PART 4.1: ORGANIZE YOUR SAVINGS

Track your Savings: Organizing your savings can happen a few different ways, or not at all, it is entirely up to you if you are even interested in how much you have saved on a grocery or drugstore trip, but I feel that it is a big help to actually see the amount of money saved (often an average of 50%!). If you would like to track your savings and get an idea of what you have saved and spent, the spreadsheet here from The Coupon Project. If you have any questions about this spreadsheet, they have a tutorial available at that same link. Personally, I don't use all of the columns all of the time...like my Ralphs bill isn't broken down with savings and the details aren't what I find important, the before and after numbers along with the combination of savings (card, coupons, etc) are.

Rebates: For some reason, rebates get a bad rap as being difficult or time consuming and neither of which are true. Ok, so $.50 back isn't really worth anyone's time, but $5 or $10 is! Here are the simple steps I take to make the rebate process smooth and successful:

1. Be sure the product you purchase is the EXACT same as the product listed on your rebate.
2. Make sure you save ALL of the paperwork needed (ORIGINAL receipt is often required).
3. Make copies of everything you send so there is no confusion of anything being lost, misplaced, "correct information" etc.
4. Make sure that the dates allowed by the rebate are valid with your purchase date AND the date that you mail in the rebate.
5. Organize the rebate offers you have, I use a separate binder with sleeves that hold mine, but I don't use dividers as there are only so many rebates that I keep at a time.
6. When I have offers that I know I will be mailing, I will prepare envelopes for them w/address label and the companies address with the completed rebate form.
7. You can find rebates in stores, Sunday paper, right here on my blog, magazines, the internet etc.
8. Many companies offer money back guarantees, I keep these offers with the rebates as they are generally the same process.

Keep a spreadsheet of your rebates if you plan to send a lot of them. At one time I was sending out 2-3 a week and it was necessary to know what was what, here is a list of columns I used in my spreadsheet:

1. Rebate Expiration Date
2. Date Mailed
3. Company Name
4. Rebate Amount (or "Gift" offered)
5. Date Received (of change the whole line to a different color)

Tracking your savings can be a lot of fun, I never knew that it would only take a minimal amount of effort to cut my spending in half...and to think of all of the things I bought that I could have saved on!

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