Comments

Episode-695- Sarah Jehnzen from SarahsDeals.net — 20 Comments

  1. Excellent! I LIVE in West Michigan and did not know about this site–I use a subscription site currently which sometimes doesn’t work out $$ wise because there is only two in the household.

    Thanks for introducing Sarah! Looking forward to the podcast — and I’m already looking over her website!

  2. Great show. I will keep trying. Got a little more hooked because last week got pasta for free and got $62 worth vitamins for $28. Plus I was able to get rain checks for items the store was out of so that gives me some more time to find coupons to save more. Last week I bought $572.19 paid $274.43 Saved $297.76! No one was more shocked than me it was all stuff that we would use any way. I can honestly say the only junk food I bought was only 3 candy bars (buy one get 2 free) Me and hubby used that for a celebration on the way home. Even though I have poo pooed couponing in the past I am glad I didn’t give up and kept my eyes open for deals.

  3. Great job roundabouts! There are so many things to save on. And it’s not just food. Lots of health and beauty aids, toys, household cleaners and even tools to be had for free.

    Glad you are enjoying your coupon experience!

  4. I subscribe to two of the people on “Doomsday Preppers”: engineer775 and southernprepper1. They both provide quality information and have realistic perspectives on preparedness.
    Marketing Executives DO NOT KNOW how to brand preparedness because they do not understand or believe in it, thus lack the excitement neccissary to build a following for non hyped preparedness.

  5. LOL β€”Β I can’t imagine they would ever feature people who are prepared in a positive light on TV.

    Based on the wacky guy from the show “24” β€”Β who lived in the cabin in the woods with his bunker and food stocks, living off the land (who just HAPPENED to be a potential rapist and general scary kook), and just about any other reference to someone who is prepared being the same…

    And TV News features like Kevin Poplawski in Pittsburgh who shot and killed 3 police officers in an armed standoff β€”Β all 3 local news outlets and the papers all ran a story simultaneously about how he had spent some time in a cabin out in the woods with no electricity with food stored inside it and targets on the property for shooting purposes (yet with absolutely NO connection as to how this relates to him being a f-ing cop killer)…

    They want to make anyone who feels like being prepared think twice about what they are doing because the establishment cannot survive when people are no longer dependent upon them for their every need.

  6. I watched a few episodes of the Extreme Couponing show and it did kick my ass into clipping coupons once again and I have saved up to 40-50% on some shopping trips (depending on what my needs were that week) if I stick to the outside of the grocery store (where the healthy eating lies) I don’t think I use many coupons at all.

    You can score free milk, meats, cheese etc when you get certain deals like “buy 3 boxes of junk food and get a free gallon of milk” etc etc.

    However I want to point out that the idiot who spends 30hrs a week to save $10K/yr is making less than minimum wage ($6.41/hr to be precise).

    So in his case he would be better off flipping burgers at McDonalds for 30 hours a week.

    • I have to agree. It has to be worth your time. I’ll clip and shop for $20 or more per hour in savings, but not for less than that. I often find that now that I’ve got it down to a system, I’m saving about $50/hour for my time spent.

      • That’s awesome.

        I got started couponing back in 2002 after the whole dot com burst which left me and most of my friends unemployed for a summer.

        One day I went grocery shopping and ended up having to put about $25 worth of stuff BACK after ringing it up because I didn’t have enough loot to cover my purchase and the embarrassment was enough to make me change my habbits. I never payed much attention to what I was throwing in my cart beforehand β€”Β but this was back in the day when even Homer Simpson got funding to start his “dot com” and he didn’t even have his own computer! All of us web developers were rolling in dough and had no problems finding work.

        Every time I stopped with the couponing it was for the same reason β€”Β I LOST my coupon binder by leaving it in the damn shopping cart by mistake after loading all my groceries into the car. You spend so much time keeping it all together that starting COMPLETELY over is a daunting task (maybe I inspired others to get organized with THEIR coupons by providing a free organizational service to the ones who found them).

        I have done this 3 times over the years…

        Anyway, when I saw the stupid coupon show on TV it made me remember all the awesome deals I used to get just by spending a few hours a week cutting coupons and how stupid I was.

        Now I have a binder that is too big to get left in the cart, and I spend about 3 hours +/- per week cutting them and organizing them into various categories. I match up the deals with the 2 grocery stores that seem to have the best matchups (one has more matchups and the other has better regular deals) and stick to the two locations who’s store layout I know the best.

        I have found that while it takes me a few hours to plan a grocery shopping trip that I get much more for my money and the time I spend in the grocery store is really limited to how much trouble I have finding the specific items on my list. One store in particular I have a HORRIBLE time finding items because an untrained monkey would do a better job putting items on the shelves if they ran around throwing random items on the shelves. But worst case scenario I usually spend an hour in the store and feel much better about it than had I just stopped at the grocery store after work, all hungry just buying whatever impulse items I see that look good to me at the time!

    • To Adam B – you commented “…the idiot who spends 30hrs a week to save $10K/yr is making less than minimum wage ($6.41/hr to be precise).

      So in his case he would be better off flipping burgers at McDonalds for 30 hours a week.”

      While in general I agree with your statement, I believe you can’t always look at it in pure $/hr terms.

