I never thought I would be that lady. The one at the grocery store.
With her coupons. All one hundred of them.
But alas, here I am, at the ripe old age of 26, clipping coupons, scanning ads, making lists.
And I love it. I've recently gotten into "super-couponing," where you combine coupons with sales to get a lot of items for very cheap, or sometimes even free. And so far, with limited effort, I've been able to save a nice chunk of change on things I already was going to buy. I am busy. So I've kept it simple. You can make a full time job out of this, going to different stores to get the best deal on things. But I don't have time for that. Nor are we really that strapped for money. So, instead of making it an obsession to get the-best-deal-that-ever-was on every item, I just do what I can in a short amount of time. It takes me about 20 minutes to cut out and organize what I've got every week or week and 1/2, and so far, I've been saving around $20 a trip. And that's a big part of a grocery budget for a family of two. Trust me, I don't make a dollar a minute at the hospital. This has been a good investment of time for me so far.
My best deal last week:
Target had a sale of "buy four boxes of cereal, get a $5 gift certificate." I paired that with two "buy two, get $1 off" coupons, and all said (with the gift card), the four boxes of cereal cost me $3. Pretty good, huh?
My biggest dilemna:
Trying to still buy/cook healthy things while using the coupons. A lot of the coupons are for packaged meals/boxed items that aren't so good for the ol' arteries. Even though they are lucrative deals, I've tried to use them in moderation. I also try not to buy things I wouldn't normally buy if I didn't have a coupon in order to not spend more money "saving" money.
