Nov 24

How to maximize coupon savings

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Yesterday we came across this amazing YouTube video of a Good Morning America segment profiling Kathy Spencer, who runs How to Shop for Free. By using a few techniques highlighted in the video, she manages to feed her family of six for less money than you probably have in your sofa cushions right now.

Here at Unclutterer, we were wondering how much of Kathy Spencer’s shopping involves buying unneeded items just because of the savings, so we did a little digging and found this an eHow article by Spencer in which she addresses that particular issue:

People always say why get something if you don’t need it, or say I don’t need 10 jars of peanut butter. My answer to that is if you don’t need it someone else will. I did not need the 6 diabetes monitors that I picked up at CVS while shopping with Inside Edition but I got them because I will be donating them to my local Council on Aging, a lot of people have diabetes and don’t test regularly because they can’t afford the meter.

If you’re willing to actually make an effort to find a good home for such “deals,” then it’s probably not a bad thing. If not, you should probably be much more critical about whether you really need something that’s on special.

It’s actually quite surprising to see how much money you can save with a little planning and effort. We tried out some of Spencer’s tips yesterday at our local Harris Teeter and managed to save about 30% off our total bill.

And if you need a way to organize your coupons, check out this Unclutterer post from March on repurposing brag books.


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Feb 05

ROO: Return on Organization

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A recent article in USA Today explores organization and how it can help keep expenses low in these tough economic times:

We have all heard about R.O.I. — Return on Investment. It’s a useful way to analyze whether you are receiving sufficient bang for your buck for your efforts.

But have you ever considered your R.O.O. — your Return on Organization?

Look, we all know that main two pain points for most small businesses are not enough time and not enough money. This is even more true in light of the current economic environment. But what if I told you there was a simple, affordable way to get more of both? After all, as we all know, time is money.

I have been doing some work with Office Depot recently in order to help small business owners understand how, with just a few smart changes, they can increase their R.O.O., and how that can have a significant impact on the bottom line. In fact, it is estimated that increased R.O.O. can yield up to an extra two hours of productive time a week and up to an additional 6% of revenue.

How? Well, think about it. It costs five times more to create a new customer than it does to keep a current one. The whole idea is that with some extra time you can take better care of your best customers. No, 20 minutes a day may not seem like much, but what if you used those 20 minutes a day to their maximum effectiveness? You could check in with customers, make some sales calls, send out some “checking-in” e-mails … that sort of thing.

His later suggestions for how to specifically be more organized at work aren’t too in-depth, but I think he makes a very good point in this first section of the article. Being efficient with your time can create more opportunities for profits. The implied flip-side, of course, is that being disorganized can cost you your job/client/opportunity.

I also like the phrase “R.O.O. — your Return on Organization.” I may have to use that in the future.

What do you think? Is there such as thing as R.O.O.? I’m interested in reading your opinions in the comments.

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