Tuesday, 24 August 2010
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This Guy Lived Off One-Dollar a Day, and Liked It A lot.
CNN recently posted a video about a man named Jeffrey Strain, who managed to live off of a dollar a day for 100 days, quite comfortably at that. His secret? Coupons, lots of coupons.
And why would he do such a thing? As it turns out, his sister bet him he couldn't do it. So Jeffrey, who co-owns the website SAVINGADVICE.COM, took up the challenge and passed with flying colors. The challenge was simple: live off of one dollar a day for all food purchases. It didn't include other expenses besides food.
Any visitors to his site will quickly realize he is already a smarty-pants when it comes to saving money and properly budgeting expenses. Regardless, I couldn't believe his savings. What would have normally cost him $1473.94, over a normal 100 day period for all his food and drink, only cost him $76.11!
$76.11! And he didn't have to sacrifice choice or quality! He ate what he would have eaten anyway.
"It's a matter of finding the deals that match up with the coupons," Strain said. This included several things:
- using lots of coupons.
- using coupons on items already on sale, which he called, "stacking."
- using 2 computers to print coupons. (Because each computer was only allowed a finite number of coupons at a time.)
- There was no limit for the # of coupons used in his local grocery stores.
Strain admits that he did grow some of his own food in his garden. And he did forage for some food on public lands, usually for his breakfast, which normally provided him with a nice fruit smoothie. But with savings of this magnitude I'll cut him some slack.
I always looked at coupons as a pain in the butt, but now given the economy and after watching that video, I'm beginning to like coupons a lot.
Do you use coupons? Are you going to start using them after reading a story like this?
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- From: vino
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Comments (10)
A penny saved is a penny earned. There's also fixed costs like rent, insurance, property tax, etc--unless he was living in a shanty.
@wrybreadspread@xanga -yea true, but he practically paid nothing for food lol if he did this for a year it would be like $270 for all his food and drink
When I worked at Target I once had a customer with a cart full of random shit and a stack of coupons 12" high.. she ended up paying less than $20. for over $100. worth of things. But, I let a lot of her coupons slide even though they all have certain "conditions." I guess you sort of have to scam the system to save that much.
that's impressive !!!
i love coupons!
I use them when I have them, or discount cards too :DDD
This isn't actually hard to do with food. It takes commitment. One thing that I often did was comparison shop - you simply call your grocers and ask if they accept competitor's coupons or if they do the "we'll beat the competition" thing. If they do, then start to comparison shop. And find the deals. Also, coupons usually say something like, "2 for $2.00" or give you a condition (you have to buy 8). With lots of food, you can freeze it and save it for later. Also, if you live alone, portion out your food once you get home (you buy a huge bag of chicken wings and you know you're full after 6, then portion out baggies of 6 wings until you empty out your bag). Stretches your food a long way. Finally, on top of the coupon thing, lots of groceries have the cards that allow you to scan for the lowest price possible. AMAZING INVENTION/IDEA!
So, it's possible. And fun. And smart. lol
I've always been a coupon cutter...and It's always angered whoever is behind me at the register :D
In this economy, if you don't use coupons and do everything you can do to save money...you're an idiot.I've done this before. I shopped at an asian food market. i was in great shape. here, though, that food is mroe expensive, more desired. i get lean fast on that stuff.
cheap ass.