Stretching the Food Dollars: Coupons

Yesterday, I talked about learning to cook from scratch as my #1 way to stretch my food dollars. So, hopefully I have convinced you all to cook now. However, you can still spend a ton at the grocery if you are not careful. One way to cut that is expense it to use coupons. Using coupons effectively to save a lot is a bit of a game. The goal of the game is to “play” your coupon when the item is on sale at it lowest. Sometimes this even gets you the item for free or just pennies. It is a bit time consuming as you need to search out the coupons, know your local stores' coupon and price matching policies (which regularly change) and scour each store's weekly sales flyer. Then you compile a list and coupon envelope for each store you plan to go to. To learn how to do this in more detail, Google "how to use coupons." There are many helpful sites. Many want you to buy their system or subscribe to their service that tells you what coupons to use where and when. One of these is The Grocery Game. They watch the sale cycles and give you a list of items that are on sale and which exact coupons to us on them. I did subscribe to this for about 6 months. I followed it diligently and got some great bargains. It was well worth the price to subscribe to the service. Another site that has much of the same information for free is the Deal Seeking Mom blog.

For me, I have found that coupons save me the most money on toiletries and beauty products. As far as food, coupons save the most on convenience foods which, even with coupons, usually cost more than cooking from scratch. There are rarely coupons for pantry staples. Clipping and sorting coupons and tracking store sales takes tons of time. It can save you quite a bit, but I feel like I save just as much or more money cooking from scratch and just skipping the convenience foods. I think cooking from scratch takes less time, too, than couponing. It is good to try, though, and see for yourself if the coupons are worth your effort for your family. You may find that you can save a huge chunk of money on the things you buy. Even though I don't do this on a weekly basis anymore, I still periodically coupon and deal hunt at CVS and Walgreens to stock up on toiletries. The savings are too good to pass up.

Tomorrow, I will discuss some of the places I have found to get food at a bargain price.

Happy MLK Day and Updates

I was talking with my daughter last night and the fact that today is Martin Luther King Day came up. I mentioned that public school kids are off of school. She got all excited figuring that we would get a day off as well. I informed her that she was not so lucky and she would still have schoolwork. My kids had plenty of vacation days over the holidays when hubby was off work. Now its time to hit the books while we can because before we know it, there will be the "Mommy is too sleep deprived from being up with the baby to think" vacation days, and then , of course, when the weather turns warmer there's the "It's too nice to stay home inside so we are going to the park" vacation days. I figure that we will use this day to take the opportunity to talk about its significance. Usually I print off a copy of MLK's "I have a dream" speech for us to read aloud, but this year I think we may watch this version coming right from his mouth that I found.



In other news....
I'm still pregnant. No shock there, for me anyway, since I am still 6 days away from my due date and my earliest baby so far arrived 5 days past my due date. I think the "nesting" has finally kicked in. For me nesting is more of "Oh my, I have nothing ready for baby yet!" I hunted up the wee baby clothes and soaked them and scrubbed them to get the yellow spit up stains that always seem to appear after clean baby clothes have been stored away for a few years. I have a handful of generic/boy clothes and tons of frilly pink things - a consequence of the fact that I have had 4 baby girls and only one boy and the box of itty bitty boy things is MIA. So, this is probably a boy, huh?


Dragging out the baby things and trying to figure out where I am going to put them has caused me to clean out my bedroom closet. We have a big closet that tends to become the stash for every one's out of season and outgrown clothes that need to be packed away. I decided to pull everything out and catch up on my ginormous laundry pile (Mt. Washmore). This has kept me QUITE busy over the past few days. I am close to being caught up. I just have to pack up some outgrown clothes in an organized fashion which for some weird reason is not a strength for me. Anyway, I am rambling...


I am feeling compelled to get this done quickly because I know that if the baby arrives before I get all of these piles sorted and put away, it may be quite some time before it happens and all my sorting work will probably get undone by several energetic children.


Also in other news...
My Christmas tree is finally put away! Last night hubby bundled it up and packed it away in its spot in the basement. I know we sound like such slackers, but I just wasn't motivated to do all the work of taking decorations down and I actually had still been enjoying the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights everyday during my morning quiet time. This morning I really missed them and had to turn on the fireplace so I didn't go completely into withdrawal.


Even more other news...
Now is the time to start keeping an eye out for great deals on clearanced clothing. I am a fan of Old Navy's clearance sales and they have a bunch on sale right now and if you use the coupon code EXTRA50, you can get an additional 50% off clearance items. Note that this only works on "clearance" stuff not anything else including their "bargains." (Found this over at Deal Seeking Mom.) I ended up finding a few things for EVERYONE in my family there including the new wee one for some awesome prices.


I should wrap this up and get prepared to jump into my day before the kids all get up and ambush me. Have a great one!

Walgreens & CVS Deals

I just thought I would post how I did saving money at Walgreens and CVS last week.

WALGREENS
I didn't do quite at well as I did the time before, but I bought a lot more, including diapers which are a high dollar item even with a deal.

$163.10 Total before any savings

-5.65 WAG coupons (from Walgreen's weekly ad)
-16.50 Register Rebates earned from last visit
-24.72 MFG coupons
-44.20 WAG sales

$72.03 Total (that I paid) 56% Savings
-4.00 RR earned this visit
-25.97 ESR (Easy Saver Rebates earned)
-2.60 Bonus 10% rebate for putting on gift card

$39.46

TOTAL SAVINGS
$123.64
(76% savings)

CVS

$93.41 Total before sales

-17.11 CVS sales
-24.99 ECB (Extra Care Bucks) from previous visit
-14.79 MFG Coupons

$36.52 Total (that I paid) 61% Savings

-11.99 ECB earned

$24.53

TOTAL SAVINGS
$68.88
(74% Savings)

Walgreens Deals

I have heard from many people that you can get some sweet bargains at Walgreens, but had been totally confused as to how their deals work. I was convinced, though, that I had to give it a try after reading a bit on Deal Seeking Mom's blog.

