How to save money without coupons

There are a ton of things I do on a daily basis to help our family budget. Although my family jokes that we cant buy ANYTHING without a coupon, there are many things that I do buy that never have coupons no matter how hard I try to find one.



Buying our bread could suck a ton of money out of our budget. We are bread and cereal feinds around here. The cereal I have covered with coupons, the bread not so much. Bread, bagels, muffins, buns, rolls...we love them all. So in order for me not to bust my budget, I head over to our Aunt Millies Bakery outlet that is near our home. They have great selection of any type of bread you could think of. They also have bread and other items that are a day or a couple of days old.

Since we are such huge bread fans we have no problem going through it. I will freeze some of it (I find it stays better if in the deep freeze where the temp is more controlled) But I buy 2 weeks or more at a time without difficulty.

To give you an idea, I went to the bread store today. I bought 4 loaves of bread, 3 loaves of texas toast, 4 packages of bagels, 1 pkg of hot dog buns, 2 pkg of hamburger buns, and a pack of dinner rolls for 12 dollars and change.

I know many people could argue that I could save even more money if I baked our own bread. True, but honestly it isnt my thing. I have been known to occasionally bake bread from scratch but it is normally reserved for something like a major life event :-)

So for us the bread store is the better option.

-I save money on hair cuts by taking the kids to the beauty college if there isnt a great sale going on. They will cut my kiddos hair for 3.00. I used to buzz my hubbys and sons hair, but there was this unfortunate incident with the razor resulting in a bald patch.... my haircutting days were then over.

-One of my good friends Sara gave me a great idea today to save on printer paper. She reuses her sons papers that are sent home from school to print her coupons on. If you have a child in school then you are well aware of the copious amounts of paper that come home. I had never even thought of that, I was just happily throwing them away saving each and every one. Now I can pile them into my printer and save some cash!

-FREECYCLE is your friend. I have gotten several things for our home from freecycle. Go to freecycle.com and search for your city. They will have a yahoo group and I know ours is quite active. My best find was an almost new toddler bed for our youngest! It was in perfect shape and even better...FREE

So thats it for my tired brain tonight, what are some of your best ideas for saving money WITHOUT coupons???