Frugal Living Tip: Shop Less, Save More

Leave a comment

Some money-saving ideas are complicated or require an obvious sacrifice. Others have the advantage of making your life simpler by saving you time while they save you cash.

According to a recent story on CNNMoney.com, you can save nearly $200 per month on average simply by limiting the frequency of your grocery shopping trips to once per week.

The reasoning here is that up to [two-thirds] of grocery purchases are unplanned impulse buys—things you don’t really need but caught your eye. Cut down on grocery trips and you’ll cut down on the number of times you’re exposed to these unnecessary temptations.

Presumably, you’ll also save even more money if you shop less frequently by using less gasoline on trips to the store and reducing wear and tear on your car—plus saving time, which lowers your opportunity costs.

Lifehacker.com endorses the idea of reducing impulse buys and saving money by shopping for groceries less often, suggesting that the ideal frequency may be twice per month or even monthly grocery trips.

But this seems a little extreme. After all, you’ll probably need to make a grocery run at least once per week to replenish your supply of the most healthy kinds of foods (fruit, vegetables, milk) with brief shelf lives.

Besides, if you only go shopping occasionally, you may find yourself ready to make dinner and faced with a bare pantry or missing a few essential ingredients. In that case, you may decide it’s easier to just go out to dinner or order a delivery, which could end up costing much more in the long run than if you stocked up regularly on weekly trips to the store.

Whether you shop once per week or prefer to pick up some fresh groceries a few times per week, another way to limit impulse buys is to use the old-fashioned grocery list, checking off items as you make your way through the store. With a little discipline, you’ll make sure to bring home the things you need, saving cash and calories.

If you prefer a more high-tech approach, you won’t be surprised to learn that there are several grocery list apps available for the iPhone.

How often do you like to shop for groceries? Do you think you could save money by shopping less frequently? Do you have a strategy in the grocery store for avoiding frivolous impulse buys and bringing home the necessities?

Small-business Advice: Creating a Happy, Fun & Functional Workplace

Leave a comment

Drew Carey tells a joke about work that goes, “You hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called ‘Everybody,’ and they meet at the bar.”

Of course, not everybody really hates their job. In fact, if you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, you might bound out of bed on a Monday morning, thrilled to start another exciting work week.

But Clint Greenleaf, author of the “By the Book” blog at Inc.com, [reminds] entrepreneurs […] their coworkers or employees may not share quite the same level of excitement and anticipation when the weekend comes to an end.

Greenleaf recommends Roxanne Emerich’s book, “Thank God It’s Monday!”, which he says makes the argument that creating a fun workplace is closely linked with having a successful business.

In essence, Greenleaf and Emerich suggest that if you and your coworkers [and/or] employees enjoy being at work, you’ll do a better job and therefore make your customers more satisfied.

Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense—and remember that keeping your employees and coworkers satisfied and engaged will probably have the added benefit of increasing their loyalty to the company, reducing turnover and making it easier to retain your most valuable team members.

Do you think creating a happy, fun workplace is important for business success? What are some strategies you’ve used to get people excited and energized about coming to work on Mondays?

Frugal Living Tip: Can You Lose Money by Being Social?

Leave a comment

There’s a lot of pressure these days to join popular social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Classmates.com.

Social networking sites promise the thrill of reconnecting with old friends and the excitement of possibly making new ones. You may get messages from contacts who have already joined one of these sites urging you to sign up and participate. Even if you’re not into chatting online, you might be tempted with the thought of forging valuable new business connections with a bit of virtual networking.

But could participating in social networks actually end up being a costly financial decision? In a recent article on SavingAdvice.com, Jennifer Derrick argues that participating in social networks can be an expensive proposition.

Derrick makes some interesting arguments, such [as one explaining] that revealing detailed information about yourself in an online profile might leave you vulnerable to identity theft or provide opposing attorneys with plenty of ammunition if you ever get taken to court.

But her most persuasive point concerns the opportunity costs of social networking. The point here is not just that you probably won’t make any money by participating in social networking, but that you’ll most likely end up losing money as a consequence of wasting countless hours trying to track down the boy/girl who sat next to you in Social Studies class back in the sixth grade.

Your time is valuable. Use it wisely. Participating in a social network (or playing an online game, surfing news sites, watching YouTube videos, etc.) may be technically free, but there is a cost to all of these time-wasting activities.

Would Mozart have composed as many symphonies if he had gotten sidetracked downloading the latest tunes from Amazon? Would Einstein have figured out the Theory of Relativity if he had been checking out the profiles of other scientists on Wikipedia? Would Thomas Edison have invented the phonograph and commercialized the lightbulb if he had been focused on building his Friendster profile?

The lesson—consider the opportunity cost of your time. Don’t be so focused on saving money that you spend hours perusing coupon sites to save $10 if you could have made $100 by creating or selling products or services during that time. Don’t be “penny wise and pound foolish.”

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t participate in social networking as a source of amusement, fun and relaxation. You might even be able to glean some business benefits if you use the sites smartly for networking purposes.

But recognize that all the social networking sites can become time-wasters and stop at least a couple of times per month to ask yourself whether your opportunity costs of social networking justify whatever personal or professional benefit you derive from the sites.

Product of the Week: Three-piece Winter Fleece Set

Leave a comment

Want proof that this could be a rough winter?

How about the new record low set at Denver International Airport on October 2nd—just 26 degrees!

It’s not just the mountains that are chilly this fall; even normally balmy Southern California recently set a bushel of record-low temps around Los Angeles and San Diego.

Freezing temperatures mean hot sales of fleece outerwear. To help you stock up on fuzzy warm hats, scarves and gloves for your customers, DollarDays is running a scorching sale on three-piece winter fleece sets.

