Alrighty, folks. The "wannabe" extreme couponer is back after shopping trip No. 2 in my feeble attempt to be "cool" like those money saving craze-O's on TLC's, "Extreme Couponing". Some of you may have seen my initial blog entry on this subject a couple of weeks ago where I spent approximately 45 minutes clipping coupons and browsing circulars from 3 different grocery stores in an effort to see how much money I could save on my grocery bill. I came home with a grand savings total of $17.00. Not bad for my first try--at least I thought it was pretty good. Some might say, "Quit now, coupon loser!", but unto those nay-sayers I say, "Oh baby--I'm just gettin' warmed up!".
I needed to go to the grocery store today and just happened to see a sign hanging outside of my local Safeway store last week while I was pumping gas that said, "Double Coupons EVERYDAY". Well holy crap!...what do ya know?! I was a little deflated after my first couponing attempt and couldn't figure out how those "Extreme Couponers" did it, but this changes things! Double coupons? I'M IN!!!
I grabbed the circular for Safeway that came out in this week's mail. I browsed and saw things that I could purchase reasonably with my club card. Then I grabbed some newspapers I had left over from my first couponing attempt to see if I had coupons for items that were already on sale in the circular. Some of you might be thinking, "But those were old coupons you had!" However, some of the coupons were good for up to three months, so even though I had already purchased some similar items on my first shopping trip I HAD MORE COUPONS TO GO BACK FOR ANOTHER GO THIS WEEK (and did I mention Safeway has Double Coupons EVERYDAY??? *WOOT WOOT*).
I had thoroughly browsed the items in the circular and I had a plan on navigating through the store. I went with my twin 8.5 year old daughters, and normally they are a total pain in the butt to shop with ("Mom, are we done yet? My head hurts. I'm tired. I need to go to the bathroom. MOM!...grocery shopping is SO boring!!!" yada yada), but today I put them to work. I would give them a coupon and tell them to hunt down the item. Then they had to read the coupon to make sure they were getting the right item and the right size for the coupon deal. Then I would have them look at the price of the item, look at the savings on the coupon, then double the savings on the coupon, and subtract it from the total price of the store item. They got a lesson in math, saving money, and reading all at the same time. Ka-CHOW! I'm on fire. *Z-snap* My kids aren't going to be the braindead dumb ones after summer break. ;)
Long story short--I ended up going to Safeway and scoring BIG between my coupons and my Club Card savings. I had an entire cart full of groceries and I saved nearly $40.00. Then I took the rest of my coupons to Super Target and saved another $7.00. I got $160.00 worth of groceries for approximately $110.00 AND it's enough to feed my family for two weeks. NOT TOO SHABBY!
It makes a HUGE difference to have a store that does double coupons. However, buyer beware. Safeway marks up their prices much higher than Super Target so it was actually cheaper to get some of the items at Target and just get single coupon savings. I also had items that I got for free because of my coupons that also had mail-in rebates of up to $2.00 so they are PAYING me to take their product off the shelf. MY KIND OF SHOPPING!
Stay tuned as I try to up my savings in the coming weeks. I never thought clipping coupons was worth my time. However, it has become a ton of fun, and now I have 47 of my hard earned dollars in my pocket as opposed to sitting in some cash register. Not to mention I had a fun time shopping with my kids--and that rarely happens. IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT. :)
Hey, so you're new to this kid, and I hate to see you struggle... Let me offer you some tips on how this is done.
ReplyDelete1st - do find an Internet site that has already done all your research for you. Down here it's southernsavers.com. There will be one just like it in your area and they'll research, every week (actually every day) what the best deals are and where they are. If you're SERIOUS about couponing, you need this type of support group.
2nd - stacking coupons, national and local, with store doubling, is how they get things for free. Not only that, they buy things they don't need, normally buy, or will ever consume in a natural lifetime. They also buy in quantities you couldn't believe.
3rd - if you're on the path to extreme couponing, you'll soon be calling your local paper's subscriptions service to find out how many Sunday editions you're allowed to have delivered by the paperboy. The answer is one per person in the household, with individual subscriptions.
4th - for the consummate super-couponer, there's EBay. Yup. People sell the craziest things. For example, recently you could have bought a stack of 10 $5.00 off coupons for about $5.00. You can buy stacks of National coupons you don't normally have the patience (or newspaper subscriptions) to clip.
5th - and finally for these junior tips, NEVER buy ANYTHING not on SALE. It's the only way to get three shopping carts for $3.00.
Now go forth and conquer!
I forgot to mention, if you're not printing coupons from sites like coupons.com you're missing half the coupons available to you.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to coupon sites, you can find a couponing class that will walk you throug all of these tips and tricks, and more. You'll walk away with a ton of coupons, but the best part is meeting people who can help you out with all sorts of couponing stuff.