You can save a lot of money simply by doing a bit of research. Case in point, a friend and I decided to spend Juneteenth hitting up some local museums. For whatever reason, the town we live in is not eligible for free entry although the county we reside in is eligible. Rather than argue the point, I simply did two minutes of research to figure out one of the museums on our list was having a free entry day on Juneteenth. Perfect. We ended up saving the $20 entry fee which paid in no small part for the frankly bougie lunch we had afterwards. I also took the opportunity to buy one granddaughter a couple of birthday gifts from the museum gift store. Museums often have great gift stores although you have to watch the prices of course. They can be costly but the gifts I bought her were unique and competitively priced. She is a major American history buff, so it was excellent timing that we had visited a revolutionary museum.
It takes very little time to check local museums for free or discounted days. Same for other attractions. Had we brought a picnic lunch with us, the day would have been even cheaper, but we decided to treat ourselves to a lady’s lunch. Next time, picnic from leftovers we have at home.
The point is, you can save a lot of money with mere minutes of research. Because we were having a somewhat frugal day, we continued our research into local discount grocery stores. Days before, we had checked out a discount grocery store in a nearby town. Unfortunately, it was located in a very touristy location, so the prices were not that great. We scratched it off our list. This day, however, netted a much better result. The grocery store we checked out had a bunch of bargains. Pork chops, hamburger buns, cilantro, large cans of crushed tomatoes, multiple types of cream cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, shredded cheese, just to name a few items we found steeply discounted. However, not everything is a bargain at so-called ‘discount’ grocery stores, so it pays to know the price of the foods you buy most often. Some savvy frugal folks recommend keeping a pricing book although I keep running totals in my head pretty easily. I therefore knew at a glance that the strawberries were a resounding yes, but pricy ground beef was going to be a hard pass. There were also a number of items I took note of that I didn’t need at the moment but would come back to buy including sugar and rice. In general, most of the dairy and cheese items I found were well priced but meat (with the exception of the pork chops) was not. I also knew that this could change depending on quantity and timing so it would pay for me to come back on a quasi-regular basis. The produce I found to be a mixed bag, but I reserved final judgment until I returned a few times. I needed more data, so I picked up what was best priced at the time and what worked for me and left the rest for now.
So do your research and save money in the long run. And if you are military or senior, or even if you have young children, be sure and double check the pricing and discounts for those demographics. You would be surprised at how often you can find discounts that way even though they are often not widely advertised.
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the house behind 