Tips for Shopping and Saving

If you’ve been a long time DIY Inspired reader, you know that I’m all about being crafty on the cheap! So I thought I’d share a few tips and tricks that I use to save money that help feed my DIY and craft passions. Recently, I’ve written a few posts on craft projects I have done without buying anything, which leads me to my first tip. It’s my cardinal rule of thumb for crafting, party planning, and entertaining. Here are my four tips for shopping and saving.

Tip #1: Always shop in your Craft Closet first.

The best way to save money is to stay organized. I keep my craft closet as organized as possible so that I know what inventory I have readily available. Most recently, I was able to make these three projects for practically nothing because I shopped in my craft closet first: 1) Stenciled Butterfly Wall Art, 2) Repurposed Plant Hanger, and 3) DIY Butterfly Wall Art.

The best part of all three of these projects is that they fit the theme for my daughter’s birthday party coming up this month, AND they look great in her bedroom. That’s right, two for the price of NONE!

Tip #2: Shop at home second.

Fundamental budget crafting tip number two is to shop in your kitchen, office, pantry, bedroom, junk drawer, you name it. My motto, “repurpose, reinvent”, says it best. There are so many fun craft projects you can make from items you can recycle like bottle caps, jars, vases, boxes, cans, tins, etc.

Tip #3: Be smart when shopping online.

Always, ALWAYS look for digital coupons and promo codes. You won’t believe now much money you can save using these! Before entering that credit card information, make sure you do a search for the product coupon. For example, Sears is a great place to shop. You can purchase anything there from scrapbook paper to jig saws. Type in the promo code to make sure you are getting the best deals and saving the most money.

Tip#4: Always print or cut coupons before you leave the house.

I swear every time I go into a Michael’s Craft Store or Joann’s Fabric Store they know me by name! Until I crawled out of my cave and purchased an iPhone, I printed my Weekly Ad coupons. Now that I have an iPhone, I can pull up the coupon and they’ll scan my phone right at the register when I check out. How convenient is that?

I hope these tips helped because this is exactly how I feed my passion!

A special thank you goes out to PromoCodes2012.org for sponsoring this post.

Similar Posts

4 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.