I’m off to a very good week of saving money. Starting first with my propane bill. Since I only need to be ordering propane now, once per year, thanks to the installation of our new wood pellet stove, I purchased 200 gallons of propane at $3.09 per gallon. (instead of 1200 gallons per year….this is already a HUGE savings!) Toss in an uptick in the delivery charge and my one annual bill came to $625. I paid for this using a new rewards credit card that instantly gives you $200 back as soon as you spend $500 in the first three months. I waited till a billing cycle passed which means my credit card bill won’t be due till August. So, my propane bill got reduced to $425 BUT that’s not all. Since I referred my husband to use this card, I got a $125 cash referral fee, thus reducing the propane cost to $300. That’s a total savings of $325 off an energy bill! Score!

Next came my bathing suit bill. The only thing in clothing that I will be buying this season is a 2nd bathing suit. It’s not good to rely on one bathing suit, as I did last summer, because we go swimming in our community pool almost daily. Have you looked at bathing suit prices this season? Most are over $150!! Since I’m a mature body type, I can’t get away with bandannas or bikinis. I need a bathing suit with support, cover, tummy control, yada, yada, yada. These features don’t come cheap. I bought this years bathing suit from Land’s End. If you purchased a newly, full-priced article of clothing from them, you got a 70% discount by June 7th. Needless to say I bought a two-piece tankini, with all the mature attributes, at an original price of $147.90 BUT using the discount code, I got the suit for only $67.95. I had to pay the $9 shipping fee BUT there was no sales tax on the purchase. Bottom line, final price was $76.95. I saved $79.95 on the purchase. Score!

I scored some points food shopping for meat this week. My local supermarket had a BOGO free promo going on. If I bought one pack of 85%lean/15% fat chopped meat, I got the second one free. This brought down the per pound cost to $3.09 for good quality chopped beef. I’m going to weigh the meat out in one pound increments and vacuum seal them for my freezer. Savings was $12.50 for the free package.

Next up came my cell phone service. For years, I am certain, I was overpaying my bill by using AT&T. My bill, for 3GB of data and two shared lines was $113 a month. I got unlimited talk and text, plus 1GB of data (we really don’t use our phones that much) with Consumer Cellular for only $38 a month. We kept our own numbers, there was no charge for the SIM card and shipping was also free. We got a little bit more of a discount using our AARP membership account. That’s a savings of $75 per month!

Lastly, came our dog. She needs annual meds for tick control. Normally we buy the meds from our vet, but those prices are sky high. I was able to use a discount coupon for 20% off and sign up for automatic deliveries once every year, giving me another 35% discount. So, instead of paying $77.50, my bill was reduced to $47.04 including tax. Shipping was free. I saved $35.50 on this annual order.

If they send you a coupon, use it!!!

Every.single.thing.I buy HAS to be at a discount. I can not afford to pay retail for anything anymore. And that’s fine. I may not be able to earn much money but I certainly know how to save money. A penny saved is a penny well earned.

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