Frugality is Financial Freedom!

Hello my darlings!

You may have noticed a theme by now, I really love to save money, who doesn't?! I go online to YouTube and learn a lot from people who have mastered their techniques, so I will share many of the things I learned as well as my own general knowledge.

Lets dive right in!

1) Thrift Shopping

I've gotten many compliments on items that I have purchased from thrift stores, some of which would have costs up the hundreds of dollars to purchase that I got for at least 90% off!  I love to ice skate, in fact, I almost took up figure skating as a young girl. I also had an immense interest in dance so I had to choose between dance and skating; my dad was much more supportive of dance (cost less and wasn't as potentially dangerous.) Well I was thrift shopping  and one day noticed a pair of lightly used white ice skates in the corner, just like professional females use. I thought there is no way they're going to fit me, but the gods were looking down on me that day, a perfect fit! I then thought, well how much are they? Ready for it? A whopping $4!!! I showed them to my mom and she couldn't believe it, given they were in such good condition, even had skate guard protectors on them.

Not only do I now own my own personal skates,  I've already saved money from not having to rent skates when I venture out to go skating!

Another fun purchase that we did thrift shopping is a pair of Gucci shoes. Gucci shoes can easily go up to the thousands of dollars. Well, once again, same thrift store and wonderful pricing.....$25. Goes to show you can find remarkable goodies for a fraction of the price.

2) Save in store and online without coupons

I learned that if you want to save some money online shopping, just put your items into the cart and don't check them out right away. Wait at least 24 hours that way you a) know for a fact that you really want to purchase the item(s) but also, the software will often notice that you haven't immediately purchased, so they may offer you a small discount to give you and incentive to purchase. Give it a try! All you have to lose is less money!

A way to save in-store without using coupons is to take advantage of the store brand and not the name brand. I learned online that many of the time the store brand is just as good as name brand, the only reason consumers pay more for the name brand is to finance for commercial advertising, as well as product testing. As a disclaimer, I have tested out the name brand vs store brand and have found myself favoring the name brand at times. To me the product is overall better, but that is just a personal preference. Point is, there are many times where you can still get good quality using store brand products vs name brand.

3) Online Rebate Sites

I have talked about these rebate sites before, like www.retailmenot.com, www.ebates.com. Consumers can save even more online using different websites like these. Ebates includes not only coupon codes but a percentage cash back. I actually received my first check today, it wasn't huge, just a little over $6, but its a start. This was simply just from some online shopping. There are several ways to save, you just have to learn how to do it.

I hope these few tips are helpful. Leave a comment on how you save money!

Social Media: Professional or Personal?

Eleven years ago, I was sent an invitation from a girlfriend to join this social media platform called "Facebook." I joined, and learned that I could connect with as many or as few friends as I wished, upload information about myself, publish pictures, "like" a post and many more interactions. Today, Facebook is so popular that it is not only utilized as a personal means of connection, but businesses have jumped on the bandwagon to promote their products and services. So much has changed, you can now react to a post through different emojs, do a live Facebook video stream, promote products through paid ads, etc.

So many platforms developed, not even 10 years old, have made such an impact on our global society: Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. It makes me wonder as a consumer what will be developed next.

Is the level of social media usage a good or a bad thing? One might say that it can be very good because not only from the personal connections you can maintain, but from a professional stand point social media can reach a very large audience, depending not only on your own audience numbers, but based on the numerical amount you are willing to fund to reach your target audience through ads.

Twitter, especially for me, has become a news outlet. I personally follow many news sources, and stay ahead of the most breaking news and weather stories. Yes, Twitter was originally designed simply to "Tweet" out our inner/random thoughts, all at only 140 characters. Now, Twitter has become a major platform, once again for professional usages, for businesses, actors, business owners, politicians, to get the word out to a very large audience.

Others might say that social media can be a platform for online bullying to take place. How often does it happen that a person will post a picture/video, accompanied by a mixture of responses. Why do people feel its ok to say something extremely negative and downright mean to someone they have never met in person? Is it easier to hide behind the screen? It will never be ok to be an online bully, no matter what the social media platform is.

Another downside to social media is the addiction of usage users have developed (I'm guilty of this.) How often do we see in public people on their devices, instead of communicating with the people in person (again, I am guilty of this.)

Social media, has also become a source of income. Having a large audience can be very lucrative; we often will see an account holder talk about a product or service followed by the hashtag #ad or #sp, meaning they are being paid to post. YouTube used to just be about posting amateur video on any topic, now people have made a side or full time income from posting videos to their large audience and make money through monetizing their channel.

In the end, social media is great for both, just with a good balance. We will see how many of the platforms stick around and compete with one another.