How To Make Up To $4 Per MINUTE (Or $240 Per Hour) By Discount Shopping - An Analysis

Have you ever heard the old adage, "...coupon clipping is not worth my time so I don't even bother with it"? Well, as an experienced discount seeker, I've heard it alot. And it's always intrigued me as to why people will avoid saving money when it is out there for the taking. So I set out to either prove or disprove the concept that a person's time is worth more than that spent "clipping coupons" as most would say. This article details my own research on the subject.

 Understand that everyone's situation is different.  Obviously, if you don't have much money coming in, you are not going to save much since you are not buying much.  You have to buy to save.  However, with that being said, everyone has to buy what we term the "necessities" to live, and even just saving on those can make a huge difference in the cost of living.  In my research, I purchased a few items during the month that I would not be buying every month.  But at the same time, I could very easily buy other items next month that I wouldn't buy every month.  So, there are always those things that pop up that either you need or want every month that make discount searching worth your while as well as, some would even say, fun to see how much money you can actually save from month to month.

In this research, which lasted just one month, you will see my savings over what it would have cost me had I not had some form of coupon or discount card that I was able to get from the website that I used (I will give you the website link at the end of the article). When it was not clear what it would have cost me without the discount, I went elsewhere on the web to see what that particular item was selling for. That's the beauty of the internet, you can actually find most all of the information you need right from the comfort of your home. For instance, I purchased a Blackberry Bold cell phone, along with a 2 year plan. The cell phone was listed as being worth $695. Well, that's not accurate since you can get that phone with a 2 year agreement from AT&T for $99.95. So I used $99.95 as the savings which is what I used in my research data.

There are a couple of ground rules that you need to follow in order to get the same type of results that I got.  First, you need to go to a website that has a complete discount warehouse (if you will), that prints out discounts for every possible category of item that you might ever need.  This is very important since this is an analysis of time versus savings.  If you are going to spend hours searching for discounts, it had better be a very large savings that you are going to get or you will be wasting alot of time.  Of course, if you have the time to waste, then it's not that bad.  But I always look at time as a very precious commodity since it is limited in everyone's life.  When you start to value time in it's relationship to money, you start to want to see how you can save some time and pay others to do those things that take a lot of your time.  That is just smart to leverage your time to give you more of it.

Second, making a committment to visit your complete discount website before ever purchasing ANYTHING will also lower your cost of living substantially.  Now, you may change the place of business to a different one so that you can take advantage of the discount, but that is OK as long as you are not going to sacrifice quality.  That is a decision you can get very good at making which really makes you a discerning shopper.  If everyone did that, we would have less number of businesses that shouldn't be in business due to poor service or poor products.

And third, being organized before any shopping trip can save you tens of dollars or more a day, usually enough to cover your gas and then some.  If you are a procrastinator, then you may have a problem.  But if it meant saving $20 or $30 for 10 minutes of "pre-shopping" on a regular basis, then most people would turn from a procrastinator into a totally organized person.  Remember what Benjamin Franklin said, "A dollar saved is a dollar earned".  Many people forget that axiom and fail to realize that if you save $20 on whatever you buy, it is no different than making an extra $20 in your paycheck.

Here are the savings results for 1 month of purchases for two adults. A family of four would enjoy greater savings, again because they would probably spend more, but the savings may not be twice of what 2 adults would spend.

• groceries-$23.75 savings-10 minutes spent-printable food coupons
• restaurants-$92.00 savings-15 minutes spent-4 gift certificates for different parts of the country($25 certificates for $2 each) at finer dining establishments
• truck bed liner-$40.80 savings-10 minutes spent-4 Wheel Trucks website with special discount through my savings website
• lunches-$28.00 savings-5 minutes spent-15 different lunches at various fast food restaurants(I eat lunch out a lot)
• motel-$21.00 savings-10 minutes spent-10% off - 2 nights
• oil change-$2.00 savings-5 minutes spent-Ford dealership
• flowers-$7.40 savings-2 minutes spent-20% off flower arrangement sent anywhere.
• Blackberry Bold cell phone-$99.95 savings-10 minutes spent FREE after applying discount from my savings site to the advertised price
• Milwaukee Brewer Tickets-$36.00 savings-15 minutes spent-50% off 2 tickets from Brewers Corporate Savings Program

Total $350.90 savings 82 minutes spent

As you can see, I realized a $350.90 savings during the month after spending 82 minutes doing my homework before purchasing what I needed to purchase.  That translates into just over $4 per minute of time spent doing my discount searching.  If you were a large family, your savings could actually be 2 to 3 times that amount, especially as your kids get older.  I personally believe that everyone could save hundreds of dollars per month if they used the website that I used for this research.  It really is a no-brainer.

For those people who are struggling with the current economy, I would strongly urge them to visit my website: http://printable-food-coupons.com and check out the reviews of all the food coupon websites.  For anyone to believe that these types of websites will not put money in their pockets each and every month is a total myth.  And as you can see, if the right total discount website is used such as the website that I use exclusively, then the money saved (and consequently earned) can be several hundred dollars for the month.