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What are your best tips to tell a family about budgeting and saving money? If someone asked you how a family could manage its finances and save money, what would you tell them?
This week I did contributed some thoughts on saving money for a guest blog post that appeared on the Mydeal.com.au website. I had to wrack my brains to think of something new and different as quite honestly, most things now come second nature and naturally to me. But this is what I said? Do you agree or disagree?
“Buy online to get the best discounts. Shop around and get the best bargains. An advantage of online shopping for busy parents is that you don’t need to leave the house. It has been minus eight and minus seven here over the last weekend in Canberra, the coldest weekend in twenty years. It is a perfect weekend for staying in and avoiding the cold.
When you do take the kids shopping, involve them. When we go shopping, I show the kids my shopping list, and I ask them to be accountable for getting key things like milk and bread. I talk about what we ‘need’ versus what we ‘want’. I also talk about what is unhealthy versus healthy food. We compare prices, and they have become good at monitoring the unit price of items. They know, for example, that a block of cheddar cheese is cheaper per unit than pre shredded cheese.”
Do you take kids shopping with you, or do you shop online to avoid the incidental expenses caused by the nag factor?
I don’t shop online for groceries as I prefer farmers markets. Going into the shops also mean you can pick up on the discounted stuff, but I do understand the temptation of physical products and aisles of potential goodness!
Thank yo for sharing. I don’t shop online for groceries very often either. I was cranky because I did so back in April, and a lot of the items weren’t available so I had to go out anyway. Online grocery shopping is good for contingencies, e.g. if you are sick or unwell or for the convenience (in April I had just come back from a trip to the Gold Coast to see family and knew I wouldn’t have time to go out grocery shopping).
Lots of temptations in physical shops, especially when nearly everything a child would like has cute logos or characters on them.
That’s a great tip! Shopping online opens the entire market to your fingertips, allowing for some great bargains.
Love it!
Thank you. Yes, online shopping can be very effective. Also easy for your fingertips to press more buttons and spend more! I recently seriously overspent on some sale items, but I do know I will use them:)