      If spending that time to save the 10K/yr also allows them to make ends meet on the 25k/yr home based business they run, because being home also allows them to save 5k/yr on childcare, 1k/yr on gas, and the extra hour they save not commuting to work allows them to produce more food from their garden – saving another 3k/yr, then it may very well be worth it because on the surface it may seem like little gain, but the tail on that savings is long and indirectly leads to more savings.

      It’s doubtful that flipping burgers would ever provide that kind of opportunity.

      Just a different perspective to consider.

      • Just for the record…

        I would rather clip coupons for $6.41/hr than work at McDonalds for $7.25/hr any day!

        I didn’t really take into consideration the after-tax income for the McChef in this scenario either.

        Until the government finds a way to tax your coupon usage (imagine getting a 1099 from the grocery stores for your coupon totals) β€” then more power to him.

        Hopefully no douche bags in Washington troll these comments because I probably just gave one of them an idea there…

  7. My first grocery trip after watching the stupid coupon show and getting back into clipping I spent about $40 on $100 worth of groceries. But then the last major grocery trip I did I could not find ONE single coupon worth using (because it was mostly fresh foods or items that the store had a ridiculous sale on that was worth buying even though the store is smart enough not to put out deals like that when there are coupons for those items in circulation).

    However on that trip Red Bell peppers were on sale for $1.28/lb *(usually $4+/lb around here) so I bought over 30lbs of them, roasted and canned them so I feel like it was still a good deal! Now I have about 6 months or more of roasted red peppers PRE roasted and marinated on top of that!

    EVERYONE who saw me in the store with a shopping cart almost full of peppers thought I was an idiot asking me what the hell I was doing with them β€”Β until I told them I was canning then THEY felt stupid for not getting any before I grabbed all of them.

    • I do a lot of bulk cooking and freezing. I’ve never learned how to can or taken the time, but I know that a lot of people do it and it makes sense.

      I precook a lot of hamburger w/no seasoning and will freeze it in small packages. Then it comes out and gets tossed in spaghetti sauce or turned into taco meat, sloppy joes and goulash with out the time or money it takes to prep the meals one at a time.

      I document a lot of my ideas on the blog: http://www.sarahsdeals.net/search/label/Baking%20Day

      • Those are both good ideas. This was my first time canning anything ever. My grandma used to can ALL THE TIME so I do remember SOME of what she would show me but I was a kid…

        For the peppers, I used a water bath canning method.

        While roasting roasting I boiled a mixture of 2 parts white vinegar, 1 part lemmon juice, and minced garlic.

        When the peppers are roasted, de-skinning, and cutting the pieces are cut and placed into the jars, you pour the mixture over the peppers, remove the air bubbles put the lids on, then stick them under water in a stock pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes or so.

        The first batch I had some learning curve and my 2nd batch and 3rd batches came out perfect…

        http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/marinated_roasted_red_bell_peppers/

        I used stuff I already had… I used a steamer rack to elevate the jars in my stock pot (had to bend the crap out of it to get the jars to stand flat)… But I did have to run out on day 2 and get myself a jar lifter tong (and that also came with a funnel and de-bubbler / head space measuring tool.

        I burned the crap out of my hand and lost my temper more than once trying to remove the hot jars from the boiling water with tongs, my hands, my hands inside of thick oven mitts, sticks, etc. The jar lifter was well worth the $5.

        Anything with a high enough acidic content (hence the vinegar and lemmon juice) can be canned in this method. You need a pressure canner for things that are not acidic because of the temperature you need to get the contents up to for safe preservation.

        The next time I do a huge batch of red peppers (which are my favorite ingredient in just about anything so I use tons of them) I will be able to can 30lbs in an afternoon no problem.

  8. Jack, one thing I thought of in regards to your comment about your first online paycheck reminded me of my first stock photo royalty checks from the microstock sites I sell photos on!

    My girlfriend at the time called me an idiot etc etc for “wasting my time” on uploading my photos to websites like istockphoto and shutterstock because you only get paid like $.25 every time someone downloads one of your images.

    For me to get into Getty images or a big payout site like that would require me to invest at least 10 grand in equipment with enough resolution for them to even consider LOOKING AT my work. So microstock sites are a good means for semi-pros and amatures to get into the market.

    I do not spend much time on it because my life is so busy but I always feel awesome getting a $75 check in the mail all of a sudden when I reach my payout thresholds on those things. The checks always seem to come at a time when I actually really need the money too!

    I know of people who make a KILLING on those sites β€”Β people who are making in excess of 50 grand a year on those sites β€” and that is money that continues to pay out LONG after you stop uploading new images. I am still selling photos to this day that I uploaded 6 years ago. I have some photos that have made me a few hundred bucks each over time (.25 cents at a time).

    I know how many thousands of images I need in my library to actually make a substantial income from it and it is daunting to say the least. However, I have about 30 or 40 images for sale on one site and I get a check a couple of times per year from it!

    And yes, it feels better getting a stupid royalty check from my photos than getting a REAL paycheck from my job LOL.

  9. Awesome, awesome show! I will definitely be spending some time at Sarah’s website. I’ve tried clipping coupons before, but it’s overwhelming to try to have your shopping list, then put together the stores with the best deals and match up coupons on top of that. Hopefully info from Sarah’s website will help me streamline the process.

    Thanks to Jack and Sarah both. Again, awesome show!

  10. Great show! I am inspired to start buying stuff in bulk from Whole Foods – 10% off on a case of this or a 25-pound bag of that.