8 reasons why we never use coupons.

I like to save money like every other person. But one thing I never really use or worry about, is
coupons.

I know people, that swear by the power of coupons and I also have seen one single episode of Extreme Couponing. It saved people tons of money. But in our household, we almost never use them.

Don't take me wrong. We are not extremely rich people that don't care about money nor we are big spenders. On the contrary, I am very interested in our household's financials and am not scared of talking about money. Saving money makes me happy. What I have been noticing is that the coupons simply don't serve us with our lifestyle.

Here is why.

1. We eat fresh. It is almost impossible to find coupons for fresh produce. They are usually just on sale and don't need coupons. We mostly buy our fresh produce at Farmers market and they don't need coupons. When we miss the market and have to go to stores, we just buy mostly organic fresh produce. They also almost never have coupons.

2. We eat local and seasonal. We focus on eating local. I never understand why we have to buy food that have been traveling around the world. We are fortunate enough to have enough of everything produced here in our own country and state. I feel that my family will be just fine if they don't eat the Tilapia fish produced in, let's say Taiwan. We can just eat the fish that has been caught wild in Pacific Ocean. Nobody ever died or deeply suffered from the lack of Tilapia.

3. We don't eat processed food. This one is a big one as far as coupons go. I would say possibly 99% of the coupons are from the big corporations and are almost always for processed, wrapped and boxed food. We make almost everything from scratch and don't need all those boxed, processed and old food.

4. We (almost) don't produce waste. Everything with coupons is packed and wrapped. We buy in bulk and always bring our own produce bags. Again, there is no coupon for bulk and produce food.

5. We don't buy anything we don't need. That means we don't buy bottled water, paper towels, juices, sodas, candies, snacks and junk food,.... these are usually the items which the coupons are used for. I make home made regular or sweet potato fries instead of  packaged chips. We make strawberry and banana smoothies and i freeze them for home-made Popsicles. We make home made cookies with my kids instead of watching TV on weekends. It is a fun and healthy activity. We love the quality time and the cookies are delicious made with organic sugar.

6. We almost only eat organic meat. They are from local farms and don't belong to the big meat factories with big names and brands. Again, no coupons.  We eat tons of vegetable and eat meat maybe two to three times a week. We eat lots of organic eggs and fish during the week.

7. We don't buy frozen food. Since we eat local and seasonal, we don't need to buy anything frozen. I do freeze our leftovers. But living in a country that stores are in every corner and even some are open 24/7, I don't feel the need to pack our refrigerator and freezer with tons of food. (We don't own a second "garage refrigerator" like most suburban families do).

8. We shop once a week and buy only for that week. We don't buy something, unless it is finished. On the other words, we don't buy anything that we still have more of. We don't have forgotten food and expired goods. In fact, what we buy doesn't have expiration dates since they are not packaged. Since we buy only for one week or so, we never worry about expiration dates and freshness of our produces. It is always fresh.

Looking at our grocery habits, you will know why we never really need coupons. Eating almost all organic meat and healthy food with lots of bulk nuts and fresh fruit and vegetable, you might think we must spend a fortune on food.

I track our spending closely on Mint.com and our spending on grocery shopping is not out of ordinary. We like to eat out sometimes and do eat out around ten times a month.We also enjoy having friends over.

How much in average are we spending on grocery shopping and food in a month? Around $600-$700 for a family of four. That includes our eating out and our coffee treats in coffee shop. This is our family's base grocery spending. It could vary depending on circumstances.

This also does not include the extra spending on gatherings with friends which i consider it to be by far our best investment. The spending on inviting friends is a great investment in a better life enriched with wonderful friends and family. That is when we spend with pleasure.

But still one thing I never have to worry and think about is clipping coupons.

6 ideas on how to de-clutter your home.

1. Don't overwhelm your self.

Organized Kitchen drawer

Make sure you don't tackle everything in the same time. Clutter by itself is overwhelming and sometimes even thinking about it can be a massive energy draining task before we even start the actual de-cluttering. Before you start, you need to calm down and take it easy.


2. Categorize.


Try not to focus on too many things at the same time. The best way is to categorize the clutter based on the item. For example gather all the books in one spot, all the toys in another , etc...


3. Tackle one category at a time.


Focus only on the category you are working on and nothing else. Go through the items. Discard, donate, repair and organize before you move to the next category. For example go trough all of the clothing items,  belonging to one of your children. then go to the second child, then go trough the toys of each kid only one person and one category at a time.


4. Reduce and Minimize.


One of the most important parts of de-cluttering is reducing. Before you go out and buy all kinds of containers and organization tools, reduce the amount of your stuff first. The chances are that you never even needed that extra storage to start with. All you needed to do was letting go of some stuff that you never use.


5. Dedicate spaces.


Make sure you dedicate an area to each category. For example Instead of having a book case in each room, have one central location for all the books in your home, regardless of whom they belong to. This will make the de-cluttering a lot easier.


6. Have fun and enjoy.


The De-cluttering process has to be fun . Focus on the final result and try to enjoy it. don't let it overwhelm and stress you. If you do one category at a time, you can enjoy the fruit of your labor a lot faster. Every category you finish, the reward will be noticeable and enjoyed.


Have you started de-cluttering yet?

Don't give up on them.

Hotel soap.

A while ago, I saw a post on Pinterest about how to whiten and wash you pillows. On that person's blog post, i read the comments and was very surprised to find out that there are many people that don't wash their pillows. they just throw them away, because they are getting yellowed!!!

