Friday, March 26, 2010

I'm one of THOSE people

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.

Now I have my little organizer set up, we buy a paper on Sundays, and I have a few websites bookmarked that tell me where the best deals are that week.  I'm not a fanatic by any means, but I'm trying to be smarter about daily living.   And I try to set aside all the coupons I'm going to use for sure as I make my way through the store, so as to not take any more time in line in front of you at the check out.  :-)

4 comments:

Abbi said...

I have had lots of fun with couponing too but ended up having problems with the same dilemna you mentioned. I ended up cutting back on my couponing quite a bit but I definetely still do it some.

All in a Day said...

Yes, there are never coupons for milk, eggs, bread, meat, fruits and vegetables, or cheese. :)

Jennifer said...

Will you share your bookmarked websites with us? Or the search terms you used to find the best sites? =)

Sarah Blanshan said...

I like moneysavingmom.com mostly. On the right side of the page if you scroll down, there are icons of each store, and you can click on them to see the best deals for that week. But mostly, I just clip coupons for things I'd use, go the store, and look around for good deals. I just can't use most of the things that are out there for a variety of reasons.