It's a buyer's market

The good thing about a recession is that it affects everyone, buyers and sellers alike. So, chances are that if you are having a hard time coming up with the money to make a purchase, other buyers are too and what that means for sellers is that they are more motivated to price their product competitively in order to win your business. In other words, your money can get you more when money is tight. So you need to be smart about how you interact with a seller. Their goal is going to get you to spend as much as possible. Your goal is to convince the seller that they should give you their lowest price possible or risk losing your business entirely. Any seller would rather have some business, even if it is at a discounted rate, than no business at all.

Look for deals online

More and more sites are popping up that are designed to help buyers like you find the best deals out there. Grocery item discount lists are among the more popular sites that offer these services. As many of these sites focus on local deals, it is easiest to search for the sites by area. Just use your internet browser to search for a grocery savings site in your area. If you cannot find a site that organizes these savings and displays them for you, you can always go directly to the source for your coupons. For example, if you buy a certain type of name brand juice, try going to the website for that brand and searching for a manufacturer's coupon.

It never hurts to ask

There is never any harm in asking for a deal. If you plan on making a purchase and can be somewhat flexible about where and when that purchase is made, use your situation to your advantage. You can do this by asking the sales person what kind of deal they can give you. Tell them that you are looking for a discount, ask about any special deals, or incentives. Be prepared to walk away from a deal. Sales people are trained to make pricing decisions based on perceptions. If they believe that you really will walk away from the deal unless you hear a better offer, they will give you that offer. Of course this principle applies to larger purchases, it would be ridiculous to try to barter your way through every menial transaction.

Energy efficiency

One of the best ways to get more for your money is on the things that you spend money on every day. Energy consumption takes up a huge amount of our monthly expenses. By finding ways to be more energy efficient, we can make changes and small investments now that we could benefit from financially for a long period of time later. The added benefits of these changes are that they are maintenance free as well. Once you make a change, like switch out your old light bulbs for more energy efficient ones, you don't even have to think about it until the bulb burns out. All the while you are still saving money!