Issue Date: April 28, 2002
Deal$, deal$, deal$
It's amazing how you can save with a little searching.
When it comes to shopping for the routine stuff -- food, clothes, etc. -- I'm always alert to a bargain. And in the last couple of weeks, I found two new ways to make my money go further.
The details:
Last week I was online and about to rack up a $400-plus tab on bluefly.com (for two dresses and two pairs of Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes -- that's not too bad). I was almost through checkout when the computer asked for a promotional code, which can spell "special offers" or major discounts. The problem was, I didn't have one. But, as I quickly discovered, you don't have to miss out on special offers -- just search for them. I went to a search engine and typed in "promotional code bluefly." In seconds I had the code for 15% off my total offer, courtesy of DealCatcher.com. It saved me $60! Just for fun, I tried a few others and found 20% off Gap purchases of $75 or more (at Namezero.com, click on "Namezero Shopping"), $10 off at OfficeMax on purchases of $50 or more (dealnews.com), and more free shipping offers than you can imagine. So spend a few minutes hunting before sealing the deal.
I made my second discovery at the grocery store, where I dropped $142 last weekend. And the weekend before that. And the weekend before that. I confess I don't clip coupons, but I do opt for the lower-priced store in my area. And I try to shop smartly when I'm in the aisles; if Post Raisin Bran is on sale and Kellogg's isn't, I opt for the former. Ditto with my brand of yogurt, frozen pizza, even soda. I'm not that picky. That's as far as my money-saving strategizing has gone -- until now.
This week, the affinity program Upromise launches a national effort to help you save money for college when you buy groceries. You sign up on Upromise.com, and the next time you swipe your grocery store's frequent-buyer card at checkout, 3% to 5% of the money you spend on certain foods automatically goes into a tax-free 529 college savings plan for your child, a relative or even yourself. Other companies that participate in Upromise already give you back some of the money you spend on certain cars (GM), long-distance calls (AT&T), credit cards (Citi) and restaurants (McDonald's and 7,000 other establishments).
For grins, I took last week's grocery receipt and ran a side-by-side comparison with the products in the program. If I save the same $1.29 each week, that's about $67 a year, which works out to about $900 at a conservative 7% return by the time my 5-year-old goes off to college. Once I know by heart that Scott or Viva paper towels are in the program, I'll lay off the Bounty. My frozen waffles will be Eggo, not Aunt Jemima; my sandwich bags will be Glad. Unless, of course, the other brands are on sale.
Buy groceries and save for college
With Upromise, certain brands give you back at least 3% of what you spend. The money goes into a college account. What I spent, and saved, on a recent shopping trip:
| Diet Coke with Lemon | $2.50 x 3% = 7.5 cents
|
| Fresca | $2.99 x 3% = 9 cents
|
| Kellogg's Pop Tarts | $1.99 x 3% = 6 cents
|
| Tide liquid | $9.99 x 3% = 30 cents
|
| Cottonelle toilet tissue | $4.49 x 3% = 13.5 cents
|
| Welch's grape jelly | $2.69 x 3% = 8 cents
|
| Kellogg's Mini-Wheats | $4.19 x 3% = 12.5 cents
|
| Kellogg's Raisin Bran | $4.09 x 3% = 12 cents
|
| Keebler Fudge Sticks | $3.19 x 3% = 10 cents
|
| Snyder's pretzel rods (2) | $3.98 x 5% = 20 cents
|
Total saved: $1.29
|
Contributing Editor Jean Sherman Chatzky is the author of "Talking Money" (Warner Books, $24.95).
Also
 More MoneySmart
|
