They seem to show this same commercial every morning while I’m eating breakfast. Combine this with the fact that I’ve had some bad produce come my way lately, well, do you think the two are somehow related? That someone’s trying to tell me something? Maybe it’s time for me to give these bags a test drive. I’ll let you know the results in a later blog.

If any of you are intrigued about whether or not I weakened and went to the library sale on Saturday, yes I did. I waited until it was at least a few hours old so I didn’t have to deal with the crowds. Lots of books had already been scooped up, but I still found some good buys. Four paperbacks and two hardcover cookbooks, all for $3.50.

One of the cookbooks is Make a Mix Cookery, 200 recipes to save time and money. It contains 58 do it yourself mixes you put together to use in various recipes. The other book I thought was also a great find. (In fact, I was really surprised someone hadn’t already grabbed it). Reader’s Digest’s Thrifty Cooking, containing 450 recipes. It was published way back in 1985, but the recipes all look healthy, low cost, and quick to put together. I love to tweak recipes anyway, so for me these were some of the best finds at the sale.

Did you hear the news about the cost of heating our homes this winter is going to be even higher than last year? Good thing we had new windows put in this past spring. I’m researching other ways to make our house more energy efficient. Look for a Budget Smart Girl’s Guide on that very topic.


For money saving tips visit www.gardenandhearth.com/Bargain-Shopping.htm and www.gardenandhearth.com/EatingWellonaBudget.htm

Hey, what happened to Halloween and Thanksgiving? We stopped by two DIY stores this weekend and while the Halloween items were sparse to say the least, both stores were brimming with Christmas items. I know it’s not that far away, but I think I’ll be so sick of seeing Santa and decorations by the time Thanksgiving rolls around that I won’t be in a mood to decorate my own house.

I did read an article about the financial outlook for this year’s holiday shopping season. Can’t remember what site it was on, but loved the title, Ho, Ho, No!. Some are painting a very gloomy picture for retailers this year, which means we consumers might find some great bargains.

If you follow along with this blog or the Budget Smart Girl articles, you know I love to read and get most my books from the library. While I hate wasting money on disappointing books, lately I’ve hated wasting my time borrowing books that don’t live up to their great reviews. The last couple of fiction titles I’ve borrowed have not been my cup of tea. So what’s an avid reader to do? Go for a test drive. I came across these programs. First is from HarperCollins, you can sign up for their browse inside program, where a selected number of readers are chosen to read books before they even hit the stores. www.harpercollins.com. And then St. Martin’s Press has their Read It First program where you’re e-mailed the beginning of a book, sign up at www.read-it-first.com

Speaking of libraries, my local one has its annual book sale this coming Saturday...nothing over a $1. I try to resist, but it’s oh so hard.

One easy way to lose your money is to be fooled into responding to an e-mail that is supposedly from your bank that is asking you to update your account information etc. It’s not really your bank but just someone trying to get your information so they can steal your identity etc. Well, today I received one of those e-mails. Problem was it was sent from a ‘bank’ I don’t and never have done business with. Guess who’s the real fool here. If you’re going to be a criminal, at least be a smart one!

My article titled Insurance Insecurity will be published in next month’s Arthritis Today magazine. A little self-promotion here... it has some good tips for making the most of your health care dollar. Oh and some tips got cut from the final edit so I’ll be including them in an upcoming blog.

For money saving tips visit www.gardenandhearth.com/Bargain-Shopping.htm and www.gardenandhearth.com/EatingWellonaBudget.htm

When one store gives away a deal, everyone else jumps in on the act. Or that’s the way it seems. My local supermarket is offering money saving coupons depending on how much you spend. I’ve earned two coupons so far, $9 off my next $90 purchase, and $12 off my next $120 purchase. I didn’t think it was too long before other supermarket’s deals starting arriving in the mailbox. A rival supermarket is offering a $5 coupon if you spent $50. And the local grocery delivery service is offering $50 off a $150 purchase. Years ago my grocery bill wouldn’t have even got close to those amounts, but these days with the price of food, it won’t be too hard to qualify.

We’re told to drink more water every day and also to say no to expensive bottled water. We have a reverse osmosis water system on our kitchen faucet and I also use a Brita water pitcher. The water tastes great, but some days I want something with some flavor without adding extra sugar to my diet. The commercials for the Pur flavored water have certainly been tempting. If you’re like me and seriously thinking about purchasing one of these systems, here’s something that might sweeten the deal, they’re offering money saving coupons. Visit www.Purflavoroptions.com.

Remember I told you about the waiting list at my local library? Last week I discovered that if there’s a large print edition of the book you’re interested in reading, sign up for that one, the waiting list is a lot, lot shorter. I guess people don’t know about this tip, or there are some very vain people out there. Not me, I have to wear glasses to read now anyway!

Being the Budget Smart Girl that I am, when I see the word free I sit up and take notice. And if the word free comes with no strings attached, it’s even better. One of the local health care clinics sent a promotional brochure describing all their locations and what’s offered. For just visiting their site and reading through some information that took about two minutes, they’re now sending me a free first aid kit.

For money saving tips visit www.gardenandhearth.com/Bargain-Shopping.htm and www.gardenandhearth.com/EatingWellonaBudget.htm