In this past year I've written about a moderately wide range of topics such as budgeting, public finance and index funds. This week I'm stepping away a bit from the more austere financial stuff to discuss ways in which you can save money. By save money, I don't mean literally save money in a savings accounts or GIC, or whatever. I mean ways in which you can reduce your spending in order to have more money to invest or pay off debt.

There are really only three basic things you can do with your money: invest, spend, and pay down debt (although I suppose paying your taxes would be a fourth). In order to have as much money as possible to invest or pay down debt, you need to either spend less or earn more. It can be pretty tough to earn more, particularly as a student. If your earning capacity is at its peak, then the only other way to invest more or pay debt more debt is to spend less.

Spending less can be hard, too. Certain parts of a person's budget are unchangeable, such as rent, car payments and things of that nature. But one of the most elastic parts of a person's budget is their grocery bill. With the massive amount of flyers and coupons out there, it's incredibly easy to save money on food if you're a savvy shopper.

For example, every Tuesday the Superstore has a 10 per cent discount for students. You just need to show your student card to the cashier. Ten per cent is huge, particularly for something like groceries, which is something that you have to spend money on each week, one way or another. There are no investments out there currently where you can earn a 10 per cent return, so getting 10 per cent of your money back for something that you have to buy is a fantastic deal.

That's really the key in the current financial economy: you can probably save more by savvy shopping than you can with many of the low-interest investment products currently available. For example, most GICs are currently ranging somewhere between one to three per cent annual interest at best. That means if you put $100 in a GIC today, at three per cent interest, a year from now you'd have $103.

However, if you spent $100 on groceries, but then got a 10 per cent discount, you would be saving $10, which is far more than what you would earn in your three per cent GIC. You can then put this extra $10 to work even more by investing it at that three per cent rate, or using it to pay down debt, starting with high-interest debt (such as credit card debt, which can trend up to about 20 per cent annual interest).

Keep this in mind the next time you're shopping for groceries. You can find more info and news on flyers, deals, and coupons at web sites like smartcanucks.ca and redflagforums. com.

Jeremy Wall is studying Professional Financial Services at Fanshawe College. He holds an Honour's Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Ontario.