New Questions Answered

I got some more questions from a reader that I have added to the FAQ's. I'm also putting them here, just for fun.

Where do you shop? For food, I shop at Dillons and Homeland. Sometimes I'll go to Wal-Mart, but I try to avoid it as much as possible. For clothes I'll go to various thrift stores around town. I'm still new to Wichita, so I am trying to find the best thrift stores here. So far I've hit up Goodwill, the DAV and a church run thrift shop. The church one is my favorite so far. I also go to resale shops a lot. Every now and then I'll get lucky at a yard sale, but I don't have much luck with adult clothes there. For other items, yard sales can't be beat. You just have to be patient.

I find clothes to be really expensive. How do you save money? There are a few ways. First, I rarely buy any clothes brand new. Resale shops are often the easiest. In Colorado, there was a chain called Plato's Closet. They accepted only brand name, good condition clothes. It was mostly aimed at teens, but I found a few pairs of jeans there, lots of sweaters, and got all my dressy shoes there. There were two or three shops like this in the town I lived in. I had the most luck at places like these. It was more expensive than Goodwill, but you can't beat 12 dollar Gap jeans and 8 dollar Steve Madden shoes! The next place I would go is Goodwill, ARC, Savers, and other thrift stores. This does take some time and patience, because you do have to dig more at these shops. However, you will be well rewarded. I've gotten most of my dresses and work clothes at Goodwill, and rarely pay more than 5 dollars an item. I have also had luck with shoes there. If I can't find something and I have to have it (like work clothes) I go to TJ Maxx, Ross, and discount stores like these. I also will go to clearance sales at the mall and Target. I also yard sale, but do not have much luck with adult clothes there. I did get several Christopher and Banks things at a yard sale, with tags still on.

If you have small children, I think you would be insane to not yard sale for their clothes, or do Goodwill. I got a huge box of things for my new baby niece and I spent about 20 dollars . I'm talking a huge wardrobe, with various sizes, for various seasons. I also got her several blankets, shoes,, coats and other things. Many of the items I got for her still had tags on it.

Do you belong to any coupon clubs? No. I belong to the Grocery Game, which tracks the sales and tells you what coupons to use and when for the best deal, but I'm thinking of dropping it. Each week I try to guess what will be on the list, and lately I've been guessing right a lot. If you work or are really busy, I would reccomend them. I wish I'd had this service when my husband and I were in grad school.

As for actually getting coupons, I recently got a weekend newspaper subscription (half off, on sale! Pays to wait for a sale on things like newspapers) and I also hit up the recycle bins for extra coupons.