I am a big fan of Cherry Coke, so whenever it is on sale it’s like a little taste of Christmas.

We went to King Soopers, where they are selling 12-packs of Coke Products at 4 for $11.  This is already a pretty good deal considering it is $2.75 per 12 pack, or $0.22 a can. That’s cheaper than the off-brand soda in the machines at Wal Mart!

But, this wouldn’t be a “How We Save” post until we saved more money on top of this great sale.  On each box of Coke Products right now, The Coca Cola Company is putting $1 off 2 12-packs of Coke Products.

Since we bought 4 12-packs we were able to use two of those coupons.

So we got 4 12-packs for $9.00!  That is $0.18 a can!

An aside which is not how I am saving money so much as making it, but it has something to do with the deal above:  A co-worker and I have been selling sodas for $0.50 a piece at work in the office fridge.  We put the sodas on the shelf with a cup and ask people to pay “on their honor”.  Normally, we make between $0.11 – $0.18 (avg. $0.14) a can.  With the deal above, our profit goes from 29% to 64%! That is a great markup and means that my co-worker and I can actually pay for another 12-pack out of our profits after selling only 9 cans.  This deal may actually help us break even on our little venture.

Matt Bernier tries to save money whenever possible as well he tries to find deals and make deals whenever possible. Matt is a web developer by trade and the owner of Reinforce Media, LLC who hosts and manages this site and a couple others. You can find out more about Matt by visiting his Twitter Page: @mbernier or Matt Bernier's personal website.

Target sale this week (ending Saturday)

80+ Wii game titles:  buy 2 / get 1 free

http://weeklyad.target.com/target/default.aspx?action=entryflash& or see weekly ad at www.target.com

Matt Bernier tries to save money whenever possible as well he tries to find deals and make deals whenever possible. Matt is a web developer by trade and the owner of Reinforce Media, LLC who hosts and manages this site and a couple others. You can find out more about Matt by visiting his Twitter Page: @mbernier or Matt Bernier's personal website.

When I proposed to Melissa we knew that we wanted to have our wedding in the fall, so we sat down and did the math (best guess) about what it would cost for a wedding and how much we could afford to save each month to make it happened. The reason we are going to get married this fall and not next was because we were able to save what we thought we would need. Mel’s parents have been awesome and have offered to pay for quite a bit.  As a result, we have decided that if we have any money left over from the wedding it will start our house fund.  We are going to continue to save the amount we are currently saving, and put any money we have “left over” after our bills and expenses towards the house as well.  We will see what we actually have left over, because as we get closer we keep finding all those things we forgot about or that slipped through the cracks.  Either way, it is nice to have a little padding and to make sure that I can help Melissa have the wedding she really wants.

We hope that with whatever money is left after the wedding and whatever we end up saving between now and when our second year’s lease is up we will have enough money for a down payment on our house.  We want to be able to put at least a 15% down payment on the house so that we actually own part of our house and so we can keep the payments lower as well.

Matt Bernier tries to save money whenever possible as well he tries to find deals and make deals whenever possible. Matt is a web developer by trade and the owner of Reinforce Media, LLC who hosts and manages this site and a couple others. You can find out more about Matt by visiting his Twitter Page: @mbernier or Matt Bernier's personal website.

The last post I wrote made me think I should pass on another gem we’ve found during our quest to rid our house of the extra “stuff.”  We (and by we, I mean my fiancé) tend to accumulate electronics in various stages of functionality.  Since the beginning of this effort, we have disposed – in one way or another – of eight CRT televisions and monitors.  This was a huge relief to me.  Even more of a relief is how easy this was!

We discovered Goodwill in the process.  One of the TVs – a small one that was fully functional – we donated to Goodwill.  It was as easy as handing it to them at the door.  We sold two more on Craigslist.  And one other (broken) TV we sold on eBay.

And finally, we recycled four TVs and monitors.  I was prepared to shell out some money for this, knowing from a previous job that electronic recycling facilities, even county-run efforts like your local household hazardous waste facility, have to charge to break even.  But a little research revealed that Best Buy will now accept almost ANY electronics for recycling!  Even better, they charge $10 for CRTs but then help you out by giving you a $10 gift card to the store.  That’s the best we’re going to get for an environmentally friendly disposal of these dinosaurs!  Other items, like cell phones, printers, cables & such are all accepted free of charge at Best Buy.  I hope this encourages you to recycle rather than trash those unwanted, outdated electronics.

By the way – you don’t need to search out the household hazardous waste facility to dispose of your burned out CFL lightbulbs, either.  Home Depot accepts those free of charge.

This is a how-we-save post but also a how-we-get-rid-of-crap post

My fiancé was a mechanic for years and still does a decent amount of work on cars.  He decided to clean out the garage and managed to get together a large pile of scrap metal in the process: broken lamps, old filing cabinets, lots of car (and moped!) parts, and an old toolbox.  He took all this to the local metal recycling business and earned $28.70 – and cleaned out the garage in the process!

For us it can be hard to get in clean-out mode, but as others have mentioned on this blog before, it can be easier than you think to earn some money from “stuff” that is no longer valuable to you.  We have been in full-on eBay mode as well, posting broken televisions, cameras, etc. to generate some spare change.

I hope the scrap metal tip will be useful to some of you.  I would never have thought of it myself.  Good luck cleaning your house & hopefully making some money in the process!