Here’s the deal.  If you buy the Quickbooks Pro software bundled with the First Steps Set Up and Training package, you can save up to $129 off the total price.  You’re probably already familiar with the Quickbooks Pro software.  Here’s what you get with the training package:

• Work 1:1 with a QuickBooks Expert to customize your software to work for your company.
• Get help learning key tasks such as invoicing, online banking and importing data into QuickBooks.
• Save time and money getting started accurately the first time
• Get started quickly and confidently without leaving your office

If you’re serious about getting set up with Quickbooks Pro for your business, that might be the best route to take. Get it set up properly the first time and not have to deal with any unforeseen problems down the road.

If you want to take advantage of this great deal, simply click on this link and start shopping: Save up to $129 when you buy QuickBooks Pro and Set-up and Training together.

Save on Quickbooks Pro and Set-Up Training Combo is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

If I told you, I would give you $5000 for groceries every year, if you’ll spend an extra 30 minutes planning your shopping list, would you do it?

That’s exactly what the stores & manufacturers do every week with sale ads and coupons. Yet, nearly 90% of coupons go unredeemed each year and countless shoppers buy products without ever glancing at the sales ad or price tag. A little extra effort, a bit of advanced planning and mastering the art of couponing can go a long way towards reducing your monthly expenses.

Coupons are a multi-billion dollar industry – last year, over 500 billion dollars worth of coupons were distributed. Most of them landed in the garbage (or, hopefully, the recycle bin!). So, why are consumers throwing all that money away? The answers I hear when I ask readers, friends & family this question typically include “it takes too much time,” “it isn’t worth the effort” and “I can’t find coupons for the things I buy.”

Coupons take too much time.

I spend an average of 20-30 minutes clipping coupons each week. I spend about half an hour in the store doing the actual shopping. I don’t count the time I spend putting together grocery lists for Inexpensively, since there are literally hundreds of blogs dedicated to creating coupon ad matchups. The average shopper can completely skip that step (but, for the record, I spend about 30 minutes per store). Grand total? One hour for coupon clipping & shopping.

How much time do you spend wandering the aisles at the grocery store?

Coupons aren’t worth the effort.

We’ve already discussed the time spent, which I think is the bulk of the “effort” people refer to with a statement like this. Clipping coupons isn’t too taxing – I promise. I typically cut coupons in front of the television. I’ve even let my children help out now & then. If a 7-year-old can handle it, I think most adults could manage as well.

The question becomes one of time again – does the money you save really justify the extra time? My grocery bill typically shows a “total saved” (including sales & coupons) of around 50% – sometimes way more, sometimes less. I once tracked every penny saved & spent in Quicken. My monthly grocery budget was $400 per month. That year, I saved over $3000 in store sales & $2000 in coupons. It breaks down to about $95 per hour.

How much do you make for an hour of your time?

There are no coupons for {insert your favorite product here}.

Maybe not, but I promise it will eventually go on sale. Everything does – even the pricey gluten free foods my own family requires. Even if you don’t use coupons, pay attention to the weekly sale ad, check clearance racks and know where to find manager specials. You can find discounts on meat, produce, bakery goods, deli products and organic foods.

Plus, you’ll be surprised at the wide variety of coupons you can find if you start to look. Contact your favorite companies, and they may add you to their mailing list, send you loyalty offers or tell you where to print their coupons online. The store coupon machine (called a Catalina machine) will frequently spit out coupons for $2 off your next $25 purchase – you can buy anything you want!

Why would you throw away a coupon that’s good on anything in the store?

Getting Started with Coupons

Once you start to see the impact coupons have on your budget, it’s easy to dedicate an extra 30 minutes to planning a shopping trip. Here are a few quick tips to help you make the most of your time:

• Collect multiple coupons so you can really stock up on your favorite products.
• Don’t stress over clipping every coupon or missing an expiration date – it will cycle back around again soon enough.
• A sale is great and a coupon is awesome, but using a coupon on a sale item will cut your costs drastically!
• Google “your favorite store + weekly deals” to find a grocery deal site that covers the stores in your area – they match the weekly sales with coupons so all the hard work is done for you.
• Get into the habit of carrying your coupons everywhere you go – you’ll be prepared for spur of the moment trips and ready to take advantage of unadvertised specials & markdowns.
• Sort the coupons for your weekly grocery trip in order of the store aisle – you’ll save time, using the stack of coupons as your grocery list as you shop.

I have been using coupons for almost 15 years now, and I know they’ll be a part of our life no matter how far from broke we become. Hey – if it’s good enough for Warren Buffet, it’s good enough for me!

Heather Sokol is the married mother of 3 beautiful, active girls. While they do their best to keep her broke, she’s beating it with money saving tips, deals, coupons and grocery lists at Inexpensively.

Coupons: Are They Worth The Hassle? is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

I’ve seen it happen but never had a term for it before.  Now I do.