Coincidentally around the same time, I saw someone throwing away six perfectly good, but lightly yellowed  pillows. I was shocked!!! thinking about all the material and effort wasted.( I acted upon those pillows and saved them. More on that later)

I started imagining and thinking about the oil that has been extracted from under the ground, Factories that has been built, paperwork that has been done, regulations that has been set up to process that oil, Cotton plants that have been planted and harvested, animals that have been killed for their down and feathers to be used...
Just imagine all the work, time, money and effort going in to making those pillows! And then they have to be transported across the world by massive ships full of containers to finally get to our stores and bought by us. So we can throw them away, because we didn't want to wash them???!!!

This makes my head spin.

When we travel and stay in Hotel rooms, one small thing that has been bothering me was the soap that we use once or twice and would end up in the trash can. i always bring them back with me and keep using them till they are finished. Not because i am cheap. Because i value the effort and hard work that went in to making that soap and it shouldn't be only for one time use. I prefer to take our own soap, so we don't have to unwrap and discard the wraps ( Mostly plastic) the hotel soaps come in. But some times i forget and have to use their soap. That is when they always come back home with me and get used till gone.

Another day, I was at a drugstore and noticed they have many dying live plants. I asked if i could water them, they said "no, they are dying and it is time for them to go either way". I offered to take them home and take care of them. Then bring them back, thinking about all the plastic containers that will end up in landfill if they are thrown away. It bothered me that just because a teenager in the store forgot to water those otherwise perfectly good plants, they will all end up dead and their containers in landfills. But they said it is against their policy. So I ended up buying as many as I could for a discount. They are now happily seating in my home, well fed, green and fresh.


This made me think;
Why we give up on something so easily?
Why don't we work to improve things?
Why are we so scared of hard work?
What is up with this national laziness epidemic?
Why are we so scared of inconvenience?
Why are we taking things and our conveniences for granted?

Our life has never been more convenient as humans and we are still unhappy and are looking for easier life and even more conveniences.

Why nobody repairs things any more?
Why we don't care any more?

If your children get sick, would you treat them? If your home, your shelter needs repair, would you repair it? If your car needs repair, would you do it? Why not doing this for everything in our life?

Lets seat back for a moment and look around us and think about our addiction to newness. We have been brainwashed by the marketing companies to think," Why bother with something old, if you can have a new one for dirt cheap." The problem is, none of us know, or are told the high price that is paid for our dirt cheap conveniences.

I don't know if you have seen the animation movie " Robots". The whole movie is based on the mind set of corporations telling people ( in this case robots) to buy new upgrades instead of repairing their old bodies. Even in this movie the scrap metals are getting recycled. In our real life, nothing that ends up in the landfills gets recycled. Have you ever recycled a pillow?

China, the main producer of our dirt cheap plastic goodies is in horrible shape. The pollution in their water and air is unbelievable. Despite their economic growth, people don't look happier. I read that even in one of their factories, they had to install a net to prevent their workers from suicide attempts. This is the price that is paid for our disposable NEW plastic stuff we are addicted to buying.

Think twice before you throw something away and buy a new one. Can it be washed? can it be repaired? can it be used longer? can it be taken care of? loved? or upgraded or up cycled?

Stop and think and see if you can paint, reupholster, hem, repair, wash, glue, clean, sew, treat and even simply water something, before you throw it away and think about buying a new one. And guess what, the financial savings from the money you otherwise would throw away are a welcomed side effect too.

What have you cared for and revitalized lately?

Minimalist Bank accounts.

Bank accounts are a must in our lives these days. We sometimes tend to open too many accounts and some of us even have some accounts left from the old days. The result could be too many papers, too many statements, too many bank fees and too much forgotten funds in different accounts.

Life is complicated enough by itself. There is not need to make it more complicated.

Here are some tips about how to minimize, simplify and organise Bank accounts.





1. Gather all the paperwork and all the bank accounts you have in different banks.

2. Gather all your statements.

3. If you are signed up with on line banking, create a folder in your computer with sub folders for each bank and download all your statements as far as you can go.

4. Scan and load all your paper statements in their appropriate folders based on the bank name and the year and then shred them all( Make sure you have a back up from those folders)

5. Decide which Bank you only want to work with and then close all the unused bank accounts in different banks. Sometimes we have accounts that we opened many years ago and they are just seating there unused with some money in them. Close all the extra ones and gather the balances in one bank.

6. Now that you have only one bank you use, close all the extra accounts in the same bank and stick with the minimum. In my case, One checking and one saving account is enough. If you feel you are not disciplined enough with your bills, you can create another checking account just for your bills.

7. Scan all the bank contracts and paperwork in your bank folder and shred the papers. You can easily set up a folder in your computer with two sub folders holding account numbers and information for each account. At this point you can discard all the contracts and papers from other accounts that you have closed.

8. Set up On-Line banking for your accounts, so you can access everything on line with one User ID and one Password.

9. Go Paperless. Set up for e-statements and e-alerts. Most bank have an alert system that if your balance goes under a certain number, you can get a text and/ or e-mail to inform you.

10. Back up all the information in your computer.( VERY IMPORTANT)


This simplifying should ease up a big load from your paperwork. In my own families case, we have one checking account that has a check book and two Debit cards. We also have a savings account.

I will write later about our system more in dept in my future posts and show you why one checking and one saving is enough for us.

How many bank account do you have?