Diapering on the Cheap

A new dad watched his eight week old daughter for the first time while his wife attended a women’s conference. When she returned, six hours later, she was eager to learn how he fared in her absence.
“How did she take her bottles?” she asked.
“Just fine, no problem, she took one every two hours for a total of three,” replied the confident father.
“How many times did you change her diaper?” she queried.
“I never changed it” he responded.
“You never changed her diaper?” she asked incredulously, “Why not?”
“Well,” he reasoned, “the diaper package said that it was good up to ten pounds and we weren’t even near the ten pound point.”

~********~

Diapers are a major expense in a family’s budget and yet there are ways to save money in this area that are fairly painless.

Coupons – Your mother may have told you “buy items on sale and use a coupon.” That’s still good advice. But where do you find coupons on your favorite diapers?
· Manufacturer’s Website – If you sign into these sites to receive their promotional offers, you can also get coupons. A few of the most popular websites for diaper manufacturers are: http://www.huggies.com/, http://www.pampers.com/ , and http://www.luvs.com/ . For a variety of baby coupons go to http://www.momsview.com/ or http://www.freebabycoupons.com/ .

· Toll Free Numbers – Call the diaper manufacturer’s toll free number, tell them how much you like their product, and ask them for coupon promotions. For instance, 1-800-PAMPERS or 1-800- NO LEAKS (Luvs)

Internet Diaper Sites – There are some sites that will ship diapers at a discount. It’s important to add postage and handling to the final cost and to check out the site with the Better Business Bureau found at http://www.bbb.com/ . For example, at http://www.diaperdandy.com/ we discovered 192 medium diapers for $33.00 plus $6.92 shipping.

Ebay – You can find almost anything at ebay. We found 180 medium diapers for $29.99 with free postage and handling and 140 newborn diapers for $14.50 + $5.00 P&H. Be sure the diapers are in their original package and are unopened. Also, be sure to factor in shipping (if any) and choose a seller who has high feedback ratings with a reasonable number of total reviews.

Happy Diapering!

Ellie Kay

America's Family Financial Expert (R)

http://www.elliekay.com/

Talking Turkey!

It's the MOST, wonderful time of the year!! No, not Christmas--but Thanksgiving. Early November is when the Sunday paper has loads of FSIs or Free Standing Inserts, filled with tons of coupons. By following my layer-upon-layer of savings, I'm getting lots of food for pennies or free. For example, yesterday my bill before savings factors was $123.56 and I only paid $22.01 for a cart full of groceries. Look at it this way:

Duncan Hines brownie mix regular price $3.19

Sale price is $1 per box a savings of - 2.19

Manufacturer's coupon is $1 off 3 - .33 @

Double coupon store-another $1 off 3 - .33 @

Total Price I pay .34 cents per box

Here are the savings factors:

Store Cards
These are sometimes referred to as “clipless coupons.” Sign up for the card at the customer service desk and as it is scanned at the checkout, you will receive all the store’s special values for the week.

Sale Ads
The store’s weekly sale ads either come in the mail or are a part of the mid-week newspaper inserts. Match up the sale ads with some of the other savings factors listed and you’ll soon find yourself with products for pennies.

Manufacturer’s Coupons
These are traditional coupons issued and reimbursed by the manufacturer. If you
ead the fine print of the coupon, you’ll see the manufacturer’s name and mailing address. Here are a few places to find these coupons:

Double Coupons
Some stores offer “double” coupons. This is where the coupon is worth twice the face value—so a .50 coupon is now worth $1.00. There are limitations issued by the store, such as “only double up to $1.00” so check the customer service desk for details. Go to the links page at elliekay.com to find a link listing all the stores that double coupons in your state. http://couponing.about.com/cs/grocerysavings/a/doublecoups.htm

Unadvertised Sales and Clearances
Check the store aisles for sales and clearance tags. As much as 50% of the weeks’ sales are not advertised.

Web bucks

Watch for signs in the store, telling you you'll get certificates/coupons at the register for purchasing these items. The cash back certificate can be used on your next shopping trip.

Price Comps

Some grocery stores, including Wal-mart superstores http://www.walmart.com/ will match competitor's ads. Just take in the sale ads from all your local grocers to that store and you'll get the sale prices from the ads. It saves time and money.

