Tag Archives: saving

Checkout 51: A Student’s Best Friend

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I have been meaning to write a blog post on the app called Checkout 51 for a while but wanted to test it out a bit myself first. All I have to say is I give it a big thumbs up. I had previously written about Not So Extreme Couponing in the hopes of trying to find a better alternative for students when it comes to couponing or at least a less intense version. But I definitely will call Checkout 51 a student’s best friend.

So What is Checkout 51? Why should you care?

Well it’s an app for your iPhone (Google Play is currently listed as coming soon on their website) that has weekly deals that refresh every Wednesday. These savings range from $0.50 to even more than $2.00 depending on the product. And the best part of all is the fact that you don’t have to carry around coupons! Instead the savings are redeemed by taking a picture of your receipt by using the app and then selecting the products you purchased that are on sale through Checkout 51. Then some magical elves within the app will approve the credits (money back) and it will appear within your account on the app.

Checkout51

Checkout 51-Current Offers Example

Once you reach $20 in credits a cheque will be mailed to you which is a nice little amount that can help pay for your bills or whatever else you choose to do with it.

Something to remember- some weekly deals are limited in quantity and may run out before weeks end. Also all deals can only be redeemed once, which means you can’t buy 3 of the same thing on sale through Checkout 51 and save on all 3 products through 1 account.

Why is this better than standard coupons?

Personally I have even started to not like using coupons, I know it’s a shocker but it’s true. I have really begun to hate bringing my coupons with me and have often forgotten them. I really think students don’t like the idea of using paper coupons and carrying them around so Checkout 51 provides a great alternative. What’s great about this app is that you buy the products, don’t need to deal with the hassle of coupons and instead just use your iPhone to snap a pic of your receipt. The amount you save is then sent to you at a later date, which means you might just make better use of the money than if you just saved those $’s with standard coupons.

What I’ve bought so far.

  • Corn Flakes-$3.00 @ Metro and used a $2.00 Checkout 51 coupon.
  • Colgate Toothbrush-$1.00 @ NoFrills and used a $1.00 Checkout 51 coupon (woo free!)

If you want to save even more money when grocery shopping be sure to check out my post Simple and Easy Ways to Save on Groceries

Want to learn more about how to use the app in a step by step format? Check out this great post by Mrs. January called Checkout 51-The Ultimate Guide

Make sure to download Checkout51, it’s a great app, you can save some money while grocery shopping really easily and hassle-free and then get a nice cheque of at least $20. What more do you want?

Wants vs Needs Challenge

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After c hecking out Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s blog Making Money Make Sense I stumbled upon a blog post called Wants vs Needs. You may know her from Till Debt Do Us Part. Simply put and blunt, Gail explained that we all believe that everything we buy is a need, but in fact most often these purchases are wants. So I did a bit of challenge myself to see what kind of purchases I was making. Were they all needs? or were most of them frilly purchases that I could do without aka wants.

What you should do: Write your own list of your week, 2-week (however long you want) expenditures. Figure out if they are wants vs needs. Look over them again and make sure your needs really are needs and not in fact wants. Then evaluate how you are spending your money. Could you have made lunch more that week instead of buying food out? It’s definitely a great way to really think about how you are spending your money. You can be pretty surprised how all the little things add up.

Here’s a breakdown of my spending for a week (don’t judge me on any of this)

Thursday

  • WANT-Bulk Barn-$1.56
  • NEED-Metro-$3.00-Used Checkout 51 to get $2 off that Cereal..btw
  • NEED-TTC Fare-$3.00

Friday

  • NEED-Bought some TTC Tokens-7 tokens for $18.55
  • WANT-LCBO-$18 Bought myself some Shock Top Beer & a bottle of wine for my mom

Saturday

  • WANT-Went to Il Bun Ji-$23 for 5 beers, Bibimbap, mussels, popcorn and fruits (I’ll be writing a review about this awesome place soon btw!)
  • WANT-Smoke’s Poutine-$7 (I was super lame and bought traditional…who does that?)

Monday

  • NEED-Bought TTC Tokens-$18.55 (All those weekend outings cost me some additional coin)

Tuesday

  • WANT-Bulk Barn-$1.80

Wednesday

  • NEED-Bought throat lozenges since I’ve been battling a cold for 3 weeks. $4.50 

Thursday

  •  WANT-Went out for lunch at work-$11 (I could have eaten my packed lunch)

Conclusions

WANTS- 6 purchases

NEEDS-5 purchases

Basically you may be wondering, how are you even alive, aren’t you buying food? My life is a bit less studenty right now since I have been living with my parents, who I love to death. They have been letting me live rent free and feeding me since January so they have helped me reduce a lot of my costs. Additionally, I’m pretty happy with my almost 50/50 split on wants vs needs, and felt like I was really fair when I determined a want vs need. For the most part, transportation has been my most common need lately, but I have been fortunate enough to get rides to work with my cousin since January, I just take the TTC home. I also managed to take the TTC all the way home from Christie and Bloor on Saturday, saving myself a ton of money in cab fare (would have cost me a good $25 dollars 1 way probably).

Also I’m wondering where my extra TTC tokens went…pretty sure my wallet eats tokens.

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