Over the years I have always shopped the ads at the grocery store, stocked up on items when they are on sale, and rarely have I paid full price for anything. I have always had a well stocked pantry and freezer by getting the most for our food dollar. On top of shopping the ads I have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled my savings using coupons.
I created a system that has worked well for me all of these years. My kids all learned to clip, file, and discard the outdated. I found the deals, the coupons, and did the shopping on a weekly basis. Now that all of the kids are gone my husband can help me with the entire process. He is great at finding the deals too.
Every once in a while when things get busy I can get behind. I keep my coupon box in a kitchen cabinet.
It appears that I neglected my coupons longer than I thought.
Yes, that is a potato growing in my coupon box!
I have no idea how it got in there.
You can tell by looking at my coupon box that it needs to be replaced.
I can't believe that those envelopes and labels are probably
twenty five years old. YUCK!
Well, once I buckled down and got things caught up
I did some shopping and boy did I get a big
BANG
for my
BUCK!
I shopped Walgreens, CVS, and Fry's Grocery Store.
At Walgreens I got four 24 packs of Nyquil and Dayquil for just $1 each. A savings of $24
At CVS I purchased $42 worth of stuff for just $7
That included 6 /12 packs of Pepsi, 3 big bottles of Tresemme shampoo, two name brand premium toothpastes, and a high end dental floss.
At the grocery store I purchased 99 items.
I saved 91%.
Drum roll please............................
I payed just $15.74 before sales tax
and I saved
$193.79
It was a well rounded shopping trip. So many people tell me that they don't purchase items that have coupons. There are a ton of coupons I don't use either but there are plenty that I do use to make it worth my time and effort.
These savings included me working the prescription deals too. Transferred prescriptions are rewarded with shopping cash for the store or pharmacy. If you have to buy the meds why not make them work for you?
After all these years I still love the wheeling and dealing of shopping the ads, using coupons, and getting the most for our hard earned dollars!
You go girl! There is nothing quite as exillerating as a great deal!. I keep my coupons in a binder in baseball card pages which are organized similar to the catagories you have. We have a local paper that has a Savvey Shopper web site that scouts the ads and ranks the savings from good, great,to WOW for items in each store ad. I consider this bargain shopping a part time job.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Mr Potato Head was looking in your file for a deal on sour cream!
I love the Mr. Potato Head comment (LOL) !
ReplyDeleteI saw a friends coupon baseball card notebook just yesterday.I was pretty darn impressed. I loved the idea. She also gave me a few websites to help me find the local and national deals. So much fun!
Wow! You're the Queen of the Coupon! In my family, my husband does all the grocery shopping. He started doing this over twenty years ago when I went back to work full-time. I have always hated shopping (other than for books) and he loves it! I just write a list of anything I particularly need, and he adds to it, and does all the rest! Over time, Gem, too, has become a whiz at coupons. He keeps a file on top of the fridge. Maybe I should take a peek and see if it's growing a potato!
ReplyDeleteWow! You definitely rock the coupon world. I'm pretty proud of myself if I save $10 on a $150 grocery bill. You're my idol ... again! Love the tater. :o)
ReplyDeleteYou a quite a wheeler dealer but I like the potato best!
ReplyDeleteAmazing! I use coupons, too, but I've never racked up quite that kind of record. I could really relate to your comment about how you worked to stretch your husband's paycheck. I did the same thing in the years before I went to work. I sewed, used coupons, shopped the specials, babysat, made my own baby food and did a dozen other things.
ReplyDelete