Done

I figured I should update anyone who reads this, which is probably just me but oh well. (This way if I go crazy and can't remember things I will know what happened with my couponing!)  Anyway, I have pretty much quit.  I know, I know I shouldn't be a quitter but couponing was taking over my life, and I was barely getting anything to show for it.  I am guessing the stores have caught on to the ways of the crazy couponer because ever since about december I haven't been able to find anything free.  It was kinda fun for a little and it was cool to get some free toothbrushes and toothpaste (which is pretty much all I could figure out how to get free), but spending 10 plus hours a week, cutting and sorting my coups, was so not worth saving 2 dollars on a toothbrush, that I don't even need for a few months.  Anyway, I still get some coupons but I don't really cut them out anymore though I do look through them to see if there is any for things that we will buy or toothbrushes, (I think I have a bit of an addiction to getting them).  As far as this blog goes, I think this will be my last post.  I might get a second wind and go all out again but most likely this is it.  Over and out!

backwards?

So I fear I may be moving backwards in my couponing.  Maybe not since I never really went anywhere with it so I guess maybe I am just staying the same.  I do have a ton of coupons though.  I am having a really hard time figuring out what to do with all of them.  I cut them and have them all organized (I'm kinda crazy when it comes to organizing my coupons) but I just don't really use them.  I look through the news paper each week and look at the grocery store adds but I am terrible at figuring out what to get.  I see sales on items and sometimes even things that I have a coupon for but I can't bring myself to use it or stock up if the price is not free or almost free so in the end I end up paying full price.  I know that I should just use the coupons but I always feel like a better deal will come and I need to wait.  I guess I should have thought about this before I started since this is not an uncommon problem for me.  I did it with my halloween candy as a kid, i do it with gift cards, money, even presents I get sometimes (you know the set type that comes with the supplies you need for a project.)  I simply can't bring myself to use something because I am certain a situation is coming down the road when I will need it more.  The only bonus to this is I am a great saver! I have gift cards to all kinds of places and you can always count on me to have a stash of christmas candy, as long as you don't mind the slightly old kind.  Well anyway that's it for now I'll let you know if I jump back on the couponing train.

A few Savings

Sorry it has been so long.  I got kind of busy and didn't do any couponing last week (gasp), but never fear I am back to it.  I wasn't able to find that many great deals this week but I did find a few.  It is kind of hard to keep going though since I am not seeing it pay off as much as those crazy ladies on the show.  I did watch an interview with one of the people from the show and they said that the way they shopped on the show is not how they shop normally so that made me feel a little better and want to get back at it.  Here I was thinking I could not even find one thing for free and these crazy couponers are getting thousands of dollars worth of things each week for a penny.  So here are the deals I got this week:

Walgreens
reach 2 pack toothbrushes on sale for $2.99 get $2 RR
I had a $2 off coupon so this ended up being a money maker :)

Tide on sale for $10.99 not a great sale but if you bought $20 in participating items you got free toilet paper and tide is what we like to use so we got two.

That was it for walgreens but I do have some RRs to spend there later!

Safeway

Reynolds tin foil on sale with store coupon and $1 mfc so it ended up being only $2.98 for two rolls

So not to bad of savings plus I have a few more things to add to my stock pile.  Hopefully I can keep it growing and be shopping like a pro in no time!

How I got my start

Well I haven't really been spending much time couponing this week so I have some extra time and I figured if I'm not couponing I might as well write about it right? :)  Anyway, I thought this would be a great time to bring you up to date on how I started couponing.
     Once upon a time in a living room not to far from here sat a sort of little girl, but not that little anymore, watching a television show on the wonderful Learning Channel.  The show was titled extreme couponing and showed all kinds of people getting loads of stuff for pennies, sometimes literally.  Anna thought to herself "wow look at all that stuff".  She sort of thought those coupon ladies were crazy, they must be wasting all kinds of money on that junk, plus look at all those stock piles this is like an extension of that hoarders show.  Yet despite all these thoughts there was something intriguing about these ladies' hobby, not to mention how nice and organized all their coupon binders and stock piles looked.  Then one of the ladies turned to the screen and said " If you throw away coupons you are throwing out money".  Suddenly the light went on in Anna's head.  "She's right"  Anna realized " I have plenty of time during the day, it is summer and it looks kind of fun, alright I'll try it!"  That night Anna could barely sleep she was so excited to begin her coupon adventure.  The next day she ran to the library and got her hands on some couponing books to learn how this art was mastered.  A few weeks and many papers later Anna was sending her dad off to the store with her first few coupons for free things, BBQ sauce!  After that, Well this is one story that isn't finished yet, you will just have to keep coming back to see!

