Coupons

Well, I've officially entered the world of couponing. I've always been pretty frugal with our money and I've saved coupons for a while now, but I've entered the world of serious couponing. What is that? Well, let me tell you.....

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a coupon class at my friend Shannon's house. Her childhood friend has entered the world of couponing and wanted to share it with her and her friends. My mom was in town, so we both took the night off (Joe and Dad took care of the kids) and went to a coupon class. We had to bring a few items to the "class" - a three ring binder, plastic baseball card sheets (to put in the binder - you can find them at Wal-Mart) and a little coupon "wallet" to travel with your coupons. I picked up my supplies and we were off. The basic concept of couponing is that the stores are on a 12 week cycle of sales, so when the item is at its lowest price, you stockpile for the next 12 weeks. You clip the coupons from the Sunday paper, add coupns to your Kroger card online, and print out online coupons and store them in categories inside your binder. You save them until the item(s) go on sale and then you stockpile. How do you know that it's at its lowest??? There are a couple of sites and many blogs to help you out. Le suggested using www.thegrocerygame.com and you can also use www.couponmom.com. I was a bit skeptic - I could see that I might have 12 weeks of Cheerios in the pantry and nothing for dinner.... I messed around with everything for the past two weeks - saving 37% and 42% - but still struggling with planning meals off of "THE LIST" from the grocery game. Well, this week I just planned my menus like normal and tried to factor in sales and coupons. I was successful - I saved $38.00 today! I was so excited about my success! A whole weeks worth of food for $42.00! I tried to explain it to the kids on the way home (you just have to share these things when you're so excited), but they really didn't get it....

Well, try and visit the grocery game and give it a whirl.... you'd be surprised to see how much money you can save. Amazingly, we have MORE food in our pantry, MORE variety of food in our freezer (ground turkey was $0.99 a pound a couple of weeks ago and whole fryer chickens are on sale right now for $0.69 a pound), and we've been eating very healthy natural foods. I thought that coupons were only for strange items, like Glade Plug-Ins, frozen meals, etc... but I've found great deals on lettuce, grapes, apples, Healthy Choice soups, ground turkey, chickens, diapers, diet coke (a necessity around here), apple juice, etc. It's really stretched me to find new recipes and create new dinners for my family. There's a link to Le's site to the right - The Domestic Chick. Enjoy!