So it's been awhile since my last post, what have we been up to? Couponing! Yup, I've crossed into the land of no return...coupon land. I can no longer pay full price for most foods, and baby products. I have a lifetime supply of tampons, pads and razors. I have 5-6 bottles of shampoo and conditioner and tons of bodywash, all of which I pretty much got for free. This is just the beginning....
So, how do you get started? Well, I get as many Sunday papers as possible, actually I just want the coupons. Then you clip clip clip coupons! It's really time consuming and I HIGHLY recommend waiting until all small children are in bed. I then organize them into different categories; Food, Baby products, cosmetics, etc. Then check all your local grocery ads for sales. I've found Albertsons has the best sales, and they also have coupons you can pair with your manufacturers coupons to Double them! Safeway is pretty strict but still worth looking at. Winco takes coupons too, but they don't have sales and you can't double them but their prices are so low on some items it works out. I've found they're the cheapest by far for all Pillsbury items.
Rite Aid and Walgreens are the places to go for shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, over the counter meds, razors etc. Pick one store, sign up for their rewards program, study their ads and get couponing!!
Today I saw Walmart was selling Colgate toothpaste for $0.98, and I have a $1.00 off coupon so I'd be making $0.02 on each tube. Those are things to look for.
You have to clip a lot of coupons and have then easily accessible and be patient. I've found it takes me a few hours to organize my coupons and shopping lists each week. I've been saving about $80 a week and getting more food than I used to. I was always super stingy when it came to buying cereal, chips, fruit snacks, granola bars, etc. Right now we have about 10 boxes of cereal, tons of fiber one bars, granola bars, Nature Valley bars etc., and none of it was more than $0.88 each, some were free.
If you have time and want to do it, cutting all those coupons does pay off. Be careful though, you will cringe when/if you have to pay full price. It's also very addicting. I have to remember my voice of reason (also known as my boyfriend) and ask myself, " do we NEED that?" because you will want everything if you can get it free or almost free.
Oh, you can also sign up for more coupons online and print them off. There's tons of websites, I just use the ones that I can print instantly.
So, if you decide to coupon, good luck and I hope you never feel sadness of missing a sale or finding your coupon has expired....
