They say that difficult times bring out the best in people and many of today's moms are rising to the occasion.You have to deal with getting the kids everything they need for school and getting around, while trying to save a little money, and keep within the family budget, and that is without life's little interruptions of car repairs and refrigerator failures.Today's smart moms save time and money between shuttling the kids around, taking care of the household chores, and running errands for yourself, the kids, and your own mom.

1. Plan on shopping online instead of going to the mall. If you do some homework ahead of shopping you can often save some serious money. Signup for your favorite store's newsletter and they will e-mail you usually two days of so before a sale and tell you what the best bargains and deals are going to be. Many stores offer online coupons, in-store coupons and other promotional money-saving info.

Unless you sign up for their newsletter you may never learn about these bargains.

2. When you're shopping for the more expensive items doing price comparisons can save you big. You could do a Google search for "compare price product x" and come up with half a dozen good possibilities to save more money. Shopping for expensive products at several different online stores can pay off for you. Scan the item page for unadvertised discounts and online coupon codes to save even more. Don't be in a big hurry to get it now because you can almost always find a cheaper price if you look hard and long enough.

3. If you do end up going to a local store you should know that iPhone has a free app to scan bar codes. To use this little money-saving gem is point your iPhone camera at a product barcode. A few seconds later you will see a complete description of the item and maybe as many as a few more screens of listings of online stores that are offering the same item for less money. You have the proof in your hand maybe you could even get a discount at the store that would match the lowest discounted online price tags.

4. You should know that many stores accept competitor couponscoupons that are expired, and coupons that you can print off the Internet. If you don't ask you will never know. It is shopping smartly and it can't hurt anyone. The worst thing that can happen is that you save some cash.The more you can stretch the budget the better it will be.