Super Saver Award, Give A Little, Commercial of the Week

And The Free Mexico Vacation Goes To...
My friend Nan is a mother of 2 very active school aged kids.  Both she and her husband work full time and then split their evenings and weekends running the children to sports, church and school activities.  Time is tight, something we all can relate to.  Money matters to Nan too.  She's a financial analyst who loves her job and can't imagine doing anything else.  She also runs a tight ship with the family budget.  Nan gets her thrills based on the deals she finds at the second hand sports equiptment stores and clipping coupons for groceries.  Yet, Nan was always looking at me with thinly veiled disbelief when I would tell her how much money I was saving by taking advantage of the best deals between Target, Rainbow and Cub. 

I challenged her to get on board with it last year.  I told her that a financial analyst really didn't have any excuses not to.  She complained about having to go to three different stores.  She shops Cub for the convenience of only going to one place.  I countered that in our neighborhood Cub, Target and Rainbow are all within a one block area, connected by lighted intersections.  Nan was choosing to shop at the most expensive of all three stores.  She finally agreed that it was likely she 'could be' paying 'a little more' for her convenience of saving time.  Nan was also laboring under a false idea that she could only support the local union workers by shopping just at Cub - until she looked it up to find that Rainbow's employees are in the same union.  Nan freely admits she hates it when she's not the first to latch onto something that makes more sense than what she's already doing. 

Well, Nan hopped on board the super saver train in January last year.  She grumbled at first about reading through all three store ads.  When she started calculating the money she was saving over Cub (3 out of 4 weeks per month) she stopped grumbling.  Nan was already printing online coupons and making mulitple copies of them for stocking up during sales.  Now she lived for the 10 for $10 items at Cub and Rainbow (especially at Rainbow with their rewards card for the gas discount).  When she realized there were weeks she only went to one store based on their grocery needs she was completely won over. 

That's when I took her on a trip to Aldi.  Fresh produce for pennies compared to everywhere else and savings on dairy and canned goods that made her almost faint when she thought of how much she was paying elsewhere.  Nan thought she'd died and gone to savings heaven.  She hasn't complained about making a trip to Aldi in addition to her weekly tri-fecta at Cub/Rainbow/Target for 8 months or more.  

Nan stopped by this morning on her way into work.  She brought me a Caribou Coffee treat with a gift card taped to it.  When I asked what the occasion was she replied: "For our family trip to Mexico in February."  I was perplexed, to say the least.  Nan just laughed and said "If it wasn't for you challenging me to save money on our groceries we wouldn't be going."  Every time she got home from the grocery store she looked at the receipt for the savings.  When it read $18.26 in savings Nan took out $20.00 from checking and put it into their savings account.  When the receipt showed $12.50 savings she put $15.00 into the savings account.  If she saved $1.00 per gallon on her rewards card when filling up the gas tank she put that money in the savings account  - she drives a minivan, you do the math.        

I'm absolutely thrilled to share with you all that Nan saved over $4,000.00 in 12 months just by watching the local store ads, clipping her coupons (which she was doing anyway) and shopping smarter.  She no longer has an attitude about saving time vs money - not when it paid for an all-inclusive family vacation for four to Mexico!  Yes, there are weeks she's hitting all three stores but more often than not she's only shopping at one store based on their weekly eating and household needs.  She's also hooked on MGM liquor over the municiple liquor stores.  
Congratulations, Nan!  You are definitely the Super Saver of the Year!  Enjoy your trip - you deserve it!   

Feed It Forward
In these tight economic times it's sometimes hard to put food on the table.  If you're not eating well you're not thinking or performing well at work, school or other areas in life.  You're not sleeping well, the kids aren't getting the nutrition they need to grow.  There is one easy way for you to make a difference for folks who are unable to buy groceries these days.  Make a contribution to your local food shelf network.  You can bag up groceries and deliver them yourself or you can contribute money as easy as three online clicks. 

You should know that donating money is actually more effective since the food shelf networks have greater buying power than you and I do.  For every $5.00 you donate they can distribute 18 meals.  I'm asking you all, please find it in your heart to make a contribution.  You may very well be helping a friend, a neighbor, a family member or a loved one.  Doesn't that make you feel good inside?  Kind of like a hot meal makes you feel at the end of a hard day. 
Thank you, Nan - you fill my heart!  And the tummies of many good folks trying to make ends meet these days.      

Second Harvest

360 Communities

A Place Of Hope   

Swagger Wagon
Rich flagged this commercial before I did (Robyn sent it around to the hood) - great taste runs in the same pack, eh?