Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Coupon Crazy?


I’ve always wanted to be one of those people that clipped a few coupons and saved a couple bucks on the grocery bill every month. But, I never understood the people that were coupon crazy. You know what I am talking about, walls of toilet paper, 146 bottles of shampoo, 306 toothbrushes.  You get the idea.

 

As I’ve watched our grocery bill consistently go up every month for the past year or so, I was getting frustrated and disgusted.  I’m not buying anything crazy. Just the normal stuff – yogurts, granola bars, some fruit, veggies and the required case of Diet Coke.  Something has got to give.

 

I finally decided that I have to change how I shop for our family.  Time to get organized. I started with our local paper and looking at all of the grocery store ads and writing down a list by store and the price – only getting what we use, not buy anything just because it’s on sale.  That helped a little bit. But, then I got the big paper and started clipping coupons. Then signing up with a few sites to get notifications on sales.  I have to admit that I am a mom with a coupon organizer in my purse at all times.  Each pocket labeled… health/beauty, dry, paper, frozen, store and misc.

 

Now to take the time to make several stops at different stores. It’s not a fun thing to do but it will pay off – I promise you!

 

 

 

Look at my coupon/sale mission from last week! This is 4 stores…. 6 boxes of cereal, 5 pounds of chicken, 12 cans of soup, 4 boxes of Mac and Cheese, 2 dozen eggs, 2 lunch meats, 3 candy bars, 2 bottles of dish soap, 3 bottles of hand soap, 3 boxes of Kleenex, 3 bags of chips, avocado, pomegranate, pineapple, tortillas, fresh mozzarella, couscous, 5 cans of fruit, 1 gallon of milk, crescent rolls & 3 different sizes of baggies. Would you like to guess the grand total of this?????

 

$68.12

 

I couldn’t believe it. Best trip yet. My usual grocery trip is around $120 per week. This is cutting my monthly grocery bill in HALF! How can you argue with that?

 

A little extra time and preparation and creating a little extra space to store some of your stock ups.

 

What will you do with all of your extra money???