For the past few weeks, instead of immediately trashing the weekly circulars that get shoved in our mailbox, I’ve actually taken the time to cut out relevant coupons, and print a few others out from Coupons.com. Slowly but surely, with the help of blogs like Living Rich with Coupons, I’ve managed to get a decent little collection of coupons going.
Last week was my first attempt doing my weekly grocery shopping with coupons, and I’ve found that it takes you a little longer in the store – in addition to getting what you need to buy from your weekly list, you stroll the non-perishable aisles to do a quick check as to whether you have a coupon match to anything that’s on sale. (Note: there are actually numerous sites that do this for you, but I’ve found I rarely have the coupons they list in their matches…I probably need to start getting a Sunday paper…)
On my first trip, I managed to save $15, which sounds like a lot, but the majority of that was from a $10 off a 70-count bottle of Claritin, which we had been running low on anyways. The only real “win” was a bottle of salad dressing (the kind we normally use) that would have normally cost $3.50, I managed to snag for $0.50. Exciting, but it seemed like kinda small potatoes.
Today, however, as my coupon horde has continued to grow… (click “Continue Reading” to see more!)
I was able to get just over $20 in savings (about 1/6th of my total grocery bill) and added my first two items to my “stockpile”: laundry detergent and fabric softener, both of which only cost me about $2, regularly priced around $7.50. (A sale had them at half off, plus a coupon for each for $1.50 brought them down to roughly $0.05/ounce!)
While I certainly don’t anticipate ever being able to do the kind of purchases that the crazies on the tv show do, I found my first little foray into couponing pretty fun – it’s like you’re tricking the store out of free money.
Do you have any couponing tips for this newbie? Share your ideas in the comments, I’d love to hear them!
