Saving money is about to take on a whole new meaning.

It's time for another bragging opportunity chance to show you what you can get using coupons.  Take a look-see at the haul below, guess how much it's worth and what I paid for it.

A box of cookies (that brand is actually pretty darn good and a bit better for you than regular boxed cookies), two bags of smoothie deliciousness, three trial bags of dishwasher tabs, a bag of whole grain quick rice and twenty one jars of baby food.  Worth around $40.  I paid less than $1.  I get ridiculously excited when I save that much.

The second I look away those cookies will be gone!

So what is the secret?  I used coupons in three different ways to get these deals at two different stores.

Method 1: straight up coupon clipping for the dishwasher tabs.  Each month in the P&G newspaper coupon insert there is a coupon for $1 off a cascade product.  The trial size is 97c so at Walmart you actually get paid 3c to buy it.  Note: the first weekend of the month the trial bin is usually wiped clean.  I use the coupon near the end of the month and there are plenty.

Method 2: Albertsons twice the value (ttv) coupons for the baby food, jamba juice and cookies.  The ttv coupons will double up to $1 any manufacturer coupon.  I had $1/1 coupons for the smoothies and cookies and $1/3 any Beachnut product.  I doubled them all.  Note: Albertsons recently changed their policy so that you can only get ttv coupons with a newspaper.  On the weeks that they have ttv, I buy two copies of the paper and then mooch other sheets from nearby relatives who don't use them.

Method 3: coupons for free products sent directly from the manufacturer for the rice and sweet potato fries.  I follow coupon websites on Facebook and every now and then they'll post a link where you can sign up directly with the manufacturer to send you coupons for a free product.  It will normally state a max price limit ($4 for the fries, $2 for the rice) and you can use it anywhere.  I recently got two coupons for full size bottles of advil and advil pm.  It only takes a minute to sign up for these freebies and you can get pretty decent products with it.

It's more important than ever for me right now to save our family money.  We've decided to buy a house.  We're still looking and I'm finding out that it is a HUGE and DAUNTING process.  I'll post more on it later, but suffice it to say that I might need a prescription sedative before this thing is done.  So we're living off of my stockpiles, only buying what is strictly necessary (even with coupons) and gearing up to fork out all our money for a house.  I'm excited, but I rather wish I could just wake up tomorrow and have it all done.