Whether you are grocery shopping or trying to save on your utilities, there are always things you can do in order to save a bit of cash. Trae Bodge, smart shopping expert and founder of TrueTrae, joined TheStreet to share five shopping tips that will help keep some money in your pocket.
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Full Video Transcript Below:
CONWAY GITTENS: And so I wanted to talk to you today about some shopping tips. We're still living in an inflationary world. So what are some of your top tips. Your first one is consider doing it yourself, so talk to me about that.
TRAE BODGE: So this is the one that's a little bit unpopular. So what I mean by doing it yourself is you're probably paying someone to do something that you could do for yourself, and this could be something as simple as going to your favorite barista and getting your matcha tea every day or buying your lunch at the office instead of bringing it, or something like getting a weekly manicure or getting your car washed every month. These are things, if you're physically able, that you could do for yourself. And if you do them for yourself instead of paying someone else, then you can save that money. So that's what I recommend if you're trying to get your finances together temporarily.
CONWAY GITTENS: Tip 2 is check your monthly bills for savings.
TRAE BODGE: And so I think a lot of us get stuck in our monthly bills and we feel like we just have to pay them because they're coming every month. But you should really look at them and see if there's wiggle room. So, for example, your mobile service, you might be paying a couple hundred dollars for mobile service for your family and you could look maybe at a smaller company. Also, maybe cutting the cord on your cable or changing your Wi-Fi provider by doing all three of those things. I saved my family $200 a month and then I can take that and save that and put that towards a rainy day or a college education or retirement.
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CONWAY GITTENS: Tip three look for groceries beyond the grocery store.
TRAE BODGE: Yes and so the grocery store is great. It's a staple, but it can be so expensive. And there are ways to save if you kind of venture off that path. So looking for groceries online, for example, you can look for deals with coupon sites. So coupon Cabin, for example, they have deals at Instacart, FreshDirect, D'Artagnan. So that's a good way to save just by shopping online. I would also recommend a Wholesale Club you can, especially if you have a larger family, you can buy things in bulk and you can just by doing that. Then there are services like there's a cool app called Marty where you can get kind of backstock of groceries or companies when they change their packaging. You can save there as well. There's one called Flash Food and they partner with grocery stores around the country and they sell through items that are in surplus or nearing their best by date. And you place your order on the app and go to your grocery store, pick up your Flash Food order, and you've saved up to 50% that way. So there are a lot of different ways that you can save on groceries, especially because they're so expensive right now.
CONWAY GITTENS: And so your fourth tip is shop smarter, and that encompasses a lot of different things. So walk me through that.
TRAE BODGE: Yeah so really getting into the habit of looking for deals, shopping in good timing, for example, may is Maytag month. And a lot of people don't know that you can save up to 30% on major appliances just by shopping during this month and then throughout the year, start looking for those three day weekend opportunities. Look for those seasonal opportunities. Like, for example, when we're going into summer, you might want to buy a swimsuit. Now, it's not the best time to buy a swimsuit at the end of the summer is a great time to buy a swimsuit because they'll all be on clearance. So look for those timing sales and then also big sales like Black Friday, Amazon Prime Day. And if you're strategic in that way, you can save a lot. And then I would also say use those coupon sites, use Coupon Cabin, Rakuten, Retailmenot, all those coupon sites will help you save. And if you get into the habit of using them every day, every time you shop, you can save significantly.
CONWAY GITTENS: And your final point has to do with remembering to save, which is I found funny because you're a shopping expert, but you didn't to talk about saving. But you're saying that's part of your strategy and being a good shopper.
TRAE BODGE: Yeah so as you're using all these techniques that we've just talked about, you may just forget to take that extra money that you've saved and put it somewhere smart. So high yield savings accounts for me are the place, Bread Financial, for example, they're an online bank. You can sign up in a couple of minutes with a minimum $100 deposit and then you can earn 5.15 annual percentage yield on that money that you're working so hard to save versus if you have that money kind of sitting in your bank account, sitting there as a temptation, or if you're putting it under your mattress or in a jar in the house, it's not working for you. So if you are saving, you want to make sure that money is working for you as well.
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