$mart Suzy: Winners for KHP tickets, stay
healthy, jump-start your savings, coupons

They both “liked” KyForward on Facebook and have signed up for our daily news and Smart Money emails. Hope you’ll do the same by clicking the connections. Tell your friends – there are some really fabulous giveaways coming soon!

Stay healthy – it’s the key to good living

Keeping healthy is a Smart Money move, you know. With health care costs climbing, it make sense to focus on prevention and wellness – so you can use your money in ways you want to as you live an active life.

May is stroke awareness month so thanks to UK HealthCare for offering FREE stroke screenings throughout the month at various locations across the UK HealthCare Campus.

Screenings are avaible for you (or your loved one) to learn their risk of stroke and get tips on how to reduce risk factors at the following locations:

Please take advantage. Strokes kill. According to the American Stroke Association:

UK HealthCare also offers a stroke risk card and education sheet online. For more information, or to download these forms, visit ukhealthcare.uky.edu.

Please, please, Suzy friends, do all you can to prevent strokes – for yourself and those you love. Suzy speaks from the painful experience of her own dear parents – and does not wish this experience for you.

Tips to get on a savings track

Good advice from The Simple Dollar Thesimpledollar.com with the additional good advice that everyone can save. The hardest part is getting started. They offer 100 tips, but here are just a few. Think about it. Choose one or two – and practice! Pennies do add up to dollars – and you can live well, save some, and enjoy! Remember Suzy’s friend, Gene Bigler, and her great advice: Being frugal is good, but you can’t forget to enjoy – as in drinking wine from the good glass.

Turn a critical eye to your “collections.” Most people collect something – what do you collect? Is it something that consistently brings you joy? Or is it something that you just do out of habit? Does the collection itself have value? Could you perhaps “trim the fat” by getting rid of duplicates or the items you no longer use? Also, could you perhaps cut down on your spending on that hobby? Focus on trimming the things you don’t feel strongly about – if you dig into things that bother you, you’re going to eventually relapse.

Sign up for every free customer rewards program you can. Even if you rarely shop at that place, having a rewards card for that place will eventually net you some coupons and discounts. Here’s the trick: create a Gmail address just for these mailings, collect every card you can, and then check that account for extra coupons whenever you’re ready to shop.

Make your own gifts instead of buying stuff from the store. (This includes Mother’s Day gifts, Suzy friends). You can make food mixes, candles, bread, cookies, soap, and all kinds of other things at home quite easily and inexpensively. These make spectacular gifts for others because they involve your homemade touch, plus often they’re consumable, meaning they don’t wind up filling someone’s closet with junk. Even better – include a personal handwritten note with the gift. This will make it even more special than anything you could possibly buy.

Master the 30-day rule. Whenever you’re considering making an unnecessary purchase, wait thirty days and then ask yourself if you still want that item. Often, you’ll find that the urge to buy has passed and you’ll have saved yourself some money by simply waiting.

Write a list before you go shopping – and stick to it. One should never go into a store without a good idea of what one will be buying while in there. Make a careful plan of what you’ll buy before you go, then stick strictly to that list when you go to the store. Don’t put anything in the cart that’s not on the list, no matter how tempting, and you’ll come out of the store saving a bundle.

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