Deal #2

I promise to not turn this into a coupon blog, but for the moment I just want to keep a diary of sorts of the deals I am getting and the money we are saving. I figure it will keep my momentum up until I have a firm grasp on the whole couponing thing.



Once again, I'm pretty excited about this week's deals...we almost didn't try any at all because I wasn't sure that I was seeing any great deals when I looked through the ads. Plus, we had a really busy week and it was hard to focus on it. But this morning as I was making our meal plan, I found three great deals that were too good to pass up. The good news was that since I bought 10 newspapers last week (instead of just 3) I had 10 coupons each for 2 of the deals. That was cool, because that gave us enough of each of those products to last us until the next great deal comes along.



So are your ready?.....

4 boxes of General Mills Cereals

4 Suave Conditioners

5 Suave Shampoos

9 Suave deodorants

Total items: 22 items

Total bill BEFORE savings: $36.22

Total bill AFTER coupons and savings: $1.49

I'm still shocked...too cool, right?!

Also, this week we learned first hand about MONEY-MAKERS. What's a money-maker? That's when you have a coupon for a product that is worth more than the price of the product. Some stores won't allow you to use the additional money, but at Krogers they apply it towards the rest of your bill. So here's how I did the deal...

General Mills Cereals were on sale for $1.49 each when you buy 4 at Kroger this week. I had 2 coupons that were $1 off 2 making each box of cereal $0.99 each. We bought 4 for a total of $3.96.

Then select Suave deodorants, shampoos, and conditioners were all on sale for $0.88 this week. I had 9 coupons for $0.50 off 1 deodorant and 9 coupons for $0.50 off 1 shampoo or conditioner. At Kroger all manufacturer coupons up to $0.50 are automatically doubled. This means that my $0.50 off coupons are actually $1 off coupons. Since each of the 18 Suave products I bought were only $0.88 each, I actually made $0.12 on each product using my $1 off coupon. This was applied towards the rest of my bill (which was only $3.96 for the four boxes of cereals) bringing my total to $1.49!!!

Yeah, this is fun.

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My first DEAL!!!

A few weeks ago I decided to once again attempt to wrap my brain around the concept of real couponing...this came after a failed attempt about a year ago. I attended a couponing class that another homeschool mom was teaching and was finally inspired to start off...really slowly.

So, I began by simply saving my coupon inserts from the Sunday papers...not clipping them...just saving the entire inserts in file with the date marked clearly on the front of each insert.

That's all I did...for five weeks.

Finally, I heard of another mom who was teaching a coupon class and decided to go to it and see what she had to say. She basically said the same thing as the first mom. However, after seeing all the great deals she was getting, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. I got my coupons out...I got the ads out...I visited the necessary couponing websites and this is what I got...

•Red Baron pizza on sale $2.78
- $1 cpn (10/24 SS)

2 pizzas/2 coupons $1.78 each $3.56 TOTAL


•Colgate toothpaste on sale $1
- $1 cpn (10/31 SS)

3 toothpastes/3 coupons $0 Total


•Ricola drops on sale $.50
- $1/2 cpn (10/17 SS)

6 ricolas/3 coupons $0 TOTAL


•Campbells Cream soup on sale $.49
- $1/4 cpn printable

8 cream of mushroom/2 coupon $.24 each $1.92 TOTAL


•Campbells Chunky or Select Harvest soup on sale $.99
- $.50/1 cpn printable

2 Chunky soups/2 coupons $.49 each $.98 TOTAL


Stove Top Stuffing on sale $.75
-$1/2 cpn printable

2 Stuffings/1 coupon $.25 each $.50 TOTAL

23 Items
Total worth (before sale): $48.32
Sale savings: -$27.83
Coupon savings: -$14

TOTAL PAID: $6.49

This was so exciting...and it's not even that great of a deal compared to what the coupon queens are doing.

In case you are wondering, I went to Kroger for this shopping trip.

And because I know some of you are going to ask...here's the gist of it...

-In order to drastically reduce your grocery bill (think $30-50 a week) you have to stockpile and it takes time.

-You only buy items when they are on deep sale AND you have a coupon for it making it free or very cheap. Then you buy as many items as you have coupons so that you can stockpile that item until it goes on deep sale again.

-In order to do this you have to buy multiple newspapers each week. Most coupon queens buy 6-10. I started out only buying 3, but will be buying more this week.

-Once you have a good stockpile, you start planning your weekly menus based around what you have in stock. Then you can spend $20-30 on just the deals that week and $20-30 on fresh produce for the week.

-Finally, each week you will have to spend a little bit of time planning which deals you are going to partake in. To do that go to one of the following blogs and view the "match-ups" for the week at your favorite stores.

www.kingdomklipper.blogspot.com
www.mamacheaps.com
www.frugalcouponliving.com

A "match-up" is a listing of a great sale item along with where to find a matching coupon (either with a link to a printable coupon or it will tell you the date that the coupon was in the Sunday paper...this is why you don't clip your coupons each Sunday.)

That's pretty much it in a nutshell, but the above websites go much more in depth on how to master couponing. I just wanted to share my first great deal because....well, wouldn't you??!! Pin It Now!