Consumer Affairs: Useful tidbits from the Web

Did you know that you can use old used carpet to get rid of weeds in your garden? Who knew? I read an article recently on a great website, www.everydaycheapskate.com, with all sorts of clever tips and found this little tidbit.

Well the carpet thing is great, if you have any around. Similar to using cardboard or newspaper, simply lay it around the plants, where you want to avoid weeds, and cover with mulch if you want to hide it.

Here’s another great tip: if you are looking to buy ground beef, check out the price per pound first. You may find that the price per pound of a London broil is cheaper. 

If so, ask the butcher to grind it up for you and save some cash. The same goes for a whole chicken, check the price per pound in comparison to pre-cut chicken; if the whole works out to be cheaper you can always ask the butcher to cut it up for you.

Another great bit of useful content I found on www.choice.com had good information about the sales tricks that supermarkets use to get us to spend more money. The following two pieces of valuable information will help you to keep your food spending in check.

When you are in the grocery store, look high and low, because the products that make the largest profit margin are usually at eye level and these items can be pricier — the bargains are to be found above or below the products at eye level.

Beware of aisle ends, they are often the most profitable area for product manufacturers and they often pay a premium to have their product placed there. These displays also act as a welcome mat to lure shoppers farther down the aisle.  Good to know, because some of the items on the aisle ends look like a good buy but if they are not with like products it is difficult to comparison shop.

The last bit of useful information I found this week on the Internet regards saving money, something we all want to do. 

I found a great website, www.thissimpledollar.com. This site is respected as one of the best personal-finance sites on the Internet and has loads of great money saving content.

They had a list of 100 tips for saving money and I am sharing two of the suggested steps from their list.

Master the ten second rule. Whenever you pick up an item in order to add it to your cart or to take it to the checkout, stop for ten seconds and ask yourself why you’re buying it and whether you actually need it or not. 

If you can’t find a good answer, put the item back. This keeps me from making impulse buys on a regular basis. 

Master the thirty-day rule. Whenever you’re considering making an unnecessary purchase, wait thirty days and then ask yourself if you still want that item. 

Quite often, you’ll find that the urge to buy has passed and you’ll have saved yourself some money by simply waiting. 

If you want, you can even keep a “thirty-day list” where you write down the item and the day you’ll reconsider it, but I prefer just to keep this one in my head — that way, I often just forget about the unimportant things. 

Hopefully you found this information useful and I suggest that you visit the above mentioned web-sites for more useful tips, advice and content.

At Consumer Affairs, we offer guidance to consumers, businesses and other organizations. If we receive a complaint and believe that a violation of the law has occurred, we present the complaint to the business and request its assistance in resolving the problem. 

Before contacting us we recommend that you first visit our web-site, www.ca.gov.bm and read the relevant advice. If you are unable to find the information you require on our web-site, please e-mail us at [email protected]. 

Honey Adams Bell is the education officer for Consumer Affairs.