If you have trouble coming up with ideas for dinner each night – especially ones that everyone will eat, and don’t cost a lot…you’re going to love Food on the Table.

Food on the Table will help you plan your meals based on local grocery store sales, and has a lot of great, healthy recipes to choose from.

Best of all? It’s free, and takes just a minute to set up.

Not sure you’ll like it? They have a great super short video that shows you how it works…check it out!

Lately I’ve seen a bunch of people talking against using coupons. They have nothing against saving money, but say that it isn’t worth the time that you have to put into it.

While I understand that someone might not want to put hours and hours into using coupons to save a few dollars (I feel the same way), I don’t understand why someone would just throw out a blanket statement like that.

I use coupons, and enjoy using them to save money…but really don’t have the time to put my all into it. Because of that, I only spend maybe 10-15 minutes a week getting coupons, and only take advantage of the deals that I am really interested in. But I am still able to save quite a bit, even with just a little bit of work.

Here are some tips I would give the people that are against using coupons because it takes too much time for too little gain:

• While you’re going through the Sunday paper, have a pair of scissors with you. As you look at the coupon section, just cut out anything that you think you’d use, or would be interested in. You’re already going through the paper, so this will only add a few extra minutes of time.
• Go through the store circulars. Even if you don’t use coupons, you should be going through the circulars to look for loss leaders and other items on sale so that you can save money.
• If you see a good deal, go over to ebay, and order a bunch of that coupon. Most likely it will cost you under $2.00, and will take less than 5 minutes total.  I only use the “Buy it Now” for coupons.  I’m not going to wait to see if I won them.  I just want to buy them, know they will be coming to my house, and then move on.
• I understand not wanting to go out of your way to take advantage of deals…but if it’s something you would get if you were already at the store, keep those coupons in your car. If you happen to be in the area, or stopping at the next store, then you can spend the few extra minutes to get the deal.
• Be picky. At first I would try to take advantage of every deal I could. But that took a lot of time. Now I only take advantage of a deal if it’s something I really want (or need), or if I’ll be going to that store anyway.  You’d be surprised at how many deals you can still take advantage of without spending too much extra time.

Following these tips, you can easily save a lot of money, and not have to spend much extra time. Even by just cutting out coupons from your Sunday paper (5 minutes max), you can still easily save $10+ dollars each week assuming your grocery store doubles coupons. For people who like to say that they are worth $x.xx an hour, don’t you think that a savings of $120 for an hours worth of work is definitely worth trying at least once?

Here is a video I recorded yesterday, just to show how easy it is to get a huge selection of shampoos, conditioners, soaps, toothpaste, body washes, shaving lotions, and more for free – or almost free.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that what’s shown in the video is after a lot of stuff has been used, or given away to friends and family!! The good news is except for the toothpaste, none of the rest of it will go bad. So we keep an eye on the toothpaste and won’t get too much of it so we don’t waste any…but the rest we can just keep getting if the price is right (free) and not have to worry about it.

I do have to say it’s nice to get a whole lot of shampoos etc, because it’s fun to share them. I recently got a whole bunch of the L’Oreal Vive Pro shampoo (which is usually $4.59) for free, so I had fun giving some to my sister and a friend. I am happy to share when I have a lot of stuff, since I got it all (or most) for free.

Also, just to show how much savings that is…in the video there are:

• 42 bottles of shampoo & conditioner (regularly $1.00 each)
• 29 bottles of SoftSoap body wash (regularly $3.99)
• 16 bottles of hand soap (Dove and SoftSoap) (regularly $2.49)
• 16 bottles of Gillette Complete Skin Care Shaving Lotion (regularly $3.99)
• 13 tubes of Colgate Total toothpaste (regularly $3.69)
• 9 bottles of Dove Shampoo (regularly $4.99)
• + more that I won’t even bother putting in…

That all adds up to more than $354.27. I paid less than $5.00 for it. Not too bad, right? That’s worth a few minutes each week going over coupons and the sales going on at your local store, right? You really can save money on groceries easily!