As economy is still on the gloomy side, everybody is trying to spend less and hopefully to save a few bucks here and there to put aside for little luxury things once in a while.

There are a few things we can do to stretch our money.

For grocery and necessities shopping:

First, buy newspaper on the day that includes a lot of fliers. Check the fliers to see what is on sale and which store's sale is better. If there is coupon for the food items you need to buy, cut the coupons out and put them in your wallet.

Check stores' website to see what is on sale for the week. If they have the things you need to buy, make a list.

Check out websites that shares coupons to see whether the item you would like to buy has a coupon or not. If it does, print off the coupon and bring it to the store. It does not seem significant savings, but the savings add up over the time.

Join store's frequent buyer program if it costs nothing to join. If the store gives reward to third-party reward program, and that reward program is free to join, then join that reward program. Remember to have the reward program's card swiped or scanned to collect reward points everytime before you pay when making a purchase.

The rewards for each purchase may seem too insignificant in one or even ten transactions. However, if you shop for groceries or necessity items on a regular basis, the rewards from all these purchases will one day get you enough points to redeem a gift card or merchandise, or even the next time all your purchases can be free by redeeming the points!

Sometimes, stores give bonus rewards towards some items when you buy 2 or more. If you will need the same item in a few weeks and the item is currently also on sale, then buy 2 of them to get the bonus rewards. Of course, if the item is regular price, you would not want to pay regular price just to get the bonus rewards, unless it is a huge bonus rewards. This way, it will help your reward points to accumulate a lot faster.

Usually, there are special sales over the weekend and spend certain amount will receive some freebies like movie tickets or n times bonus points. If you need to purchase a few things, wait until that promotion day and buy them in one transaction to get the freebies.

Shopping for clothing and accessories:

Stores always have sales, it is whether the items you are interested are on sale or not, and how much is the discount. If you shop at department stores, shop when they have a good sale. Sometimes there is additional savings from the already marked down items, if the item is what you are looking for, take advantage of the extra savings from the marked down price.

Marked down items are not always bad, a lot of times clothings are marked down because there is not many other sizes. Sometimes, the item may just be missing a button, if the piece of clothing includes extra button, doing some sewing and save additional extra % off is well worth it.

However, there are times clothings are marked down because there is problem with the cutting, the sewing. Normally, no one like these clothings, buy them only if you are really in need of additional clothing for work etc...

Shopping online:

If you like to shop online, there are rebates websites that rebate some percentage of your spending to you if you join them and shop through their site. Some rebates websites pay out better than others, do some research and sign up for the better one. Normally, these websites are free to join, Overtime, you will accumulate enough, you can request a check or deposit to your PayPal account if you have one.

Before making an online purchase, search if the store has any online discount offer code, for example, free shipping, additional percentage off, freebies, gift. You can search the store on search engine to see if there is any online coupon code, make sure the coupon is not outdated. Copy down the coupon code, sign-in to the rebates website and click through their link to the store, put your items and enter the coupon code before checkout. Just one more way to save a few dollars!