Pantry: This Week Is The Reason Why It's OK To Go Over Budget Sometimes!

How to Coupon Effectively: An Overview

My friend Renea says i should put this on my blog, and she's pretty wise, so here it is :)

Get your papers for $1 at Dollar Tree and at Deal$. I've learned everything from my friends and from www.couponmom.com. Here are the major tips:

First of all: go to couponmom and read the "getting started" (or something similar) section. it's got all the basics.
go to www.taylortownpreview.com and sign up for their newsletter. you'll get an e-mail (usually on thursday) with the upcoming coupons, so you can decide ahead of time how many papers you'll want and whether you'll want to purchase extra q's.
when you buy papers, always buy in multiples of 2, so you're set for the BOGO sales.
if there are only a few stock-up items for you in the paper, sometimes it's better to just buy 2 or 4 papers, then get larger amounts of your specific item q's from clippers on taylortown preview (although i don't understand how to pay them yet), ebay (the good ones sell out QUICKLY), or www.thecouponclippers.com. if you're checking on ebay, look at the expiration dates and the values. often different areas get different values. ex: we got .40/2 q's for pizza rolls in this week's paper, but i was able to purchase .35/1 q's from ebay. those will double to .70/1, making each box only cost .30 when they go on sale for $1!!
Meijer lets you "stack" manufacturer q's with their store ("Mealbox") q's. that's how i got select harvest soups for .25 this week: they were on sale for $1.25; the paper had .50/2 q's that doubled to $1/2, and there was a mealbox printable for $1/2. my daughter's favorite food in the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD is chicken noodle soup!!! she was one happy girl :)
If you have a super target near you, i hear they always have great deals with store printables, particularly on produce (often free, which nobody else ever has!), but i don't have one so don't really know.

My favorite resource sites, besides the ones above, are

www.hotcouponworld.com (awfully busy screen for me, but my whiz friend swears by it, plus it has a mealbox coupon generator)

and www.bargainbriana.com (she only hits the highlights of the sales, but lives in indiana so usually matches what we've got; plus she covers meijer whereas couponmom doesn't have indiana's meijer listed and the other states get different sales than we do.)

The art of matching sale prices with coupons is just "beginner level"; there's a whole next layer of printables, CVS/Walgreens (free toothbrushes, razors, etc. but requires diligent effort), Catalinas (i guess that's the brand name for those q's that print at the register based on what you buy), and k-mart's monthly double-coupons-up-to-$2 (killer deals but lots of fine print which changes monthly). I don't usually mess with those on purpose (although sometimes i luck into the Cats) because they're just too complex for this phase of my life, but i really should because people end up with tons of free stuff that way!!

You will definitely want to find an organization system that works easily. i made a coupon binder; there are lots of (believe it or not!) videos on youtube about making them!! mine is organized alphabetically by category (baking, bars, bread, cereal, etc.) and probably still have the list of categories that i got from someone else & adapted; e-mail me if you want me to look for it for ya. Other people file alphabetically by brand name, or if they only shop at one store will correspond their categories in order with the aisles in the store (if i were a one-store gal, that's what i'd do!)

SAVINGS RECORD

January

Week 1
SPENT $120.20
SAVED $89.98

Week 2
SPENT $120.63
SAVED $239.55

Week 3
SPENT $68.80
SAVED $216.43

Week 4
SPENT $61.20
SAVED $209.25

Week 5
SPENT $78.48
SAVED $135.02

Week 6
SPENT $ 58.55
SAVED $ 38.00

Week 7
SPENT $ 21.12
SAVED $ 65.90

Week 8
SPENT $111.99
SAVED $ 140.64

Week 9
SPENT $ 30.80
SAVED $ 115.29

Week 10
SPENT $73.50
SAVED $85.40

Week 11
SPENT $31.56
SAVED $17.29

Week 12
SPENT $142.10
SAVED $85.26

Week 13
SPENT $124.14
SAVED $194.14

Week 14
SPENT $6.64
SAVED $18
(i actually spent WAY more than this, throwing good money after bad, trying to get rid of an incorrigible UTI. it's finally gone!!)

Week 15

SPENT $247.11

SAVED $488.90

whoa that's a lot!! couldn't pass up the opp to get several months' worth of cheese & whole grain crackers though.. $5 in cheese and triscuits were substantial snacks for 5 hungry kids and an adult tonight!! so much so that a very lite dinner sufficed!

Week 16
SPENT 101.96
SAVED 88.07

running total:
$1398.78 spent
$87.42 /wk avg spent.
$2227.12 saved
139.20/wk avg saved.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

This Week Is The Reason Why It's OK To Go Over Budget Sometimes!

IF i even go to a store,
i'll prob get open pit from meijer.
they also have buy 3 manwich get aunt millie's buns free; we have q's for all.
they also have free dinty moores and chichi's salsa, el monterey and sargento cheap.
glad shelley reads the ads better than i do!

i'll just make this be my grocery list;
grham crackers
milk
sweeet potatoes?
potatoes
carrots
apples
lettuce
use pizza roll raincheck (at least one)
cream of mush soup?
sour cream?
need foil
check out prices on clams 'cause q expires tomorrow

IF i go to kroger,
they do have tortilla chips for .88 thru the wknd.
they also have select harvest soups for .75 after q's again,
we can never have enough cns!
and the mega sale has miracle whip again
(not a *great* price, but it's one of those items we MUST have regardless of the price, so this is better than $4.49 retail)
and shelley says her kroger has carnation evap milk free w/ after q's, unmarked special, whole milk only.

i'm curious whether they still have cheese and rotel on the mega sale. if so, i'll put together one or two mega event transactions, before monday so i can get the tortilla chips. if not, forget it.

we do need fresh produce and milk, so whichever store i go to i'll get whatever the best sales are, but honestly we could just live on pizza rolls and CNS for another week...
**update on fri: i've had so many prepared foods i think my blood has turned to brine. help me! gonna order an angel food produce box w/ shelley i think.

Pantry

How to Coupon Effectively: An Overview

Free Soles Integrative Therapies's Fan Box

Young Living World

SAVINGS RECORD

Hand reflexology

Followers

The Most Interesting Link from (Almost) Every Folder in My Bookmarks

Frugal Living Links

Thinking About Homeschooling?

Healthy Weight Resources

Blog Archive

Thursday, January 29, 2009

This Week Is The Reason Why It's OK To Go Over Budget Sometimes!