Some of you expressed interest and/or amazement at my coupon skills. Flattered as I was, I wanted to share a little more on how I'm saving my family money. It is easy! You can do it too! Be the wonder and envy of your friends! (Well, maybe pity would be a better description because they probably think you're horridly poor or a weirdo. Maybe a combination of both.) For the other 75% of my readers who don't really care, I'll see you next week.
Here's what I got a good deal on this week, broken down by store:
Fred Meyer: Store brand yogurt cups 30 cents each, Tropicana OJ for $1.49, Vitabee bread (have you tried this yet? It's the best healthy-and-yet-not-terribly-expensive bread ever) $1.33. I had a whole canvas bag of groceries for $8.44.
Walgreens: free Enfamil and Puffs tissues, Pediacare cold medicine for 49 cents.
Target: free Shout stain remover wipes, $1 sparkly 3D blank greeting cards, $1 magnet shopping list pad.
Walmart: Flavored Cheerios cereal for $1.69, Lightening McQueen t-shirt $3, sweatpants $1, free travel-size Aquafresh toothpaste, $2 money maker on trial-size Purex 3-in-1 sheets.
Walmart was my great triumph this week. Yes, I know how sad my life appears right now. I'm OK with that. They had a ton of kids clothes on clearance, which is how I scored the Cars shirt and two pairs of sweats for $5. The McQueen shirt had Japanese on it, I'm assuming in anticipation of the new movie coming out this summer. Leave it to Disney and Walmart to push a product so hard that movie merchandise is on clearance three months before it even hits the theater. Josh didn't care though. When he saw it he got really excited, hugged it to his little chest and then ran away with it. Gee, you'd think we took things away from him all the time or something.
I got five boxes of cereal, with 75 cent coupons from sites like coupons.com, Pillsbury and smart source. When the coupons were refreshed at the start of the month I print as many as I can for the items I know we use and then wait for a sale to come along. For others like the Pediacare, I print it when I hear about a good deal coming down the line from the sites I follow on Facebook.
Walmart just changed their coupon policy to allow overage. This means that on this trip I used a $3 Purex coupon on a 99 cent item and got $2.01 to go towards the other items in my cart, or I could be given change if that was all I bought. For the toothpaste, it was 97 cents and the coupon was for $1, so 3 cents went towards my balance. I don't figure this all out on my own, I just read what others are posting. A new website I'm following now on Facebook is Frugal Living NW. If you live in Portland this will be especially useful to you, but it can help anyone out in OR and SW WA.
That it for this week. On Monday I'm going out and hoping to get more cereal from Walgreens, super cheap veggies and juice from Albertsons, free Rhodes rolls and some good discounts on batteries and Progresso soup. I'll do another post later on how I keep all this stuff organized, because that's the real secret to good couponing.
7 comments:
Very inspiring! I don't coupon. I know...I know...bad me. :)
No no, don't feel bad! I don't want to sound all high and mighty, I just want people to see that if I can do it, anyone can.
Lauren-I have to tell you how excited your posts make me. We FINALLY bought a printer last week, and I'm beyond thrilled; because I have been dying to get into couponing for a loooong time now :) I just don't really know how to start. Maybe I could learn from you? I need all the advice I can get! lol
I am scared of coupons. Every time I print one out to use I get denied. Either they don't take coupons, they don't take computer coupons, I didn't print it out in color etc...it's really embarrassing & I end up paying full price on something I probably wouldn't have bought otherwise because I feel too stupid to put it back at the checkout counter.
Carina, that stinks! I've never had a place around here turn me down for coupons. Winco, Fred Meyer, Walmart and Walgreens all accept printed manufacturer coupons. Target accepts them, but I have to watch them like a hawk because the amounts sometimes come up wrong. I usually do color prints, but I've done black and white as well. Where did you try and get denied?
You must have a high quality printer. WinCo ALWAYS denies my printed ones if they don't scan....which they never do. I love getting the Alby's double coupons!
Hmmm... never thought about that Pam but you're right, I do have a high quality printer.
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