Coupon Angel is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

Anyone with kids will tell you that there are certain things that you cannot go without.  For example, kids need clothes, and lots of them.  They’ll go through several outfits a day depending on the messiness of their meals and the level of dirt outside.  Kids like to have toys too!  And being frugal and buying your kids toys don’t always go together.

But, we found a site that helps us a little with both.  It’s called swapmamas.com and it is pretty darn cool.  In a nutshell, it is a social networking site for moms where they gather together and swap/barter for items.  Say we have  some formula left over after our youngest moves up to real food.  We can list the sealed cans on swapmamas.  Another mama comes along and uses that formula, and has some clothes that will fit one of our kids.  Or some DVD movies that her kids no longer watch.  She offers the trade to us, we accept and all that’s left is the shipping.  We pay for the shipping for  the formula, and the other mama pays for the shipping for whatever it is that she traded us for.  She gets a can of formula that she can use and that would have done absolutely nothing for us except sit on a shelf and we get a new movie or some new(ish) clothes.  Win Win.

Swapmamas.com is worth a look if you’ve got kids and want to try and be frugal as well.  It might even be worthwhile if you don’t have kids.  I can’t attest to that since I would have never known the site existed if it weren’t for having kids.

SwapMamas.com: Mother’s Little Helper is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

If you know someone with an ING Direct account, please ask them for a referral.  If you don’t, there are several places where you can get one.  My favorite places to look are at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity’s $25 ING Direct Signup Promotion page or at Consumerism Commentary’s ING Direct referrals page.

I’ve contributed several links to both pages so there is a chance that I will be referring you!  Whomever refers you also gets a $10 bonus when you sign up and open with a deposit of $250 or more, so that’s pretty good for me and you!

$25 Signup Bonus for ING Direct is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

The way it works is that the regular price is $199.99, then they take a $40 instant rebate off the top and have a mail in rebate for $159.99.  I don’t like mail in rebates much, but for a free copy of QuickBooks, it might be worth the effort.  The deal is only available today (December 22,2008) at Staples stores and at Staples.com.  Even if you don’t need a copy, you could probably pick one up and sell it on eBay for a tidy profit.  Make an extra credit card payment with it.

Get QuickBooks Pro for Free is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

For December, they’ve got another deal for you. If you use your Electric Orange Mastercard check card 5 times or more on purchases of over $10, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a $5000 prize.

1. Use your Electric Orange Card to make 5 purchases of at least $10 each and you’re entered.
2. Each purchase must appear on your December statement.
3. We’ll choose 5 winners and drop $5,000 into their Electric Orange by 1/15/09.

It’s not a guaranteed $20 like they did this month, but if you already use your check card, it might be worth the effort to make sure you make all 5 transactions for over $10.  Who couldn’t use an extra $5000 at the beginning of the year.  Think of the debt that could pay off!  It would also make a great head start on a great emergency fund! Or a college fund!  Or retirement account!  Oh!  The possibilities!

Read the rules at the ING Direct site.

Win $5000 with ING Direct Electric Orange is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

If you have an Electric Orange checking account, you’re already enrolled.  You then only need to use your EO debit card to make at least 5 purchases of more than $10.  When they all show up on your November statement, you’ll get a bonus of $20 sometime before December 15th.  (Details at the ING page)

I just heard about this today and normally I don’t use the debit card for my EO account all that much.  It’s set up to automatically pay a few subscriptions, but nothing that would meet the qualifications for this bonus.  However, my family and I just returned from a vacation where we had saved for the expenses of the vacation in an ING Direct savings account that is tied to the EO account.  When we went on vacation, we transfered the money to the EO account so that we could easily access it with the debit card.

Unknown to me, we met all the qualifications for the bonus and are looking forward to the bonus!  Yippee!  There’s still a few days left to qualify for the bonus if you haven’t already.  If you don’t have a EO account, you might be pushing it to get one and get the card in time to qualify, but even if you don’t get the bonus, the 1% interest rate is still better than what most banks pay.

Get an Extra $20 from ING Direct is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.

• Quicken 2009 Deluxe gets a 25% discount.  That takes it down to $44.99 instead of $59.99
• Quicken 2009 Premier gets a 20% discount, for $71.99 instead of $89.99
• Quicken 2009 Home & Business gets a 20% discount, bringing it down to $79.99 instead of $99.99
• Quicken 2009 Rental Property Manager gets a 20% discount, $119.99 instead of $149.99
• Quicken 2009 Home Inventory Manager also gets a 20% discount, $23.99 instead of $29.99
• Quicken Willmaker  Plus is marked down to $39.99 from it’s normal $79.99
• and they are apparently taking sign ups for Quicken Financial Life for Mac

Some Pretty good deals.  You can visit the Quicken 2009 store and take advantage of those discounts.  I’m not sure how long they’ll last, but by the time they are over, you ought to be able to pick the titles up on eBay for about the same as with the discount.  Of course, I’ll appreciate any affiliate commissions that I get a lot more than eBay will.

Quicken 2009 Available, Get 25% Off is a post from: Beating Broke, if you enjoy it, please visit us and subscribe to the Feed.