Happy Shopping!

--Ellie Kay

America's Family Financial Expert (R)

http://www.elliekay.com/

Online Bargains--Layer the Savings!

1. One of the ways we helped military families save money overseas was to give them tips to "layer the savings." Here are the steps to save big online:

1. The first step is to go to http://www.mysimon.com/ or http://www.shopbot.com/ which are shopping robots that will search the internet for your item to find the best deal possible.

2. Once you've found the best deal, the second step is to go to a code site such as http://www.dealhunting.com/ or http://www.couponcabin.com/ to find the codes you need to save even more. Sometimes these codes are for free shipping, gifts, or discounts.

3. The final step is to get a rebate for your shopping, by going to http://www.ebates.com/ . If you have an account and get your friends to sign up under your account, you can earn $5 per referral. There are hundreds of participating online sites that will give you a rebate off of your purchases and you get a check at the end of each month.

CAUTION: To avoid spam: Be sure you deselect any "offers" made while signing up for a site. I also recommend that you use a "throwaway" email address to sign up and not give your primary email address. For example, I use ellieKayJunk@aol.com and check the site once a month or so.

Here's an email from one of our audience members in Europe to encourage you to save money like she does:

Dear Ellie Kay,

I would like to tell you how wonderful it was to have you speak at our Key Spouse meeting at Spangdahlem AB this past week. Your tips were great --I bought a bunch of clothes and with your tips and a $25 gift card I earned from mypoints.com I spent only $14!-- and they really do work and are easy to do. Your military topics touched my heart and made me proud of what I am doing here for my husband as well as other spouses. Thank you for telling our story to the world and for being an inspiration.Thank you so much!

Sincerely,Christina Aiken

HAPPY SAVINGS!

Ellie Kay

America's Family Financial Expert (R)

http://www.elliekay.com/

Castles and Tires in Germany

We finished our tour with a big bang--a tire blow out, that is! NEW TIP: When you rent a car in Europe, purchase the "tire insurance." They won't tell you about it, but you really need it. We had a defective tire on the rental and were glad it didn't blow while going 130 on the Autobahn, but we didn't realize that you have to purchase tire insurance separately!

That didn't stop our last two days in Europe, though! After our three hour delay, we headed down to Bavaria and Wendy took us on a great new adventure---driving through the Black Forest at night on winding mountain roads, trying to find our hotel right by Neuschwanstein! She made it through to our wonderful hotel, which was about 200 feet from the castle and was the caretakers "cottage."

We saved money by buying the "Royal Pass" and seeing both Newschwanstein (the castle that the Disney one is patterned after) as well as Hohenschwangau, his parents castle where he grew up. One of the things we learned about the "dream King" was that he was capable of creating incredible beauty, but not capable of doing it on a budget. By the time he died, he had bankrupted his family's fortune (but not the nation's). Ironically, tourist travel to his many castles (the tourist trade) provide the primary income to Bavaria today!

This concludes our European tour and we will be ready for life in the states once again!

Danke for reading,

Ellie Kay

America's Family Financial Expert (R)

http://www.elliekay.com/

Trier, The Oldest City in Germany!

We had a fantastic time in Aviano with the military there and had the chance to do some more AFN radio and television as well. They filmed a segment that will have worldwide distribution on the AFN network and the people there were the best!

We went back to Germany and spoke in Spangdahlem with the tour. We actually gave 7 presentations that day and my kids were not surprised to find out that I did NOT lost my voice (hey! I resemble that remark!). The people we've met on this trip have been amazing, we are so proud of our military and their families in Europe.

After our tour at Spang, we went just outside of the base (about 30 minutes) on the AUTBAHN (Wendy was cruising at 130) and visited the oldest city in Europe, Trier. It was founded in or before 16BC. The Roman Empire subdued the Treveri in the 1st Century and left their mark in structures like the Porta Nigra (that I'm standing in front of). It was amazing to experience!

We had some German coffee and Pastries and are on our way to the last part of the tour--Bavaria.

Ellie Kay

"America's Family Financial Expert" (R)

http://www.elliekay.com/

Venice---Not Vienna!

