{"id":140,"date":"2008-08-07T11:43:20","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T18:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/cash-management\/how-to-save-money\/"},"modified":"2008-08-07T11:43:20","modified_gmt":"2008-08-07T18:43:20","slug":"how-to-save-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/cash-management\/how-to-save-money\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Save Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of how to save money articles going around these days.  I guess that is what people think about during tougher economic times.  I stumbled across a pretty great one today.\"soopercard\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

SooperCard<\/h3>\n

For those of you not from one of the mountain states, King Soopers is a grocery store.  The chain is owned by Kroger whom you may know better.  Anyway, way back in the day, just like all the other grocery stores, King Soopers started a shopper card program where you got savings by using your card.  The card is called a SooperCard.  Now, like a lot of other people, I gave them fake information when I signed up because I was suspicious and didn\u2019t want them selling my name or tracking how many Pop-Tarts I buy.<\/p>\n

Several years later, I\u2019m a financial professional and much more astute on how the world of business works, and I now know that at best I was being naive.  After all, the three credit bureaus gladly sell not only your name and address, but your credit score (not the exact score, but you can buy a list of people with over a 700, for example) and how you use credit which is way more invasive than anything the grocery store can ever figure out about you.  I mean, yes it is embarrassing to buy Pepto Bismol, but everyone does it, so not a big deal.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I\u2019m in the store the other day and I hear over the intercom that I can go online and download special coupons and offers onto my SooperCard that you can\u2019t get in the store.  Now, I\u2019ve never been much of a coupon guy.  I know what all the news stories say, but it never really worked out to more than a buck or two on my total bill.  The problem is that I can choose between buying the one can of black beans that I need, or I can buy 3 cans of black beans to save 25 cents.  When you factor in that I can probably get a better deal by just buying whichever brand of black beans is on sale, the coupon thing starts to look pretty worthless.  (I even went to the website of that mom who goes on TV shows and says she saves 50%.  I\u2019ve never seen a site so packed with ads in my life.  I think you send your name and address to fifty advertisers just by thinking about the site.)<\/p>\n

But, a special offer that I can get online (I\u2019m there all the time) and just automatically put on my card so that if I happen to buy the right stuff I save money, well, that is something I can get behind.  <\/p>\n

Coupons and Deals<\/h3>\n

Since I have never used the website, I had to register my card.  Since I gave them a phony name and address, I had no idea what to enter to register my card.  So, I updated everything with my current information.  (I gave them a GrandCentral phone number, but otherwise, all legit.)  I did it because not long ago, a salesperson at Borders caught me in a good mood and I gave them my email address after signing up for their Borders Rewards program which, unlike the Barnes & Noble program, is free.  Now, they send me too many emails, but the address I gave them long ago succumbed to numerous email offers, so no biggie.  But, on the bright side, every four to six weeks I get an email coupon for 40% off of ANYTHING, online or in store.  That my friends is worth some spam to a bookstore resident like me.<\/p>\n

So, I updated my SooperCard information, then forgot all about it and never downloaded any offers, but today I get mail.  The mail is coupons from King Soopers, not lame coupons, good coupons.  For example, my wife drinks Diet Dr. Pepper.  One coupon is for a free refrigerator 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper.  That\u2019s it!  No, \u201cbuy one get one free\u201d, no \u201cwhen you spend over $50\u201d, just free, pure and simple. Also included were $3.00 off in Health and Beauty Department (toothbrushes, shampoo, etc\u2026)  $1.50 off of 2 12-packs of Coke (we both drink that) $1.00 off of All (it starts at like $4.00 on sale and works just fine, so whoo hoo!) and so on.<\/p>\n

The coupons are obviously printed on the fly, and every one of them is for something we have bought before, so I assume they are targeted at us and our habits.  How great is that? Instead of digging through the 300 coupons I\u2019ll never use in the Sunday paper for $4.00 worth of savings, I get 20 coupons in the mail for stuff I actually buy that will save me $20 or more depending on how many I actually use.  Heck, I went ahead and put them in my wallet.  That way I\u2019m sure to have them when I end up at the grocery store.<\/p>\n

Other Companies<\/h3>\n

If you know of other opportunities like this, let me know.  I\u2019ll get a list going and post it so we can all benefit.  But, I only want good ones.  Nobody needs another source of nickel and dime savings.<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m off to Safeway\u2019s website to give them my real information.  Maybe I\u2019ll get some good ones from them too \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: deals,save,offers<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of how to save money articles going around these days.  I guess that is what people think about during tougher economic times.  I stumbled across a pretty great one today. SooperCard For those of you not from one of the mountain states, King Soopers is a grocery store.  The chain is owned by Kroger whom you may know better.  Anyway, way back in the day, just like all the other grocery stores, King Soopers started a shopper card program where you got savings by using your card.  The card is called a SooperCard.  Now, like a lot of other people, I gave them fake information when I signed up because I was suspicious and didn\u2019t want them selling my name or tracking how many Pop-Tarts I buy. Several years later, I\u2019m a financial professional and much more astute on how the world of business works, and I now know that at best I was being naive.  After all, the three credit bureaus gladly sell not only your name and address, but your credit score (not the exact score, but you can buy a list of people with over a 700, for example) and how you use … <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[659,373,452],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cash-management","tag-deals","tag-offers","tag-save","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financegourmet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}