I feel like my life has changed over this weekend and I want to pass along my new found knowledge. Learning to live and shop on a budget can be challenging! Whether you are a broke student, family paying off a mortgage, or young couple trying to get your FIRE/ financially independent lifestyle on track, I believe all these tips can help you out. These are tried and tested by yours truly.

Tip #1 : Use Superstore Click & Collect

Why is this so great?! For these 10 really huge reasons.

1. Superstore has super low prices with its ‘No Name’ brand.

2. It’s Canadian and it isn’t Walmart.

3. Superstore SUCKS to go shop at in person. We all know it has great prices, but getting ourselves to park in that parking lot, deal with all the people there, most of the time it just doesn’t feel worth all the trouble. It’s always so busy, everyone has their buggies out, they are always in your way, kids are running around. It’s hell. I mean yes, Costco is busy with carts and children too, but it’s also a destination in and of itself so it doesn’t stress you out as much. All the Costco members know what they are getting into going to Costco. When Saturday rolls around parents are like, ok kids, it’s Costco day! And everyone is fucking Pumped (capital P). They bring the family, eat the samples, browse all the isles, eat that heavenly pizza and soft-serve and have a family-friendly great time. Superstore, nobody feels that way about superstore, but I digress.

4. When you’re shopping from home, you are able to check first hand what you already have and make sure you aren’t double buying anything/ buying things you don’t need. Just open the fridge up and then go back to clicking!

5. When you shop online, you are able to sort the view of the items you are looking for from cheapest to most expensive. This way you never miss the lowest priced products.

6. You see what items are on-sale in the flyer, again, no way of missing an item that is relevant to you.

7. You get Optimum Points which actually provide a pretty good point system!

8. You just drive in, pick up your stuff and leave!

9. If you have an app called “Honey” it will test a bunch of coupons for you before you checkout to try and save you as much money as possible on top of what you have already saved shopping at Superstore.

10. It’s finally easy to remember to bring your bags! Just have them in the car and you’re set! No more “oops I left them in the car” scenarios.

I was able to get all my meal-prep groceries for the week plus some snacks and back ups for $60 CAD without the hassle of stepping inside the store. I had my meal-prep recipes on one tab, and the superstore order online page on the other. It was amazing.

Tip #2 (related to Tip #1): Ensure your Credit Card Rewards System is Linked with Your Groceries

Ensure your money-back points system is on the credit card you use to get your groceries. On that note, if you have to pick 2 or 3 areas that your money-back rewards apply to, make sure they apply to your groceries/ eating out! That stuff is a weekly/daily expense!

With Tangerine I get .5% back on everyday items and 2% on my top 3 chosen items without any limits. Learn more about the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card here.

With Tangerine, I get 2% back on all groceries and restaurants I spend at. Ensure you’re getting some rewards for being on top of your groceries whether it’s a general money back system or a specific one. There are so many interesting money-back deals, take the time to find what works for you!

Tip #3: Shop at Shopper’s Drug Mart for Name Brand Skincare/ Cosmetics

Next, let’s discuss Optimum Points a little more (related to Tip #1 also!). I feel like this is an under-rated golden nugget more people need to get stoked about. Shoppers is now part of the Optimum Points system. This means Superstore, Esso, and Shoppers, all give you Optimum points when you shop there.

As a lady that appreciates good perfumes, skincare and makeup, I usually shop at Sephora. However, still being a lady that appreciates all those things but also cares more about keeping to a good budget and being smart with my money these days, I try to buy these fancy girly items at Shoppers Drug Mart instead! They have a lot of the best makeup, perfume, and facial care brands that Sephora has (not as much selection, but a quality selection).

Instead of shopping at Sephora, where the point system is very weak, I buy my make up items at Shoppers when they have their “20 times the points events” or “18,500 when you spend $75”. Quality make up is expensive where-ever you go, but you might as well try to get a big return on your already expensive items. Let’s be real, we’re usually spending over $100 at Sephora if we’re honest…

I’m actually able to ‘buy’ a couple free high quality, name brand makeup items from Shoppers a year when I utilize their point system well. Free makeup! That is JUST thanks to buying my name brand make up at Shopper’s at the right time and NOT including the points you can now get from Superstore and Esso. Can’t argue with that.

For more juicy tips on how to maximize points used at Shoppers, check out this link!

Tip #4 - Add the Honey Chrome Extension

This little beautiful free to add extension has saved me money countless times without me even thinking about it!

Shameless plug, feel free to use my link here to add it to your browser here, or simply Google “ Honey Chrome Extension.”

How does it work?

Super simple. You go about your life ordering things online as one does these days. Perhaps you’re ordering some groceries, food, make up, new clothes, tech devices, etc.

You come to the checkout page where there is always the option to input some kind of ‘coupon’ or ‘promotion code’. You always think ‘ah fuck, I wish I knew what code to put in,’ but then you suck it up and check out. Right? WRONG! Now, you click on your honey extension and it searches for the most recently used codes and tests them all in seconds on your behalf. It finds whatever is relevant and applies the code to your order to save you money. Boom!

I actually just used Honey to save me some money on a new domain name at GoDaddy. It felt so good!

As if that isn’t already amazing, they also have some kind of “Honey Gold” point system where you earn even more money back eventually. I don’t even know much about that system since I mainly use it for the promotion codes but you can learn more about honey gold here.

Real time update, Honey is showing me a discount code to use for Squarespace as I type this.

Make sure you use your app when purchasing airline tickets, booking travel packages, or reserving hotel rooms. This app will save you some serious cash.

Tip #5- COOK with a damn Slow cooker (OR INSTANT POT)

Firstly, they are like $20 on Craigslist or Facebook because everyone thinks they don’t want one when they get one that they didn’t ask for. I know this first hand because I received one for my wedding and thought about selling it. However, everyone else feels the same way so people were selling them for dirt cheap and it just wasn’t worth the trouble.

So then I thought to myself, might as well use the damn thing.

Glad I did!

My husband is a pure vegan while I’m a lazy try hard. However, I cook purely vegan at home. With that comes a lot of bean and lentil recipes. I always felt it was way too much work to soak my beans over night and ya-da ya-da. Therefore we just bought canned beans and lentils that are both more expensive and not as healthy for you than dried.

In short, we buy the dry goods now in bulk. No more extra sodium, no more expensive cans. It’s so freaking easy to meal prep now saving me time and money. I assume same thing goes for meat these things. Buy a big pack and freeze the rest. Through it in your slow cooker instead of defrosting, prepping, cutting and whatever else you do to a chicken. There you go, chicken 8 hours later.

I hope you’ve found these tips as immensely helpful as I have found them!