So I have been at this “Couponing” strategy for about a month now and I have some insights to share. I know I am just so “wise” you have to listen!
So over the past few weeks I have been doing a TON of research on blogs, vlogs, and forums and websites and man there is a TON of information out there talk about INFORMATION OVERLOAD! I even watched some of the TLC “Extreme Couponing” Episodes that I missed online. As I was watching these episodes I was like okay these ppl are saving 90% on their groceries thats great. But groceries are only 1 small fraction of all the bills that a household has to pay. Now I understand that if you have 5 teenagers they eat a lot but still we need to pay for gas, utilities, mortgages…etc. And a bunch of these people are all well since we coupon we were able to buy a new car with cash, or pay off all our debt or buy a new house, or one lady even said she’s saved over $55,000 by couponing. So this intrigued me because yes we’re only 2 people not a family of 5 but I’m thinking how is me saving say $200 a month really helping me “Buy a new car.”
But then I was talking to my mom about it and was telling her my thoughts and I guess in the month-to-month scope yeah $200 isn’t a lot of money but over a year it’s $2,400. But I think the real point they are trying to point out is that not only are they saving 50%-90% on their groceries every month but because they are figuring out there savings it’s FORCING them to look at their finances more closely and really BUDGET there money. Which sooo many people avoid doing because it’s not fun.
So in the past month I have been keeping track of how much we’ve saved and we’ve saved an overall of 41% which comes out to about $200. (Now that is not just food it’s also some clothing trips, and office supply trips (where you don’t save as much)) But it’s easier for me to just keep everything together.
So we are doing some good and I even bought iBank 4 for my mac to create a budget and keep track of where our money is going and so I can get a hold of all my debt and hopefully I’ll get a job making enough so I can get rid of a bunch of it in the next few years.
So by now I have it down to a science on Sundays we get the newspapers and I go through all the drug store ads and matchups from my blog friends and then I go to the store and then on Wednesdays I go through all the grocery store matchups and then on Thursday or over the weekend I head to the grocery stores. And I keep everything by date in my coupon binder 🙂
So far so good our closets are getting full for a good price. And now in Florida we’re we live no one doubles. Although I did hear that a store has double and triple events a few times a year thats about an hour ago so we may look for that deal and go. But at the end of the month we are going on vacation to Myrtle Beach and I found out some of the stores there do double coupons so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get some good deals the week we’re there (plus they have Rite Aid which always has better deals than CVS and Walgreens). My mom says I get that from my Dad whenever they went on vacation they’d go grocery shopping for good deals in whatever city they were in. It pays off if you can get some good deals!