Most of us have received our post-holiday credit card bills, and usually that signals a need to ‘clamp down’ and get into savings mode for the next little while.

To be honest, though, holidays or not…it seems that lately everybody seems to be speaking about how expensive things have become…especially food.

I have one word for you: CAULIFLOWER.

I’ll venture a guess that most, if not all of you, know exactly why I am mentioning this word in a post about saving money. If you don’t know why, then I’ll elaborate: The prices of cauliflower have been through.the.roof.  As in $6.99 per head.  As in when I see it for $3.99, I get excited. (This past week was even more exciting – but I will get to that later 😉 )

So whether it’s post-holiday savings mode, or just generally trying to stay within budget despite price increases, it seems to me that many of us are concerned with how much we are spending.

This is where the Flipp app comes in.

I discovered Flipp several months ago and fell in love almost instantly. I kept thinking “I need to write about this!!!” Well, I almost jumped for joy when I received an email asking me if I’d like to work with Flipp on a blog post about how to use this fab app to save $$$.

YES!!!! No brainer…I’d had it on my To-do list anyway!

So, there are a lot of aspects to Flipp, and I will try to touch upon all of them, but I may miss some features that you will discover on your own, when you try it 🙂

Here are 6 ways to save $$$ using Flipp:

1- PERUSE FLYERS for stores that you frequent (When you sign up for Flipp, you program which stores’ flyers you wish to be available on your account as well as your postal code to make sure you see local versions)

2- ADD TO YOUR CLIPPINGS by simply tapping an item of interest to you with your finger. Flipp will actually circle the item for you.  If you decide you don’t want the item circled any longer, or if you circled it by mistake – tap again to erase.

3- SEARCH FOR ANY ITEM and Flipp will bring up the ads as in IMAGES from the flyers for anywhere that item is on sale. It need not be a grocery item, by the way.  It can also be an iPod, a Pasta Maker, or a set of pens that you are looking for. (Those are my own real-life examples, by the way)

4- CREATE A SHOPPING LIST within the app. When you do, all deals related to that item will become available to you by clicking on the item. (Warning: sometimes deal items will show up because of a related word – not a big deal, I just ignore these)

5- KNOW WHERE TO SHOP: If you are a multi-store per week shopper, you’ll know exactly where to buy what for the current week. If you can only make it to one store, you can take a look at all of your clippings and perhaps decide where it makes the most sense to do your shopping this week, based on what you need and where you’ll save the most (or spend the least!)

6- COMPARE WITH SALES ELSEWHERE If you happen to notice some in-store specials which were not advertised and aren’t sure if the prices are better at the store you were planning on visiting later (or tomorrow) – enter the item into Flipp and compare with sale prices elsewhere.  I did this yesterday at Adonis- I knew I’d likely be going to Provigo by Friday so I checked if the in-store special on lemons beat the sale price at Provigo.  It did, so I bought them at Adonis!

7- COMPARE WITH UPCOMING SPECIALS If you check Flipp on the day before the flyers switch over, and your schedule allows you to choose whether you shop today or tomorrow, you can actually compare the current specials with those of the upcoming week to decide which day would be better to shop. In Montreal, the flyers tend to switch on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, depending on the store.

I am IN LOVE with this app. I talk about it at get-togethers with friends, in business meetings and generally with anyone who will listen, which is pretty much everyone… because everybody is happy to save money!  Even if you don’t feel you NEED to save money, wouldn’t you rather save up on your weekly purchases?!?

This past week I used Flipp to peruse the flyers and circle items on sale as well as to check where the items on my list were on sale (it’s not hard to miss items in the flyers…they can be pretty ‘busy’ 😉

My best find?  CAULIFLOWER…2/$5 at Adonis!!!

Since I was only able to make it to one store yesterday and many of the flyers switch today, I had checked the new specials for the upcoming week. and Super C had cauliflower coming up at $1.99, which is INSANE these days, but there were other things that I wanted to get at Adonis, so a special trip to Super C didn’t make sense for me this week. Provigo also had some great specials I would have taken advantage of had I been able to make it there, but given my time constraints, I made the best choice for my particular shopping list and this week, that happened to be Adonis.

Full disclosure: This shop was in addition to the weekly Costco run which my hubby did this week 🙂 Again, although Costco’s prices are REALLY hard to beat, if there is a deal that can beat them, Flipp will let me know!

So how did I do at Adonis?  The photo shows some of the items I picked up because I found the specials on Flipp

I got Gala apples at $0.99/lb, 10 lbs of Russet potatoes for $1.49 and of course 4 heads of cauliflower at 2/$5.  (I kid you not I saw a woman with a cart holding one child and possible 20 heads plus a box on the underside with even more cauliflower!)

The red potatoes were actually a non-advertised in-store special (10 lbs/$1.99)…and I was in the mood 🙂  I used Flipp while in the store to make sure the price would not be better at Provigo (where I will likely be on Friday) and sure enough, it wasn’t.

I already told you about the lemons.  The blackberries were also an in-store special and I was able to compare with sale prices elsewhere using Flipp, to determine that it was worth buying them where I was.

BOTTOM LINE: I saved money. And that is better for my bottom line 🙂

Tempted to download Flipp?  Check out their website at www.flipp.com/app you can link to downloads for your iPhone or Android 🙂

I would LOVE to hear from you if you try it- I am obsessed with this app and I am sure you will love it too!!!!

Wishing you a day of saving!

Tanya

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