JD! IF THIS IS NOT IN YOUR BOOK – YOU NEED IT IN THERE!

Really, I think our strategies are more to buy different, not at *the perfect time.*

Around here if you shop with coupons Sunday night you better be prepared to get A TON of rain checks. Stuff is sold out at the end of the day. I feel very fortunate to be making enough to afford to be over that right now. I used to be a crazy coupon lady, and we ate A LOT of crap that was free or almost free. When I say crap I mean substandard food.

In two different cities I have lived in, a flooring company sent an “invitation only” postcard every Spring to former customers, and it let them in the door an hour early on the first day of their Spring clearance. Everything you bought or ordered that day included free installation. We went to the store immediately after getting the postcard to look at our options, and to make sure that the prices didn’t get raised during the promotion. (they didn’t)

Last year we had two bathroom floors and our kitchen backsplash tiled for $125.

As for gasoline, check out gasbuddy.com where people in your area report on prices daily. That way you can see where it is cheap RIGHT NOW if you need it, and in the discussion forums, you can learn when local spikes and falls occur. Where I live, 95% of spikes occur at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a handful of stations don’t go up until the next day (like Costco), so if you get stuck needing gas on that spike day you can go to the place that is still lower. Our site even has a guy who follows the supplier and market prices and predicts if there will be a spike! He’s really good at it and we all know if we should fill up or not.

We also subscribe (free) to http://www.goldstar.com for the NYC area. Deals equivalent to TKTS are found there, usually a week+ in advance, for not only Broadway/Off Broadway but also comedy and other events.

Some of these are “tried and true” and are not just taken from websites that tell you. White sales in January have been going on since I was a teenager (at least) when I first became aware of the trends. (I’m almost 50 now).

The other things…the best way (absolute best) way to save money is to stay out of the stores or off the internet shopping sites and learn to make do with what you have.

However sometimes you need/want something….

Also, a note for my fellow Canadians: for commodities that are often imported from the US, a great time to buy is when our dollar is at or close to par with theirs (now is one of those times). This can apply to a lot of big purchases (some cars, jewellery, etc) so the amount you can save, even through a local dealer, is substantial.

We like Ravenswood wines and I had several coupons from the Sunday inserts and several catalinas for Ravenswood. With my coupons, the sale and the 10% off prices, I paid between about $3 for several bottles of wine that is regularly priced between $11 and $12. I stocked up!

I will definitely be paying attention next fall if this happens again and will be sure to save up some of our wine and liquor budget (we keep that separate from our regular groceries) when Thanksgiving rolls around.

I’ve heard fall is generally a good time to buy wine anyway, as producers are trying to move the last of the previous vintage to make room for new bottles.

I keep track of which days our closest shops are stocking new meat. If I go there at the right days at the right time, they have extremely cheap meat (50-90% off) that they need to get rid of the day before it expires.

Thank You, John DeFlumeri Jr

With regard to housing, the Thanksgiving to Superbowl rule works extremely well (and probably longer in northern areas of the country).

We bought our house in December/January and it was easy beating up on the sellers at that time. About 6 months later two houses in our neighborhood sold at higher prices/ square foot in a declining market and they sold fast.

The golden rule of buying what you need when nobody else is buying is a great one.

However, the best time to buy something is when you need it.

Buying even a few things that you don’t really need just because they’re on sale usually ends up being a waste of money and your time.

Best time to buy is when everyone else is selling.