The teaching profession has a lot of great perks...but the salary is not usually one of them. Through the years, I've learned some tips and tricks that helped me stretch my teacher's salary, all while working around my busy teaching schedule. During this series, I will be sharing them with you!
This week's tip....
Follow money-saving blogs.
There are many blogs out there that are dedicated to helping people save money. Sorting out the ones that are the most helpful can be a time-consuming task that we teachers just don't need to surrender our hard-earned minutes to. I've tried to do the hard work for you!
Over the years, I have discovered a few tried-and-true sites that always seem to be on top of the latest deal or provide some of the very best money-saving tips.... and I'd like to share them with you:
Money Saving Mom
This is a well-rounded site that not only lets you know about individual deals that come up (ex: free Kindle books), but gives you well-written articles and advice on how to save money in almost every area of your life.
Some of my favorite series on this site:
- How to Save $5200 a Year (52 ways to save $100 or more)
- We Paid Cash! (Encouraging stories of folks who didn't go into debt to accomplish a goal.)
The Frugal Girl
This is a delightful blog written by Kristen, a mother of four and homeschool teacher. She dispenses money-saving advice and frugal living tips with a cheerful and positive attitude. Her outlook on life is so uplifting; she encourages me to be a better person just by reading her posts. Seriously guys, I totally want to be her when I grow up! ;)
Some of my favorite posts on her site:
- Takeout Date Nights (How to still have a frugal date night when you have kids.)
Swaggrabber & Hip2Save
Both of these sites post online and in-store deals throughout the day. I typically check these sites once or twice a day since they post multiple deals every hour as they discover them. Some great deals I've gotten off these sites in the past:
- $60 round-trip airline tickets to see my parents (we normally pay $280 each- I did the happy dance when I snagged this deal!)
- Discounted gift cards for itunes, Amazon, and many other stores
- Most of the Christmas presents for my kids were 50-80% off since I purchased items that were on sale (found on these sites, of course!)
- Paid $2 for a $25 gift card to our favorite restaurant. I think I bought about 8 of those- hey, they never expire! Can anybody say 'date night?!'
How to organize the blogs you follow: a simple tip!
While we want to save money, it would also be nice to not waste all of our time checking sites to find new ways to pinch pennies, right? One way to keep up with new ideas on valuable blogs like these is to subscribe to the through a reader or through email.
When you subscribe through email, you will receive an email each time the blog you are following publishes a new post. In the case of Swaggrabber, Hip2Save, and Money-Saving Mom, they will just email you once a day with a list of the deals they posted that day (since they post so many and don't want to clutter up your inbox.)
A blog reader works like a notification service. Each time a new post is published on one of the blogs you follow, the blog reader will add that post/article to your list of posts to read. You just log into your account and there are new articles waiting for you to devour. Think of it like your own personalized magazine that only has articles that you want to read. Two readers I recommend are Feedly and Bloglovin' (Bloglovin' is the one I personally use).
And just in case you didn't know...you can follow this blog too! Follow using a blog reader (rss feed) or through email (on the left-hand sidebar).
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