1. Until I was 11 or 12, I wouldn’t eat white food: no potatoes, cheeses, etc. I did drink milk, though.

2. I was born in Australia (g’day, mate!)

3. When I was in 6th grade, I missed a day of school to attend my and my mother’s ceremony in court to become naturalized U.S. citizens.

4. After my undergrad graduation, I’ve really only had two jobs. One for two years and the other for 15+ years (same position in more than one place).

5. I won a poetry contest when I was 19 years old and it literally changed the direction of my life.

6. I love cilantro.

7. I love sriracha red chili paste/sauce.

8. As a baby and toddler, Italian was my first language.

9. I am double-jointed in all of my fingers and toes.

10. I am an oldest daughter married to an oldest son.

11. My favorite shows to watch usually have English subtitles.

12. I love to read.

13. Bargain-hunting is my version of hunting/gathering.

14. I chose English as my undergraduate major because it had the least number of math classes.

15. I love mangoes.

16. I get pretty competitive when I play board games.

17. My favorite color is red.

18. I’ve only recently learned to use chopsticks and they’re my preferred utensils now.

19. I’m left-handed (like Obama).

20. I’ve never learned to knit or crochet. My left-handedness always got in the way.

21. I have lens implants in my eyes because my corneas are too thin for LASIK correction.

22. I won the school spelling bee in the fourth grade.

23. I love Thai and Indian food (Indian is a lot easier to make at home).

24. The only desserts worth eating are the ones with chocolate in them.

25. My favorite writers are Toni Morrison and Patricia Grace.

Step 3:

BUY ENOUGH PRODUCT TO LAST YOU UNTIL THE NEXT SALE.

Steps #1 & 2 can only offer occasional success at lowering your grocery bill. Step #3 (commonly known as stockpiling) is powerful. Following step #3 means you never have to pay full price for an item again.

One coupon expert estimates that sales cycles are 12 weeks long—sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. What this means is that it is likely that a product will go on sale once every 12 weeks. It makes sense to buy enough of the product while it’s on sale to last you until the next sale so that you are always paying the lowest price (hopefully combined with a coupon) for it.

Your stockpiling is only limited by the space you have. It would make sense that you only buy two roasts at the sale price when you only have room for two in your freezer. (You may want to think about buying an extra freezer to stockpile meat and frozen veggies in.) Non-perishable items should be easier to store—you can do that on the tops of shelves and cabinets, under beds, in your storage shed, etc.

You can keep your pantry and freezer stockpiles organized by posting the items purchased with the dates listed so that you can keep track of purchases and everything can be used up in a timely manner.  As you build your stockpile, you can plan meal menus around the items you have on hand.  This saves us a lot of $$.

Just a Hawai’i note about stockpiling: bugs often make their way into packaged products here.  While I’ve never seen bugs in stockpiled cake mixes, I have seen them in packaged prepared foods such as Rice-a-roni and pasta mixes.  As a result, I no longer buy these items although if I did I would only stockpile a few at a time to prevent waste.

In my last post about how to cut your grocery bill in half, I’ll discuss following the steps on a tight (recessionista) budget as well as offer some tips on judicious use of coupons.

As I slowly work on this blog, adding more links, content, etc, I really appreciate other bloggers who collect the best resources on the web.  Love having all of these kinds of tools in one place.  Mahalo nui, Marco Kuiper.  Enjoy!

Foodland
Safeway
Star Market
Times

Step 2

REDUCE THE OVERALL SALE PRICE OF AN ITEM BY USING COUPONS AT THE SAME TIME.

Lower the sale price of an item even further by combining the sale price with a coupon for money off the price of the product. This can often result in the price of a name brand product being the same or lower than a generic or lesser quality product.  Once in a while, I can get products for free if I buy them only while they’re on sale and if I also have coupons for them at the same time.

Example: Barilla plus whole wheat pasta 16 oz
Foodland price: 2.99
Foodland sale price one week: 2. for 3.50 (1.75 each)
Foodland sale price (1.75) – .50 off on one coupon = 1.25 for 16 oz of Barilla whole wheat pasta.
A savings of 1.74 or 42% off the regular price

Example: Betty Crocker Fruit by the Foot
Safeway price: 3.25
Safeway sale price one week: 8 for $10 ($1.25 a piece—you don’t have to buy 10!)
Safeway sale price (1.25) – $1 off one coupon = .25 for a box of Betty Crocker fruit by the foot
A savings of $3.00 or 93% off the regular price

Where to get coupons:

• Sunday newspaper (buy one or more, get the coupon inserts from friends or neighbors, check recycling bins)

• Online: there are several sites that you can print a limited number of coupons from (usually just two of the same kind of coupon).

• Ebay or online clipping services: selling coupons is illegal but people online charge a clipping/handling fee to send the coupons to you. Depending on the face value of the coupon, the the clipping/handling fee will range from .05 to .25 for each plus shipping. The coupon clipping services that have offered me great customer service are:

The CouponMaster
The CouponClilppers

There are also lots of coupon message boards where people are sharing their experiences and tips as well as trading coupons. Some are free and public with registration. Others charge for membership. These can get overwhelming so ease into them.

