Week Five: $26 saved using coupons

I saved $26 on items I normally buy using coupons last week.  Even though it's a little time-consuming, I'm finding it's worth it.

The next best plan in saving money is to go through the flyers, although I have limited my grocery shopping to three stores maximum, otherwise it's just too much running around.  Also, two of the three stores will price match competitor's prices, so if needed I can bring the flyer with me (assuming that store has the same product).

Then, of course, meal planning. That has definitely saved me money on groceries so that I'm not resorting to last-minute meals like frozen pizza at home, or take-out on the way to or from somewhere.  Planning ahead and having all the ingredients on hand (especially if I've pre-cooked the meat) is great for the budget, and for my sanity!

One of these days I'll do a before and after check on quicken, where we categorize our spending.  I have yet to add up a month's worth of planning/flyers/couponing to see how much difference it has made financially.  I think that will be the most motivation, so I'll do it soon!  :)

Week Four - Cheated

Scott was in Seattle last week and I kinda bailed on meal planning AND grocery shopping! We only ate one fast food meal though. :) The rest was a random throw-together of what was in the fridge and freezer including leftovers from last week and stuff that had to be used up anyway, so (pretty much) no waste of food or cash, just no planning went into it. All I bought for groceries was milk, eggs and apples. So I will continue to week 5 to see how the meal planning and couponing goes. Stay posted for "Amount $aved" results next week.

Week Three - Jury's still out on Couponing...

Well, I tried the coupon thing last week.  I must say it is extremely time-consuming!  I think I will get the hang of it, but I literally spent hours going through sites such as www.couponmom.com (thanks Shelley!), www.southernsavers.com (thanks Elizabeth F!), www.afullcup.com (thanks Kris!) as well as www.coupons.com and www.smartsource.com (the latter two were often used in links from the former three sites).  It uses up ink and paper (prints off only one coupon per page, including, in some instances, a large ad for the product!)  But I saved $7 this week and hope to save more as I get the hang of it, and watch for "double coupon days" at some stores.

I also signed up for the Charlotte Observer Sunday edition to get more flyers and coupons.  I am looking forward to totalling up how much I save with that this month as there were some *great* coupons in there (some of my favorites include $5 off Claritin, $3 off deoderant, and several $1 off make-up products).  Hopefully the coupons pay off the $2.50 subscription price!  :)

This week the couponing took me even longer since I carefully cut and sorted coupons on my kitchen table and promptly tipped over a large (full) cup of water, soaking all of my coupons.  Akkk!  So they are all currently drying on my kitchen floor.  At least it was the coupons from the glossy flyers and not from my ink-jet printer! And at least it was just water (not milk, eh Dayna?) :)

Some things I have learned so far: a lot of the best coupons are for pre-packaged foods.  There are a LOT of coupons out there for Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Kellogs, Kraft, etc.  Which, for the most part, is not what I buy.  I imagine these products have the largest mark-up, therefore it's easy for the companies to offer discounts on them.

But there are also a lot of coupons for paper and cleaning supplies.  Laundry detergent, cleaning sprays, etc.  Which is mostly what I saved my $7 on last week.  Actually I was hoping it would be $14 as I was at a "double coupon day" at Bloom, but found out that they only double coupons with the face value of $0.99 or less.  ALL of my coupons were $1.00 even.  Which made them a no-go for double discount.  I'm thinking the merchandisers did that on purpose.  At any rate, something to watch for next time!

One money-saving tip I heard, which I'm still mulling over, is to NOT have brand loyalty.  There are a lot of coupons and/or sales to be had if you're willing to try new or different brands.  The reason I am still mulling this over is that I like sticking with what I know works!  That, and Scott has allergies, which makes some products a gamble to buy, especially laundry soap.  I made the mistake of switching brands early in our marriage, and HE found out the hard way that he was allergic to that brand of laundry soap.  Not cheaper if I have to give it away!  So I've bought Tide ever since, only because it's the only soap I know he's not allergic to.  BUT it's almost twice as expensive as some of the other brands!  I found a coupon for "All (brand) -Free & Clear" which purports to be 'free & clear' of all fragrances and common allergens. I decided to try it since it worked out to be half the price of Tide (with the coupon).  Hopefully it works!

Another good tip on the laundry note: using cheap detergent might not pay off in the long run if it fades your clothes faster than the higher priced detergent.  But if you use cheap detergent on just your whites (and throw in some bleach every once in a while), and use the higher priced detergent on your darks, you'll save a decent amount in the long run!

Well that's all for now!  One more week and I can compare this month's shopping bill with last month and we'll see if it's worth all the extra time and energy!

Week Two: Fail

I guess I should just consider it a "setback" as opposed to a fail.  We had a great weekend away and returned home Monday night.  I had enough groceries in the house to last until Thursday (having been away Sat-Mon).  I had good intentions of going through the flyers and printing some coupons from several websites I had been given, but I didn't have time and by Thursday we *really* needed groceries.  I stuck to the list of "needs" and didn't buy meat since I stocked up on a couple sales last week.  BUT I bought everything at my good old faithful Walmart, foregoing the trek around town to several different stores.

I plan to check out the flyers and coupons tomorrow and see how I manage on Monday for week three of the journey to save big bucks on groceries.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Two Words...

Two words about shopping at several different grocery stores: GONG.SHOW.  It took me three hours (3x my usual)! Initially I thought it might be worth it if I saved at least $10 per week.  I've upped the ante.  I will try this for one month (to give the average a fair shot) but will only continue if I save an average of at LEAST $20 per week.

Next week I'll try coupons and hopefully that will be more successful!

I did find out that Bottom Dollar will price match flyer ad prices of competitors.  I forgot to check if Walmart does that, does anyone know?