First, a reminder about why I’m doing this whole couponing experiment…

{smile}

Ok, here is what my $20 “learning how to coupon” budget bought this week.

Our town has 2 grocery stores, Weis and Giant. I usually prefer Weis because they are less crowded and the Giant is in a shopping center with a busy parking lot that is not fun to navigate with multiple young kids, Weis has less expensive regular prices, and Weis doubles up to 4 of the same coupon per transaction, whereas giant only doubles the first coupon.

However, Weis doesn’t stock as many items, so I’m finding that a lot of the coupons I have I can’t redeem there simply because they don’t sell the products.

I knew this would be a good week to try Giant because I was running low on prenatal vitamins and they had the brand I use on sale, buy one get one free, plus I had coupons for them.

While I was there I saw a few other things I had good coupons for, so I bought some of those as well.

Cheerios: On sale 2/$5 + used 2 $1 off coupons = 2 boxes for $3 or $1.50 each (normally $3.79 each)

**My favorite deal: Dole salads: on sale 2/$5 + the produce department had put $1 off peelie coupons on each because they expire in a few days + used two 75 cents off coupons + one of the 75 cent coupons doubled (That’s $5-$2-$2.25)= $0.75 for 2 or 38 cents each! (Regularly $3.69 each)

Goya Adobo seasoning: $1.39, not on sale – $1.10 (55 cent coupon doubled)= $0.29

Kraft Shredded Cheese: On sale 2/$6 + used 2 coupons for $1.50 each= $3 for 2 or $1.50 each (regularly $3.59 each) I have a big stockpile of shredded cheese after this first month, but it freezes well according to Google, so we’ll see about that.

Idahoan Instant Potatoes: On sale for $1 – $1 off coupon= FREE

Nature Made Prenatal Vitamins: on sale 2/$10.77 + 2 $1.00 off coupons= 2 for $8.77 or $4.39 each (regularly $10.77 each)

Altogether I paid $15.81 after using coupons & the store card, and more than half of that went toward the vitamins. The original total was $46.57, so I saved about 66%.

I was happy I was able to save more than 50% on every item I bought this trip, I only bought stuff we normally use anyway (except maybe the instant potatoes, but, hey, they were free) and this was my first time saving on produce.

So, to review, this month I’ve used coupons to buy all this stuff for $93:

I think $93 seems like kind of a lot, but I have managed to save at least 30%-50% off the total each time, which is certainly better than paying full price and once you get the hang of it, it gets kind of fun to match up the sales & coupons. I actually bought/saved a lot more than I showed you on my regular grocery store trips, these are just the times I tried to stay under $20 for practice.

What I learned:

• It takes a few weeks to build up your coupons and for the first few weeks, it will be hard to match anything up with store sales.
• Even though you look kind of silly, it really is easier to take an organized coupon binder to the store with you
• Look up the circulars online before you go to the store. I also look up regular prices on my store’s ishop website (they let you order groceries online and even if I’m not placing an order, it’s a good resource for looking up prices of things that aren’t advertised in the circular)
• Print multiple copies of each coupon so you can use 2 coupons on buy one get one free deals.
• Search several different zip codes when looking up coupons online.
• Follow a service like Couponpro on Facebook because they do all the hard work for you, then all you have to do is print the coupons as they come up.
• Most of the high-value coupons are from liking companies on Facebook.
• Since I’m not trying to stockpile 100’s of items, I am fine just printing 2 of each coupon from my home computer. I did not use any Sunday paper coupon inserts, I just printed everything online from coupons.com and the Red Plum and Smart Source websites or Facebook or manufacturer websites.
• If a coupon has a store logo on it but says “manufacturer coupon” at the top, you should be able to use it at different stores, especially if the bar code starts with a 5.
• Only coupons that start the barcode with a 5 will double.
• Oh, and this guy is awesome.

Are you trying non-extreme couponing too? Do you have any tips?

Curious about my previous couponing adventures?

How Do You Coupon?

$20 Coupon Challenge

Coupon Monday

Coupon Monday, Round 2

Coupon Monday (on a Friday)

Back to Non-Extreme Couponing

Time to show you what I got for my $20 coupon practice this week:

Sorry, the photo is so dark, all this stuff is now hiding from little eyes until Christmas.

The best deal by far this week was that I only paid $1 each for those Toy Story Operation games, which were regularly $15.99 at Target. Toys R Us has them advertised in their weekly ad this week for $1, but of course, they sold out in no time, so I took the ad to Target & they did a price match for me at the customer service desk. They had a limit of 3, but that was fine with me because I’m not trying to be a hoarder, I just wanted some Christmas gifts. It’d also be great to donate to Toys for Tots or if your office or church does an angel tree. It was a lot of fun to watch the register total change from $48 to just $3 plus tax.

The wrapping paper I got with my $5 off a $10 purchase coupon from liking Hallmark on Facebook. They are out of coupons on FB now, but I got the same coupon in my latest issue of Rachel Ray magazine, FYI. The wrapping paper is normally $5/roll, but they had a buy one get one for 99 cents sale, so I bought 4 plus a roll of tape and paid a little over $9 after tax.

I also bought a DVD of Marley & Me, which was on sale at our F.Y.E. in the mall for $9.99, and I had a $3 manufacturer coupon I printed off the internet a few weeks ago, making it $6.99.

So I spent $3 at Target, $9 at Hallmark, and $7 at F.Y.E.

I also saved more than $37 off our grocery bill & took the total down from $108 to just $70 and change.

I am finding that I now have too many coupons to just stuff in an envelope in my purse like I have been doing. It was taking way too much time at the store to dig through my envelope every time I found an item and wanted to pull out the matching coupon.

I’m going to have to start a binder, and I found a free download of one I think will work well for me here.

It’s a little discouraging that I’m not saving nearly as much as those women on TV, but 1/3 of the grocery bill is pretty decent, I guess, especially considering I only use coupons I can print for free off the internet. I find it makes me feel better if I go home and use our online banking system to transfer the amount of money I saved into our savings account.

I’m going to start doing this every week with the money I save using coupons at the grocery store. I can’t afford to do it every time I save in any store, like Friday when I spent $70 at Kohl’s, but saved over $175, but I figure with the grocery money I would have spent it anyway if I wasn’t couponing, so I’m not going to miss it out of our weekly budget & it will be a good way to build up our savings. If I can save about the same amount every week, $35-$40, that will be an extra $150 a month, or $1,800 a year, in our savings account. (Sidenote: If you start doing that when your child is a baby, by the time they are 18 you’d have over $32,000 set aside, not even accounting for interest. Just saying. Coupons might just be our college fund.)

Curious about all of my couponing adventures?

How Do You Coupon?

$20 Coupon Challenge

Coupon Monday

Coupon Monday, Round 2

Coupon Monday (on a Friday)

Couponing Update & 1 Month in Review

Back to Non-Extreme Couponing