Now that Valentines Day is over, head over to the store to get some great deals on Valentines Day stuff before it’s all gone.

Got a sweet tooth? Get Valentines Day candy for 50% off at most stores. Or if you have kids at school, grab boxes of valentines day cards for their school Valentines Day party next year at a fraction of the cost.

Even though where I am, it will be freezing cold tomorrow, stores have stocked up on the first arrivals of Spring and Summer clothing, even though Spring and Summer seem far away.

The store I went to was having a clearance sale on much of their winter clothes. I got some cute pink Nascar baby outfits for my baby girl for a whopping $2 a piece.

Just like the best time to buy holiday items is AFTER the holiday, now it’s February and March will be here soon, now is the best time to take advantage of clearance sales and buy winter clothes. There’s still some harsh winter cold left for this winter, so the clothes I bought will get worn this season. But even if it was warm weather already I’d still buy the winter outfits and save them for next winter. So when winter gets here, instead of buying new clothes at full prices I’ll already have several new outfits bought at rock bottom prices.

In January I bought a Christmas dress for my baby girl. When I went to the store I certainly wasn’t planning on buying a Christmas dress. Christmas is 11 months away. But I saved by taking advantage of a clearance sale for leftover Christmas items the store is trying to get rid of.

You can save big by buying items leftover after any holiday. Stores want to get rid of their holiday items to make room for the next holiday so they slash the prices off of their leftover inventory 50-75%.

Their was a rack of cute Christmas dresses for little girls marked way down at only $6. These are really cute dresses and it’s certainly not everday you can find such a cute dress for only $6.

If I waited until around Christmas time when the Christmas stuff came out to by my baby girl a dress, I imagine it would cost around $20-$25. But now I already have her dress ready for when Christmas comes around and when I see the price tags on the dresses come Christmas time I will be smiling thinking of how much I saved.

I just get a thrill on huge savings!  I find it fun to see how much I can save.

Now Valentines day is coming up and the stores have all of their Valentines stuff out. I will wait until February 15th to see what I can find for 50-75% off.

I wanted to buy some toys for my kids and with my frugal mindset, the prices for the toys at Wal-Mart just seemed ridiculous. It’s mainly the name brand licensed toys like Disney and Sesame Street. I don’t want to pay five dollars for some little die cast car just because it is from the Disney movie “Cars” for example. I knew I could find much better deals online. At ebay I can find a huge variety of toys, cheaper prices, in like new condition, and stuff you can’t ever find at stores. Plus I’m mad at Wal-Mart for having a whopping 2 lanes open when I went there and two very long lines of angry customers who spent the loooong wait in line griping about how Wal-Mart is too cheap to open up a few more lanes, so I would rather spend my money where I don’t have to wait in line forever.

So I was browsing around ebay looking for toys to buy and I found some really good deals, but when I looked at the shipping price I went, “Whoa!”. There was an auction for a lot of care bear toys and the price for the toys themselves was good, but when I saw the shipping cost was $30, I kept on looking. Adding in the shipping cost, it’s no longer a bargain.

If you are a collector looking for a specific item, that’s something else, but if you are looking for a bargain to get the most bang out of your buck then you really have to pay attention to shipping costs.

I did find some good deals on toys with fair shipping costs, but I had to skip over a few auctions that had really high shipping costs. Sometimes the size and/or weight of items makes shipping expensive and then there are a few people who try to make a little profit from shipping costs but adding several dollars to the actual shipping cost.

Now is the best time to buy Christmas stuff like wrapping paper and candy, if you haven’t had your fill of sweets already.

Now Christmas is over the stores want to get rid of their Christmas inventory so they are slashing prices, 50-75% off the before Christmas price.

At Wal-Mart prices for Christmas items will be 50% off and anything left over the weekend will be 75% off.

This is the best time to grab that wrapping paper at deep discounts and store them in a closet for next Christmas. As fast as time flies, next Christmas will be here before you believe it.

If you love sweets, now is the time to grab that Christmas candy. Of course you can’t store it until next Christmas because it won’t be any good then, but if you like to eat sweets, get Christmas candy for rock bottom prices for your desserts.

When you go to stores, look at the Christmas items they are offering for 50-75% off and if there is anything you will use next Christmas, grab it up and save.

Have you ever wondered why Wal-Mart has 30 cash registers but only 3 are open, forcing their customers to wait in long lines causing lots of frustration and annoyance? With all the money people are spending, you think they’d hire a few more cashiers so customers don’t have to stand in line for ages.

And it’s even more irritating when the cashier needs to call a manager for some reason, which will force all the people waiting in line to keep waiting…waiting…and waiting. Ugh! Or don’t you love it when you’re behind someone who takes a year to write out a check?

Thanks to the internet, you can shop from home, at any time. You can shop on holidays or at 3am when other places are closed. You don’t have to get out and use gas and fight traffic. No waiting in lines and no rude cashiers.

There are so many online shops to choose from. Whatever you are looking for, you’re sure to find it. Do some comparison shopping to find out who offers the lowest price. To save even more money, buy second hand from ebay or craigslist. You can find what you are looking for, for about the same price or cheaper than you could at the retail store. There’s also sites that offer coupons and specials.

Also, try out some GTP-get paid to-sites, where you get rewarded for shopping. You can get cash back or gift cards for shopping for stuff you will buy anyway. Physical retail stores don’t offer that.

There’s only one downside to online shopping and that is you have to wait to get your stuff, whereas if you by it at your local store, you get it instantly. But not having to get in traffic, in the snow or rain, or wait in long lines in the midst of closed registers usually makes up for that.

If you love to read and love to save money, I will share the best place I have found to buy used books in good condition for cheap. It’s amazon.com

Yes, the library is cheaper-free to be exact, unless you have overdue books fees. But the library doesn’t always have the books you are interested in. In fact, they may not even have such a good selection at all. Libraries only are allowed to get so many new books a year, after all.

To buy used books for cheap on amazon, just go to amazon.com and search for the author, subject, or title you are interested in.

Then the results will come up and for a particular book, it will show you the new price, directly from amazon.com and it will show the lowest price from individual book sellers selling through the amazon.com website.

Then click on the link that will say something like 29 new and used books from .99 and it will take you to a page with all the used listings for that book.

You will see the price, the seller’s location, and the condition of the book. The book can be from fair condition to brand new. You can also see the seller’s id and feedback from previous buyers.

I have gotten several used books in good condition from amazon.com. The sellers sell from the amazon.com website and amazon takes a small percentage when a book sells. I bought several books for just a few bucks. Several times the shipping costs more than the books themselves. But even with the shipping charges, it is still cheaper than buying it brand new.