Melissa Tosetti and Kevin Gibbons wrote the book Living The Savvy Life: The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Smart Spending and Rich Living which helps people spend less than they earn (without doing without). Complementing their book, you can also browse The Savvy Life website, magazine, and blog for even more tips and opportunities to grow more savvy in life as you shop.
Savvy Shopping Enables Savvy Living
One thing they point out about savvy living is the essential element of shopping smart. As a key component to smart living, savvy shopping requires timing your purchases. Here’s the explanation:
Just about everything that goes on sale has a season where those sales are at the lowest of the year. With a little planning, you can take advantage of those deals and purchase just about everything you want or need at the best possible price.
Savvy Shopping in January
With this in mind, The Savvy Life recommends that you take advantage of the following product categories in January to maximize your discount:
- Fitness equipment and gym memberships — as New Years’ Resolutions fade, demand drops and so do prices. Grab it if you’ll use it.
- Winter clothing — since many retailers start to discount warm clothing now it’s a good time to buy. Many will continue to drop those prices even more as we move closer to spring.
- Televisions — what didn’t sell over Christmas is often on sale now. Be on the lookout for even deeper discounts closer to February.
- Kitchen and bath linens — typically in January you’ll find them at some of the best prices of the year.
Savvy Shopping as a Mindset
With the above recommendations in mind, you might want to consider a few more tips from The Savvy Life’s blog.
- Ask yourself: “If it wasn’t on sale, would I buy it?” Great question.
- Budget vs. Spending Plan — Essentially the same thing but one sounds more negative while the other presents the idea of planning how you want to spend your money! More fun, isn’t it?
- Going to the Mall? Don’t forget “The Power of Smalls” — do the math but factor the savings on an annual basis to see how small recurring savings will add up to big savings.
- Be creative with impulse shopping — imagine the item you want to buy now but picture it six months from now. Will you still be enjoying and using it or will it end up in storage or sitting on a table at a garage sale?
- Practice, practice, practice. Savings takes time so don’t give up. Can’t save 10%? Try for 5% or even 2% — build on your successes.
And finally, one bonus item to help keep everything in balance: