More new features…

Here’s another update on some of the feedback you gave me!

Weekly menu planning

OK, OK… it felt like almost every one of you said you wanted to talk about weekly menu planning and such. So, we started that feature yesterday! It’s linked to in the side bar under “weekly menu planning”. Feel free to share your menus, recipes, budget and spending reports, etc! Hopefully it will be a great community discussion each week.

CM Capture 9

Visit SpringsBargains on your phone!

Next, for those of you who aren’t too cheap to pay for a data plan on your phone, I’m testing a mobile version of SpringsBargains! You can simply navigate to SpringsBargains.com and it will auto-detect if you’re using a mobile browser and will redirect you to the mobile site.

You can switch from the mobile site to the desktop site from a link at the bottom of the site (and vice verse, you can switch from the “regular” version to mobile via a link at the bottom of the regular site). This is something that’s truly in test mode so I’d love your feedback!

Rock-bottom Price List

The most requested item was most certainly to see a list of what I think is a rock-bottom price for grocery items. Here’s the deal: I have high hopes to be able to create a database where you can compare prices for all the major grocery stores, including Target and Walmart. Wouldn’t that be sweet?! But, I’m not a programmer and need to raise some capital in order to hire one!

If I told you that I do not pay for toilet paper, toothpaste, or granola bars, I’d have a 100 questions to answer about how I do that! So, as one commentor said, I’d recommend coming to a workshop and understanding the full strategy on how to get the absolute lowest prices on groceries.

I think that it’s more important to understand how to save on your overall grocery bill than to fill your closet with free toilet paper. I did that for quite awhile – I had enough free toothpaste, tampons, and shampoo to last several years, but I was still spending way too much on the rest of the things we need. So, just knowing what’s a good price on this or that doesn’t do you a lot of good if you don’t have a good overall savings strategy.

I do try to indicate on the weekly ad reviews if something is at or close to my target price, and after awhile, you catch on pretty quickly to what’s a good price and what’s not. I do respond to comments, so if you’ve got a question about why a certain item wasn’t mentioned as a good deal, feel free to ask why!

Links to other sites

A couple of people said they often clicked on links to coupons and then had trouble getting back to this site after they’ve printed the coupons. I’ve set most links to external sites to open in a new window now, so hopefully that is helpful to some of you.

Comparison to warehouse stores

Several people wanted to see comparison of grocery store versus warehouse stores like Sam’s or Costco. I’ve scrutinized Sam’s prices pretty closely, and found that there are only a handful of things that are cheaper there. Now, this goes along with why I don’t think a “rock-bottom price list” would be that helpful – flour only goes on sale about two or three times a year, and those times are right around the holidays, so you need to be prepared to buy about a year’s worth of flour all at once. You’ll save big time over Sam’s prices, but it only comes around once a year.

So, here’s what I’ve found is almost always cheaper at Sam’s: Craisins, raisins, olive oil, nuts, spices, gourmet cheeses, and sometimes other cheeses. Olive oil was actually cheaper than Sam’s at Sunflower Market a few weeks ago, and Sunflower also had raisins for a close-to-Sam’s price. I’m sure there are a few things we don’t buy that might be cheaper at Sam’s, but not much.

I honestly believe that Sam’s and Costco have for the most part done such a marvelous job of marketing the idea that buying in bulk saves money that they have come to the point that they can raise prices to higher than grocery stores and people continue to buy into the idea that they’re getting a good deal because it’s in bulk.

When I see a deal that is still cheaper than Sam’s I do try to mention that! If you shop a lot at Sam’s or Costco, I’d recommend going in and making a list of the price-per-ounce of all the items you buy and then comparing grocery store sales to see what’s a good deal and what’s not.

Navigation

I’m doing some construction on the right sidebars to make them more user-friendly and have more resources at your fingertips. I already showed you that you can now click on each individual category, and if you’re looking for a deal at a particular store or restaurant, you can now use the drop down menu for Tags. If you remember a deal that was going on at McDonald’s but can’t find it, just click on the menu and scroll down to McDonald’s.

I put everything in a broad category and then tag it with the specific location or event so you can find it easily.

Beginner tips

A few of you mentioned that the times I’ve done answers to beginner couponing tips or frequently asked questions have been helpful, so I’ll try to feature a few Q&A posts periodically.

New start page

As soon as I’m done with the other sidebar changes, I’ll be making a page for newbies with links to information about how the site works and other frequently asked questions to make new readers (or even old ones!) familiar with all the features of this site.

Thank you so much for all your feedback! I’m still processing a lot of it and trying to decide what features I’ll be able to implement.

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Welcome to Springs Bargains, a service of our real estate business, Circa Real Estate Group! I’m Carrie, and since 2008 I’ve been sharing free and discounted ways to eat, play, and enjoy life in Colorado Springs.