I might be The Bargain Queen, but I’m not the only bargain queen — there are lots of people who are, or have the potential to be, a bargain queen.

To me, anyone who manages to look good, eat well and live comfortably on a tight budget, can call themselves a bargain queen… although it helps if you know how to find great deals as well!

If you’d like to be a bargain queen, here’s the four steps you need to take to become one.

Step one: have your own personal style

The key to getting great deals is knowing who you are and what works for you. Following every trend will inevitably lead you to make some big mistakes. So will being seduced into buying anything with a big markdown, regardless of whether you need it.

Having your own style is about making choices that meet your own needs, without worrying whether you’ll be fashionable.
If you’d like some tips on how to find your style, read my article on developing personal style.

Step two: skip the ’should’s

There are lots of things you ’should’ buy — all those things that everyone’s buying, that you continually hear you need or that all the people you know seem to already have. These include everything from fad items to cars, because one person’s essential is another person’s unused purchase.

If you buy everything you’re told you should, the best you can do is ‘keep up with the Joneses’ — and that’s an expensive and un-fulfilling exercise.

If you want to save a lot of money, learn not to buy things just because someone else says you ’should’, or because everyone you know already has one.

If you genuinely need something, go right ahead, but if you didn’t know you needed it until someone said so, think twice before you buy!

Step three: think before you spend

There are many needs you can meet with brain power rather than cash.

The easiest, most convenient option is almost always the most expensive, so you can save a lot of money by learning to think before you spend. Why do you need what you’re about to buy? Is there a cheaper way to meet that need?

This technique works for everything from snacks to home furnishings — if you think about the best way to meet your need, it’ll often cost you less than if you bought the first thing you saw.

Step four: seek out great deals

To many people, this seems like step one: learn how to find great deals on things. To me, that’s a bit backwards. If you’re not clear about exactly what you need and why, it’s easy to be seduced by a juicy discount and buy something you never use. That’s a mistake I often made in my early days as a bargain hunter, and one many other people have told me they’ve made too.

Want to learn more about finding great deals? Check out my bargain shopping 101, or keep reading this site!

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