Just purchase 30 of these hat/scarf/glove sets for the low price of $3.99 per set, and DollarDays will give you an additional 30 sets for free when you enter coupon code WTRSET in your shopping cart (limit one order per customer).

This deal melts away at 11:59 p.m. EST tonight, so hurry and stock up today!

Small-business Advice: What Do Your Customers Want?

Leave a comment

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker have an interesting article on the Business in General blog in which they argue that too many businesses make the mistake of focusing on what they would like to offer rather than what customers would like to buy.

So how do you figure out what customers want?

Ask them!

Burgin and Walker have some specific suggestions for matching your sales and marketing efforts to customer needs. For instance, they suggest writing down the questions your customers ask so that you can be sure to answer those questions in your marketing materials.

Another good suggestion is to probe beyond a customer’s questions to find the motivation behind the questions. The authors suggest you […] find out what your customer thinks constitutes good customer service before you start talking about how great your customer service is.

Successful businesses excel at identifying and meeting customers’ needs and wants. If you can take some of the guesswork out of the equation and determine exactly what your customers are seeking, you could be light years ahead of the competition.

How do you find out what your customers want? Do you have an inspiring (or cautionary) story about meeting (or misreading) market demand?

Frugal Living Tip: Airfare Watchdog’s Baggage Fare Chart

Leave a comment

If you’re going on a trip, it makes sense to research the lowest airfares, but nowadays, you can pick a low fare and still end up paying a bundle in extra charges, especially when it comes to the extra fees for checked luggage.

Thanks to [a] handy airline baggage fees chart [from] AirfareWatchdog.com, you can make sure that you don’t pay more for your baggage than your seat. For instance, according to the chart, you could pay as much as $200 per bag if you’re checking more than four bags on Delta Airlines!

Of course, lots of people are trying to avoid baggage fees altogether by packing lighter or choosing quick-drying garments that can be washed in a hotel sink.

And, if you really need to move a lot of luggage from Point A to Point B, you might even consider using a shipping company like FedEx or UPS. Not only will you save the hassle of getting all your bags to and from the airports, but you might even save some dough.

Do you have stories about getting soaked with luggage fees or have you discovered some clever ways to travel light and skip baggage charges?

Product of the Week: Halloween Sale

Leave a comment

Halloween is just a month away, but don’t be scared if you still need to stock up on tricks and treats for one of the busiest shopping holidays of the year!

DollarDays has […] you covered, with an amazing assortment of wholesale Halloween goodies at prices so low […] it’s downright spooky.

We’ve got frightfully amazing prices on […] products like [activity books and] […] eternal favorites like white vampire fangs—even glow-in-the-dark pairs!

Don’t be afraid to dig into our Halloween closeouts for fantastic deals on a great selection of products, including trick-or-treat . bags, trendy Halloween bracelets and cheery pumpkin-themed plates.

Small-business Advice: The Best Advertising You Can’t Buy

Leave a comment

One of the hardest things for a small business can be just getting noticed. Giant corporations like Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike can spend millions of dollars advertising on the Super Bowl to a worldwide audience while you struggle to let people in your immediate community know about your products and services.

Hopefully, you have at least a small budget for some targeted advertising—perhaps via direct mail, online methods like Google AdWords or respected community newspapers.

But even if you’re trying to get noticed on a shoestring marketing budget, there’s one kind of advertising that won’t cost a penny but is worth its weight in gold.

We’re talking about word-of-mouth advertising—the kind of exposure you get when a customer has such a good experience with your products or services that [he or] she rushes right out to tell [his or] her friends, both in real life and in online social networks like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

It’s hard to quantify and track word-of-mouth advertising. You can just look at clickthrough or response rates, although you can try to find out if new customers heard about you “from a friend.”

Meanwhile, business blogger Alan Yu points out that the best way to generate word-of-mouth buzz is simply to deliver excellent customer service and superior results.

Yu also notes that many of your customers and […] friends may assume that your business is doing fine and doesn’t need any extra help. Be sure to encourage people to spread the word if they like what you have to offer. Maybe you could even offer them some sort of discount or bonus if they refer a new customer.

Have you had success with word-of-mouth advertising? Or have you struggled to generate conversational buzz?

Frugal Living Tip: What’s Your Financial Forecast?

Leave a comment

Every businessperson should have some method of keeping track of spending to make sure that expenses don’t outstrip income, [b]ut a new web tool called PocketSmith highlighted over at Wise Bread goes beyond tracking past expenditures to actually predict future spending and savings with its forecasting capabilities.

So let’s say you’re hoping to save up for some a big business expansion or remodeling project. PocketSmith will look at your past spending patterns to give you an idea of how long it might take for you to save up the money you need for your big expense.

If you’re not happy with how long PocketSmith predicts it will take you to reach your financial goals, the program lets you see the [im]pact you’d get from tinkering with your current spending patterns.

Do you think a program like this might be helpful for your business? How have you gone about accumulating the cash for major capital expenses?

Product of the Week: Fleece Blankets

Leave a comment

It seems like only yesterday that you were sweating in front of the air conditioner or splashing in the pool under the blazing summer skies. But, believe it or not, we’ve already official entered autumn and are rushing full speed ahead toward the chilly days of winter, when all you will want to do is curl up in a cozy fleece blanket in front of the fireplace with a good book.

And, speaking of fleece blankets, DollarDays has some amazing deals going on right now in our […] blanket[s] section.

We’re offering our best fleece blanket value of the season on lightweight fleece blankets—marked down from a regular price of $4.29 each to the sale price of just $2.79 per blanket when you buy in volume. Available in assorted colors, these stretchy 100% polyester fleece throws are generously sized at 50″x60″, just the right size for snuggling on the sofa.

Cold days ahead could have your customers clamoring for cozy fleece blankets. Make sure you have yours in stock and ready to sell!