Free boards:

Coupon Forum
Hot Coupon World

Pay sites:

www.grocerygame.com
www.refundcents.com

The face value for a coupon (what it is worth during a transaction) is often different in different parts of the U.S. For instance, I’ve seen Daisy sour cream coupons in the Advertiser for .35 or .40 off. In other parts of the country they may get coupons for $1 off the same item. This is where it is valuable to order coupons online through ebay or a clipping service for higher face value amounts than we can get from our local paper.

Ok, give me a few days to put up Step 3 and I’m also planning to follow it up with a ‘caution’ post about using coupons.  I’m enjoying putting together this series and I hope it is of some value to you.  Please leave a comment if it is or if you have something more to add.

A hui hou!

When I follow the steps I’ll be outlining this week, I can do the following:

• Stay out of Costco (where I usually spend more than $200 each time and find I only have enough of limited products because they’re all bulk sized)

• Stay out of Walmart, a place where I end up purchasing lots of unnecessary items. I also don’t like the crowds at Walmart or their business politics.

• Create a store at my house. I use any available space to store extra items. When we run out of toilet paper in the bathroom, I just pull some out of my stockpile.

• Be more generous. I can help others by sharing my stockpile. When I use coupons to build up my pantry, I can usually whip up dinners/desserts/appetizers for others on the go. Otherwise, I would have to run to the store for supplies and end up spending more than I’d planned.

Step One

ONLY BUY PRODUCTS ON SALE

Read the store ads that come in the MidWeek and in the Sunday papers.

Try to plan your shopping and your menus around what’s on sale. This requires developing a measure of creativity and sacrifice. In other words, you can’t expect to save $$ if you buy grapes when they’re 3.98 a lb. You can, however, eat grapes every week if they are on sale for .99 to 1.50 a lb.

Along the same lines, because we are geographically isolated, it makes sense to eat fruits and vegetables in season. Mangoes are often plentiful in the summer–whether or not you have a tree in your yard (our neighbors beg us to take some from their trees). Papayas grow easily here–once you plant the start, a tree will start producing within a year.

This is the first level of slashing your grocery bill and one that most people follow easily. Be back tomorrow with step #2. If you have any additional tips about grocery shopping in Hawai’i, post them in the comments section of this post!

I’m breaking up with you. I found a new drugstore and his name is Walgreens. He gives me what I need and sometimes what I want.

Longs is a cultural institution in Hawai’i. Lee Cataluna wrote a great play and then short story collection called Folks You Meet at Longs. The book highlights the local people who meet & talk story at Longs. But Longs, while a Hawai’i institution, has never offered loss leader deals like Walgreens does. For years, Longs has had a captive clientele as the only pharmacy chain in the islands. As such, it never had to price their stock competitively. So it did what many retail chains here in Hawai’i do (yeah, K-mart, I’m talkin’ to you)–they withheld many of the perks offered to Longs shoppers on the U.S. continent. Hawai’i residents are, in effect, punished for living in the islands. Okay, maybe that is harsh. I understand that we have to pay the shipping/airfare for nearly every nonconsumable sold in stores but, Longs, please understand that I have to make the numbers in my budget work every month and its getting harder and harder to do that. Even when Longs was recently bought out by CVS, one of the biggest pharmacy chains in the U.S., no change in prices, discount/rebate programs. Nothing.

On the other hand, new chains coming into the islands are offering mainland prices on many products. Like my new boyfriend, Walgreens. And I’m sure I’m going to fall in love with Target once I get inside one here on Oahu. Perhaps Wags understands that once I’m in their store to pick up the Kleenex on sale, I’ll get some other things and drop off my prescription as well. So that’s why I’m leaving you, Longs. Walgreens treats me with the respect I crave as a consumer and I can afford to shop there as well.

1. Nearly year-round similar weather. This means no bi-annual switching of winter and summer clothes. Further, nearly every day of the year, my kids run around in shorts and slippers (you non-islanders would call them thongs or flip-flops). We don’t buy heavy coats and only own a few things that are long-sleeved.

2. Excellent growing weather year-round. Because of the recession, gardening has taken off in our neighborhood. We grow papayas and mango (mango season will be upon us in a couple of months, can’t wait!). Our neighbors grow a ton of yummy vegetables and herbs and they hand them off to us on a weekly basis. We used to vegetable garden using the square foot gardening method but we had a bad run of bugs and birds. We do all right bartering with our gardening neighbors. At least twice a week, I include fresh garden veggies in our meals.

3. The beach is always free and we try to use it a lot. Yes, we go to the beach to swim and get a bit of sun but we also have cook-outs, take walks, go kayaking or snorkeling and just park by the shore to witness the majesty of the ocean. I love the smell of salt water and nature’s reminder that my problems are pretty insignificant within the larger scheme of things.

4. Outside activities are year-round, barring rain, and so our family is much more active here than we have been while living on the mainland.

5. We consciously upgraded the quality of our life when we moved here. We both work 10 walking minutes away so that we are able to juggle our schedules pretty easily around our family and activities. We only use one vehicle and DH uses a scooter for daily transportation.

In short, we traded off a lot of things when we moved here such as regular visits with extended family and a cheaper cost of living. But we also feel that what we have gained in terms of the quality of our family life provides us balance in a way mainland living never did. And if we look hard enough, we can save money here. Much of it depends on perspective–which is always free.

My own personal challenge, therefore, will be called Moana’s 31 Day Writing Challenge (or M31DWC). I’m having fun already!

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