Smart shopping expert Trae Bodge joins TheStreet to dish out five tips that will help save you money.
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00:00 I wanted to talk to you today about some shopping tips.
00:04 We're still living in an inflationary world.
00:08 So what are some of your top tips?
00:11 Your first one is consider doing it yourself.
00:14 So talk to me about that.
00:15 So this is the one that's a little bit unpopular.
00:17 So what I mean by doing it yourself is you're probably paying someone
00:21 to do something that you could do for yourself.
00:23 And this could be something as simple as going to your favorite barista
00:26 and getting your matcha tea every day or buying your lunch at the office
00:30 instead of bringing it or something like getting a weekly manicure
00:34 or getting your car washed every month.
00:36 These are things, if you're physically able, that you could do for yourself.
00:39 And if you do them for yourself instead of paying someone else,
00:42 then you can save that money.
00:44 So that's what I recommend if you're trying to kind of get your finances
00:48 together temporarily.
00:49 Tip two is check your monthly bills for savings.
00:53 Yes, and so I think a lot of us get stuck in our monthly bills
00:56 and we feel like we just have to pay them because they're coming every month,
01:00 right?
01:01 But you should really look at them and see if there's wiggle room.
01:03 So for example, your mobile service.
01:06 You might be paying a couple hundred dollars for mobile service for your family
01:09 and you could look maybe at a smaller company.
01:12 Also, maybe cutting the cord on your cable or changing your Wi-Fi provider.
01:17 By doing all three of those things, I saved my family $200 a month
01:21 and then I can take that and save that and put that towards a rainy day
01:25 or college education or retirement.
01:27 Tip three, look for groceries beyond the grocery store.
01:32 Yes, and so the grocery store is great.
01:35 It's a staple, but it can be so expensive.
01:37 And there are ways to save if you kind of venture off that path.
01:40 So looking for groceries online, for example.
01:43 You can look for deals with coupon sites.
01:45 So Coupon Cabin, for example, they have deals at Instacart,
01:48 Fresh Direct, D'Artagnan.
01:50 So that's a good way to save just by shopping online.
01:53 I would also recommend a wholesale club, especially if you have a larger family.
01:57 You can buy things in bulk and you can save up to 40% just by doing that.
02:01 Then there are services like--there's a cool app called Marty
02:05 where you can get kind of back stock of groceries
02:08 or companies when they change their packaging, you can save there as well.
02:13 There's one called Flash Food, and they partner with grocery stores
02:16 around the country and they sell through items that are in surplus
02:19 or nearing their best-by date.
02:21 And you place your order on the app and go to your grocery store,
02:24 pick up your Flash Food order, and you've saved up to 50% that way.
02:27 So there are a lot of different ways that you can save on groceries,
02:30 especially because they're so expensive right now.
02:32 So your fourth tip is shop smarter, and that encompasses a lot of different things.
02:38 So walk me through that.
02:39 Yeah, so really getting into the habit of looking for deals,
02:43 shopping in good timing.
02:45 For example, May is Maytag month, and a lot of people don't know that.
02:48 You can save up to 30% on major appliances just by shopping during this month.
02:54 And then throughout the year, start looking for those 3-day weekend opportunities.
02:58 Look for those seasonal opportunities.
03:00 Like, for example, when we're going into summer,
03:02 you might want to buy a swimsuit right now.
03:04 It's not the best time to buy a swimsuit.
03:06 At the end of the summer is a great time to buy a swimsuit
03:08 because they'll all be on clearance.
03:10 So look for those timing sales and then also big sales like Black Friday,
03:15 Amazon Prime Day, and if you're strategic in that way, you can save a lot.
03:19 And then I would also say use those coupon sites.
03:22 Use Coupon Cabin, Rakuten, RetailMeNot.
03:25 All those coupon sites will help you save,
03:27 and if you get into the habit of using them every day, every time you shop,
03:31 you can save significantly.
03:32 And your final point has to do with remembering to save,
03:38 which I found funny because you're a shopping expert,
03:40 but they don't want to talk about saving.
03:42 But you're saying that's part of your strategy in being a good shopper.
03:47 Yeah, so as you're using all these techniques that we've just talked about,
03:51 you may just forget to take that extra money that you've saved
03:54 and put it somewhere smart.
03:55 So high-yield savings accounts for me are The Place, Bread Financial, for example.
04:00 They're an online bank.
04:01 You can sign up in a couple of minutes with a minimum $100 deposit,
04:05 and then you can earn 5.15 annual percentage yield on that money
04:09 that you're working so hard to save.
04:11 Versus if you have that money kind of sitting in your bank account,
04:14 sitting there as a temptation,
04:16 or if you're putting it under your mattress or in a jar in the house,
04:19 it's not working for you.
04:20 So if you are saving, you want to make sure that money is working for you as well.
04:24 [Silence]