More Coupon Shannanigans

I've had a few people asking me questions about the whole coupon shopping thing, so I figured I would just type it up here in one place. It's just much easier. The main thing that I have learned with this new way of shopping is you really should never have to full price for ANYTHING. The key to this is building a stockpile of things that you use either once in awhile or everyday. If something goes on sale super cheap and you have a coupon also, you should stock up on that item if you know you will use it. Kmart has events once in awhile where they double all manufactures coupons up to $2. So any $2 coupon doubles to $4. This is when you should stock up on these items if possible. Also, some grocery stores double coupons, locally here I'm pretty sure just scholaris does and they only double up to $1. The idea of stockpiling is not to be a pack rat or to just have "things". When chicken breast goes on sale for $1.79/lb or less, stock up. Freeze it. When things are cheap, use the opportunity to buy it so when you need it, you won't pay more for it. We have whole chickens stocked in our freezer, chicken breast, pork loin, hamburger, ground turkey, sausage, bacon, basically every type of meat you can imagine. It was all purchased at bottom prices, so now we don't really "need" to go shopping for anything except our fresh fruits and vegetables. Everything we buy during the week is stuff that is not only on sale, but what we have a coupon for. Obviously most produce items don't have coupons, but occasionally you will find coupons for fresh items as well. I recently got a whole pineapple for $1.24 because it was on sale for $1.99 and I had a $.75 off coupon.

I get lots of questions on where I get the coupons. Some people subscribe to multiple sunday papers. I buy one paper on Sundays, usually a LA times and My Dad gives me his Sunday paper inserts too. Then I follow several blogs that list deals going on at all the stores. These blogs do all the work for you. They find the deals, tell you the price of the item, where to find the coupon, many times offer the link to print it out right from there, and then they tell you the final price after the coupon. Some of the ones I follow are....

A Thrifty Mom
Coupon Cravings
Deal Seeking Mom
It's Hip to Save
Krazy Coupon Lady
For the Mommas
Frugal Living at it's finest

I never really kept close track of our expenses, but I was curious to know how much money I was saving once I starting feeling comfortable shopping with coupons. When I put all the #'s in, I realized we were paying over $900/mo on groceries before. Sometimes more, sometimes less. The very first month that I spend the whole month shopping carefully with coupons and really shopping around all the stores, I literally cut our grocery expenses in half.

If you look at the post below from Albertsons. you would think that I was feeding my family just these processed foods all week. I bought nothing fresh, no veggies or fruit. I am still building my stock pile of things I want to keep on hand and with the deal they had going on, it was a good opportunity to do some stocking up on things I would need the next 3 or 4 months. I don't just shop a one store, it's usually 3 or 4. I organize my list when the adds come and I decide what i am going to buy, but I technically don't really need to buy anything. Below is another example of a more "normal" shopping trip for me. I bought mostly fresh fruit and veggies, some meat and a few things we could use through the next week or so. This was at Spencers...


There are a few things I feel I should mention... :)
#1 Yes that really is a 3 pack of Coors Light 22's
#2 What you can't see is there are not one but two packs of ground turkey there. Buy one get one!!
#3 I know you love the yogurt pyramid. Those are 10/$4 with the coupon in the ad. They will also let you pair this with a manufactures coupon to save even more
#4 Who can resist a bag of fritos once and awhile, plus if you read the ingredients there really isn't that much "junk" in them...Not to mention they are amazin
#5 Look how presh Kaden looks even though he is sick once AGAIN...
#6 I paid $42.85 for it! Total savings on the receipt read $35.95. Not bad for 38 items.
#7 How amazing do those grapes look? They are called "Holiday Grapes", they are huge!!! I took a close up just in case you were interested. Ha ha...I'm such a nerd