Wow, this has been such a whirlwind trip! We have 12 hour scheduled workdays (that's the way we like it) and 12 hour fun days (gotta get in all that sightseeing). I kept getting distracted on the way to Italy and kept saying we were going to "Vienna" rather than "Venice." Poor Wendy had to correct me as I was checking into the flight it Italy or I would have ended up in Vienna!

When we went to Vienna, we were told that the value of the Euro had gone down even more, but we had a budget and believed we could get by on that for this part of the trip as well. The key, I think, to finding values in any touristy area is to "get lost" in the heart of the city and explore the shops that are not as well known. We found as much as 50% off on the same items by doing this.

One of the things we knew we wanted to do was to ride a Gondola and on our first trip around the city we had a large Gondola driver with gray hair and an obvious love for pasta (i.e. a beer belly) shout out to us $12 each! We passed, hoping to find an "appropriate" gondola driver. You know, one who looked like the male lead in "Under a Tuscan Sun." When we got lost in the center of the city, we were not only rewarded with great values in stores, we were also rewarded with a more than appropriate gondola driver. When we turned a corner and saw the gorgeous gondola and the driver, he said, "80 Euro" (about $120 for both or $96 MORE dollars than the other option.) Well, as smitten as we might have been with the prospect of having "The Top Ten" of Gondola drivers, we were not so taken that we were going to pay too much for the right. We negotiated down to a much more reasonable sum and were off on the adventure. As we passed the beautiful buildings on the main canal, our driver pointed out sights and sang Venetian songs. Toward the end of the ride, we passed another gondola and I heard Wendy say "Look Ellie, there's the $12 gondola driver." Yes, there WAS a bit of a difference!

The second day of touring, we went over to the island of Murano, where they are famous for glass. Once again, we got lost in the middle of the island and found the best shops. When we were paying for our purchases, we asked about some items on the shelf by the register. They were slightly "damaged" and we couldn't even tell what was wrong, but bought them for 75%---so cool!

I'm so glad we got to visit Vienna--um, I mean Venice!

Ciao

London for Less

After our fab time with the Heroes at Lakenheath and Mildenhall, we had two nights in London. We searched a number of websites including http://www.priceline.co.uk/ and http://www.lastminute.com/ we found some great hotels but with only less than 24 hours notice, the price was higher than we wanted to pay. Then we just decided to go plain vanilla--and googled "Hotels" and "Heathrow" as we needed to stay near the airport. We found a fabulous quaint hotel for only $50 pounds per night (around $100) and and saved about $75 per night off of the lowest (acceptable quality) hotel on the websites mentioned above. This hotel was where George Orwell lived and taught school before he wrote "1984" and "Animal Farm." There was a delightful woman named June (she says, 'not July') who kept giving us a hard time with her quick Cockney wit while alternately calling us "love." They served terrible coffee and wonderful tea.

We took the underground (the 'tube') and learned to "mind the gap" (the space between the train and the platform). By paying a day pass ($13.4 pounds or $25), we were able to travel to and from our hotel all the way in Heathrow and still be only five minutes from our terminal for the morning flight the next day. We took the "Original Bus Tour" http://www.theoriginaltour.com/ which provided us rides on the open topped double decker red buses with tour service absolutely all around London and access to four different routes PLUS a free river cruise on the Thames. We found the best method was to ride a route once, seeing ALL the sites and then hopping off on the next time around at the sites you want to see. We stopped at the Tower Bridge and saw the Tower of London and the Queen's Jewels (of course).

We made sure our credit card companies knew we were touring Europe so that there would not be a block on our cards (in case someone stole the cards and had a holiday on us!). We also negotiated away any conversion fees for our credit card purchases, which made our dollars go further as well.

The end of our day in London was miserable--to be more specific--"Les Miserables." We went to the half price ticket booth in the theater district and walked around a bit to find the best "1/2 Price Booth" as there are dozens and dozens. We saw this incredibly inspiring quality production in the Queen's Theater and at the end of the film we were sobbing. We looked around at our fellow audience and the Brits were keeping a stiff upper lip about it and kind of looking at us like "you Yanks are so emotional!" But it was soooo worth it!


Even if we didn't exactly do London FREE, we did it for a lot less than the average tourist!

All in all, It was a BRILLIANT day, love!

Cheerio!

Ellie Kay
America's Family Financial Expert (R)
http://www.elliekay.com/