Giving Through Saving

Foundation

Giving Through Saving

master5 years ago08 mins

Are you a saver? Are you a handcrafter? Do you enjoy helping others? I fall into all 3 categories which was the basis for starting my blog; Coupons, Crafts and Causes earlier this year. I wanted to educate others how easy and inexpensive it is to help others and give back no matter how much time and/or money you have. There are an endless number of non-profit organizations that are looking for items to be donated. There are several items that you throw away or recycle on a daily basis that someone within your community, our country or even our troops overseas could put to good use.
One of the easiest ways to help is to save the Box Tops for Education emblems found on a select variety of General Mills products and Labels for Education emblems found on Campbell’s products (soups, Franco American, Swanson, Prego and more). Both of these can be collected and donated to a participating school. You can send them with a student or employee, drop them off at the school office or mail them in. The school earns so much per emblem submitted to use towards a variety of items for the school system. We have been saving them since both programs began. Our kids are now through school, so we save them for one of our friend’s to send with her children.
Did you know that you can donate your pop can tabs to participating McDonald’s Restaurants to benefit families of the Ronald McDonald House?
Another easy way is to donate your newspapers and magazines to a variety of different organizations. In my area, there are several local schools and churches with Newspaper Bins in their parking lot where you drop them off anytime.
I use my couponing skills to get products for free or almost free that we won’t use to donate to local food drives or pantries. Even if you aren’t an avid couponer there are ways in which you could still save and donate. For example, when your store has a Buy 1; Get 1 Free sale and you don’t need 2 of a particular item, consider donating the 2nd one. One of our local stores runs a Buy 10 participating items and get the 11th one free. If you only need 9 items, consider picking up the additional items to donate. During school supply season, consider picking up a few of the inexpensive school supplies while at the grocery, drug or office supply store and donate to a school supply drive.
Did you know that our troops can use expired manufacturer coupons? The PX and Commissaries will allow them to use expired coupons for a certain length of time. You can also send non-expired coupons as well.
I enjoy sewing, crocheting and card making. There are many organizations (non-profit and otherwise) that are in need of handmade items to donate to those in need. I’m a member of a quilt club that donates handmade quilts to those with serious illnesses, …

Tips for Using

Mailing Bags and Other Packaging Materials – Saving You Money On Postage

master7 years ago07 mins

They’re simply the most commonly used method to package items along with bubble padded bags in the postal forklift toyota world and if you send them properly through the post you could save a lot of money in the long run.
Firstly what are they and what are they made out of?
Mailing bags are a tough plastic polythene material manufactured specifically for postal and delivery services. Each is light in weight and has a super strong glue which allows you to ‘peel and seal’ to ensure you have a super tight self-seal on the courier bag. Manufacturers who produce high quality materials can boast a super strong seal which can’t be opened unless it is physically torn into, gone are the days where bags can be peeled open and items go missing or get damaged.
They are manufactured in a variety of sizes, most companies can supply as small as 6.5″ x 9″ inches and as large as 24″ x 28″ inches. You can even purchase bags for odd sized products like car windscreen wipers but the most common stock sent out are DVDs, CDs and clothes. As well as different sizes they can also provide a mixture of colours including grey, pink, blue, orange, green, black and white. Perfectly ideal for a business which works around a colour scheme and wishes to create an image even through the delivery process. It is always important to protect the environment, so environmental friendly postage sacks are available which either 100% biodegradable or recyclable.
What are the benefits?
If you sell products on the internet then it’s about time you joined millions of other sellers who use these polythene sacks generally they save you a lot of time and money. When you’re ready to post an item you simply put the product in the mail bag, peel back the tape and seal it. The next step is to put an address on the parcel; this can be done one of many ways. A popular method is to print off sticky labels or documents enclosed holders which works perfectly with the polythene texture, thankfully for those who do not want to go to this effort can easily write on the plastic with a biro pen.
How do they save you money at the post office?
Many sellers use traditional methods to post their products, such as visiting the post office or using a courier. What a lot of sellers do not realise is that a lot of money can be saved. Most post offices use “pricing in proportion” this basically means the postage bags used will be priced according to how they fit through the post box. The methods are either a letter, large letter or packet and generally most bulky items will be sent a packet unless they physically look and feel like letters. What most people don’t understand is that you can quite easily use the large letter method instead of the packet to save you up to AÃ¯Â¿Â½1.00 or …