I like the term twenty-something better than millennial, hence the title of this website. Like many other millennials though, I am doing my part to kill “insert item of the week here” in trying to save money as much as possible. The biggest struggle my friends and I have ever faced in Orlando is simply financial survival: trying to keep the lights on, the roof over your head and food in your stomach all at the same time. I have followed a lot of websites dedicated purely to saving money over the years, but a lot of them are run by stay at home moms with kids to take care of. There is nothing wrong with that, but their concerns are usually not my concerns. You can’t buy in bulk when you share a three bedroom apartment with five other girls. I’ve learned that while catching what’s on sale is important, you need to know what to do when things aren’t on sale. So that brings us to Frugal Fridays, a series dedicated to money-saving strategies that work over time instead of one good deal.
When I was on my college program, I did most of my shopping at Walmart because there was one right up the road. When I moved to Winter Garden, suddenly the nearest Walmart was rather far away. (They hadn’t built the new one yet.) I lived about ten minutes from Winter Garden Village so Target suddenly became my prime place for groceries since Publix is really only affordable when their stuff is BOGO. My brother came down to visit and he was working at Target at the time, so he taught me how to use Cartwheel.
Every store has some sort of app these days. Few are actually worth the download, but the one shopping app I never delete when my phone is running out of space is Cartwheel. Every week different items are on discount on the app, and you can choose up to sixteen different offers for any one transaction. They stack on top of in-store sales as well. You have the option of scrolling through all the offers for the week, or you can simply scan the items in your cart with your phone’s camera to see what pops up. That’s usually what I do because, 1) I’m usually not buying a ton of stuff so scanning doesn’t take that long and, 2) if something I’m buying isn’t on sale but another brand is, it will tell me. I don’t know about you but my cat isn’t picky enough about her litter to notice if I switch from Tidy Cats to Arm and Hammer. Then they just scan the barcode on your phone at checkout. If you forget to have them scan it, you can go over to the guest services and they’ll refund what you would have saved. Side note: It’s been on the news lately that Target is discontinuing Cartwheel. They are not. They are discontinuing “Cartwheel Perks”, which was a pilot program in five cities that are not Orlando.
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]So what do you do when your dog is allergic and can only have one type of food? That’s where the Target RedCard comes in. I’m normally not a fan of opening extra credit cards unless the rewards are insanely good, but Target has the option for a store debit card instead of just a credit card. It links to your bank account like a normal debit card and just deducts from your balance about a day later than normal, but it saves you 5% on everything you buy.[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]
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5% may not sound like much, but it adds up quick. I’ve saved $23 with my RedCard this year so far, all on stuff I would have had to buy anyway. That’s enough money to buy a new Duffy outfit! Plus the 5% stacks on top of the Cartwheel savings. Between the two I’ve saved about $200 over the last two years. $200 isn’t a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it’s absolutely enough to get me to sign up for an extra debit card and the extra minute it takes for me to scan my groceries into the app.
What do you do to save money on every day items?
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