Wags Trip, Complete

So my multiple trips to walgreens are finished and my stock pile has begun.  Here is what I got on my last trip:

2 Lysol toilet cleaners
2.99 each
used $1 off/2 C

2 nature made vit D
9.49 on sale b1g1free
used 2 $1/1 C

2 AA batteries
2.99 each
$1 off/ 1 C

Used 4 RR totaling $13
bought 4 boxes of candy as fillers

This trip was pretty good but it ended up costing more then I had planned on.  The lysol cleaner had been advertised as being b1g1free but since i shopped saturday night the sale prices had already switched over to the next week so the sale was over.  So now I know to make sure and get my wags trips done at the beginning of the week but even without this sale I still did pretty good.

My total was $141.56 but I only spent $54.74 which is about a 61% savings!  Not bad for my first major couponing trip, not to mention the extra things that were purchased without coupons.  Well its now time to go and start getting ready for this weeks trips.  Bye!

More at Walgreens

So I am most of the way through my wags trips.  It is all turning out fine but there have been a few problems mostly due to the lack of coupon knowledge in the people I have recruited to help me do my 9 transaction trip (although I have cut it down to 6 now).  Anyway it all works out since I am sure that after facing the coupon Nazi, as I am being called, and wasting money my family members are much more likely to remember not to buy impulse items anymore.  As far as the better deal on the gillette razor, it doesn't exist.  The store was only moving the razors from the shelf to the front counter, so I added them back into my plan.  Here is what I have gotten so far:
Trip 1
Schick hydro razor    $8.99 get $4 RR
   used $4 off/1 coupon

Trip 2
used $4 RR to buy
colgate 360 tooth brush $2.99 get $2 RR
   Used $0.75 off/ 1 coupon
colgate 360 tooth brush $2.99
(this trip had a few problems with it as the person shopping didn't know about RR and could not find what I had asked them to purchase in addition to the tooth brush  so instead decided they too could use a tooth brush so a second one was purchased losing out on the $0.75 savings and getting the second RR.)


Trip 3
got another colgate 360 with the coupon
schick hydro refills $8.99 get $4 RR
  Used $2 off/1 coupon
Gillette Razor $9.89 get $ 5 RR
  used $4 off/ 1 C

then my sister needed shampoo and conditioner so she used my RR from the double tooth brush trip and a coupon and got her hair stuff for b1g1 50% off which is not bad due to the fact that this was a needed item rather then something to stock pile, though it will be better once I have a stock pile of this and we don't have to spend $7.50 for shampoo and conditioner.

Trip 4
Used $4 RR
got another tooth brush and another gillette razor
got twizzlers as a filler

My shopping partner:
Used $5 RR
got another schick blade refill
got dots as a filler
and purchased two bags of chips which were on sale for a good deal, but would have been much better of a deal had they been purchased as fillers in a later transaction.  I told them not to get the chips but they decided to get them anyway.

I still have one transaction to go and then I will figure out my total pre and post savings!   I think I have done pretty well so far though especially considering this is my first major coupon trip and my shopping buddies are very undereducated on coupon use.  This has been a good experience though as it is giving me an opportunity to teach my family members about couponing and helped me to reinforce what I have been learning.  Hopefully in the future I will lose my title of the coupon Nazi as my family will learn to stop themselves from impulse shopping but until then I will have to continue to tell them no when they try to buy the, nail polish, chips, candy, gum, soda, popcorn or what ever else catches their eye.

First Walgreens Trip

I have been couponing for a month and a half now.  Yesturday I spent the good part of the day planning my trip to Wags (Walgreens for you non-coupon fluent peeps, oh yeah I'm using the lingo now!)  I was all excited beacuse it was my first fully planned out coupon trip.  I have used some coupons for a few items before but this was going to be my first trip that I was only buying things with coupons.  Anyway I just got back from Wags and I have nothing, I do still have all my coupons though.  I was planning on doing my first transaction which would have been a gillette razor for $5.89 after my coupon and I would get $5 Register Rewards.  Unfortanatly/fortunatly when I went to check out the cashier told me there was going to be a better sale this weekend.  This is great since I will end up getting the razors for less but It threw a major curve ball into my 9 transaction, 30% savings plan.  So now its back to the drawing board, man this is turing out to take up a tone of time.  I'll let you know what I end up doing.  Oh and when I get a chance I'll post how I got started so you all are up to date.