Originally, as I said, I was a bit confused as to how the Walgreens deals work because there are several types.
There are:

• Sales - weekly deals
• Walgreens coupons that come in their sale flyer. These can be used along with a manufacturer's coupon to stack the savings.
• Register Rebates (RR). Usually you buy so many particular items to earn a certain amount. These print out with your receipt and can be used like cash on your next Walgreen's purchase.
• Easy Saver Rebates (ESR) - These are rebates on specific items each month that Walgreens sponsors. You can claim these by mail or even online. If you take the option of getting your rebates on a Walgreens gift card, they give you an extra 10%. Each month there are several free after rebate items.

After discovering that Walgreens had a $10 off a purchase of $40 coupon that was good last Friday and Saturday, I thought it was time to get my feet wet and give the Walgreens deal shopping a try. I felt like a total novice, but armed with advice from the Deal Seeking Mom and my coupons, I set out.
I purchased a handful of items:

• Dimetap
• Shout
• Scrubbing Bubbles Action Scrubber
• Revlon Nail Polish
• Chemistry Conditioner
• Crest Pro Health Mouthwash
• Crest Pro Health Toothpaste
• Walgreens Acid Control Tablets

Here's the breakdown:

Retail price total $58.80

Total after Walgreens sales: 52.10

Manufacturers coupons -10.25

Walgreens $10 off $40 -10.00

Total after coupons $31.85

RR earned -16.50

ESR to be earned -23.56

Extra 10% earned by putting this on a gift card -2.36

NET GAIN 10.57

Isn't that awesome! I am thinking that I am loving Walgreens. There were several ESR free after rebate deals that they were out of. I am hoping that Walgreens will get them in before the end of the month when the rebate period ends. I can't wait to see what kind of deals that I can get this week!

I LOVE a Great Bargain! (I am becoming the coupon queen!)

There is something about getting a great deal that just makes me so happy. It must be a bargain-hunter gene. I have always tried to be thrifty in my spending. Groceries can be a struggle, though. I have tried to do the coupon thing before. When I did it successfully, I spent several hours each week scouring all the local stores' ads and matching them to coupons. I even kept a price book.



What I found over time was that I was getting some great deals, but on things I probably wouldn't necessarily buy otherwise. I just had my oldest daughter, Elizabeth, and she was becoming a full-fledged eating toddler. I was very concerned with feeding her healthy and wasn't thrilled about all the packaged, processed foods that the deals and coupons got me. I decided that I would be better off saving my time that I spent couponing and just buy more staples and spend that time on cooking from scratch.



Fast forward a dozen years and 5 more growing children...my grocery bill is significantly larger and the budget is significantly tighter. I have looked into couponing on more than one occasion, but saving 50 cents on a name brand item really doesn't put you much ahead of just buying the store brand or making it from scratch. It doesn't really warrant the amount of time I would spend clipping and organizing the coupons.



Recently, I read a blog post by my online friend, Carla. She talked about organizing her coupons and only using them only on items that were on sale. From my experience, I know this is the right way to go about it. She inspired me and I also remembered hearing about The Grocery Game. The "game" is "playing" your coupons when an item is at its very lowest price. At this site you subscribe to a weekly list for one (or more than one) of your local stores that highlights what things are on sale for a good price and exactly what coupon to use on them from your Sunday papers. It is a huge time saver because not everything listed in a store's ad is a great deal. You have to maintain a price book and know your prices.



I signed up for a 4 week trial at the site (for a dollar!) to try it out. It seems to be working. Now that I am building up my supply of coupons, I am getting some great deals and not spending too much time at it. My trial ended last week and I decided to continue to pay for a couple of stores.



One of the store lists that I get is CVS. If you are not familiar with CVS, it is worth doing so. You can sign up for their Extra Care Card and get extra savings as well as Extra Care Bucks. These are like a rebate that prints like a coupon at the bottom of your sales receipt. You can spend them like cash the next time you shop there.



I have to share my great bargains I recently got. I used my CVS list from the Grocery Game site. I got a nice variety of things that we will use for sure: shampoo & conditioner, deodorants, toothpaste, air fresheners, paper towels, cereal, makeup, facial cleanser, Crest Pro health mouthwash, pain relief gel, saline nose spray, and dish soap. Everything was name brand, nice stuff (better than what I usually buy without coupons).

Here is the breakdown of what I spent and saved:


Total before coupons and sales $165.51 (yikes!)

Saved by using Extra Care Card 51.43

Saved with coupons 35.06

Saved using CVS bucks from previous visit 35.00

TOTAL (before tax) 44.02

TOTAL SAVINGS $121.49



AND I generated $31.00 in CVS bucks to use next time!!! Isn't that amazing?

Now, you can certainly do this without the Grocery Game list. The list is just a time saver. I figure since it only costs $1.25 per week, it is worth it considering the savings that I am seeing, because honestly, I don't know that I could find the time required to do it without the list.



Just so you know, I am no way affiliated with the Grocery Game. I am just a happy customer. If this is something that intrigues you, it is certainly worth the $1 for a month trial. You get access to all the lists available for your area. If you do this, could you please use me as a referral by entering my e-mail address (scrappinpappyATverizonDOTnet - change the AT to "@" and the DOT to a ".") in the referral box on the sign-up page. If I get several referrals, I could get a month free. Woohoo!



I'll have to share my system for organizing my coupons in a later post. Good luck and Happy Savings!