People I've met 3: Money Saving Maven

Meet Carrie Rocha (pronounced Hasha). She has single-handedly changed our grocery shopping outlook, which I will share with you at a later date in a post titled "The Grocery Store Gospel." (All great stories start with a great title, right?)

To sum it up: we pick up free items at the grocery store each week.... from boxes of Cheerios to milk to salad dressing to toothpaste--you should NEVER pay for toothpaste or deodorant and NEVER over a buck for any cereal. You should never buy generic when you can get great deals on name brand. If you watch the sales and use a coupon when an item is at its rock bottom price, then you walk out of the store with stuff completely free. I've even paid only 2-3 bucks for expensive items like name brand washing detergent or dishwashing detergent. Off the top of my head, this week I got a free 6-pack of bottled water at Walmart, 2-free Buitoni pasta, and free Buitoni pesto sauce at the grocery store.

And for you naysayers: I don't clip coupons and I don't go to every store in the area hunting a bargain. AND my pantry is more stocked with food than it ever was AND now I spend less than 50-bucks at the store every week.

I learned all of this from Carrie, who decided a few years back that she wanted to get out of debt, and through common sense, she decided she could do that by one of two ways: increase the family income or decrease the family expenses. She chose the second one, and that started her on a whirlwind of learning how to find deals and save money. Fastforward a few years and she drives a paid-off Lexus, her husband stays at home to take care of the kids, they pay for international vacations up front, and people are coming to Carrie asking for classes and advice. She's amazing, and we've developed our own segment with her called 12-News Money Savers that's become pretty popular... her website: http://www.pocketyourdollars.com/