Just FYI - if you've started your coupon 'collection,' there are some great printable coupons on the internet right now for Kraft products AND there are tons of sales in the Southern grocery stores that will give you free items and possibly overages. I believe their is also some great sales at Walmarts, but your market may vary (YMMV).
Go to www.kraftfoods.com and www.coupons.com to print them. You should be able to go through the process twice to get a set from each site (total of 4 copies of each coupon). You will have to sign up to be a member of kraftfoods.com on their website to access the coupons.
Just an example of how you will get free stuff. BiLo has a B1G1 sale on Kraft BBQ sauce for $1.49 total (or $0.75 each). Using one coupon per item:
2 x $0.75 Bottles of BBQ sauce
2 x -$1.00 off 1 bottle of BBQ sauce
= FREE (and if your store allows overages, you MAKE $0.50 profit towards the rest of your grocery bill)!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
No Coupon Inserts This Week
Just a friendly reminder that there will not be any coupon inserts in the paper this week!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Extreme Couponing - The Basics
First of all, I'm a huge believer in 'sharing the wealth.' Since I can't do this financially, the next best thing is for me to pass on how I've managed to save HUNDREDS of dollars just by spending about 1-2 hours a week working on coupons. This is easy and yes, you can do it. It will certainly pay off in the long run.
I hope to expand on these basics in the coming posts and I plan to work on this site 2-3 times a month; however, if you have questions about anything, I will do my best to send a timely response. If I seem to get the same question multiple times, I'll try to do a monthly Q&A post to highlight frequently asked questions.
How to Get Started:
1. Start buying more than 1 Sunday paper each week. You will save far more this way - (i.e. Buy 1 Get 1 Sales will typically allow you to use one coupon per product so you'll need two coupons). Please note that about once a month there is a week. Obviously, you don't want to buy 2 or more papers that particular week. Southern Savers has a great website to check which weeks will have coupon inserts
http://www.southernsavers.com/2008/12/2009-coupon-inserts-schedule/
How many papers you buy is entirely up to you. I buy 4 total each week. For a single woman that lives alone, this seems to work well for me. Parents who have 2,3, or even 4 kids, you may want to buy more - it just depends on how you want to stock pile.
2. You can also find coupons on the internet (this subject definitely deserves its own post and I'll get into this subject - how to find them, ethics, etc - on another day). Some great starter places are:
www.coupons.com
www.slickdeals.net (go into the Drugstore/Grocery forum)
www.couponbug.com
3. Organization. You've got tons and tons of coupons now. You can go a few different routes on how to organize them. So far, I know of two great ways to do this. One is by keeping the inserts fully intact and filing them, and the other is a binder with photo or baseball card pockets. Personally, I like to always have my coupons on hand in my car in case I hear of a great sale so I prefer to spend the extra time to clip all my coupons from the insert and place them in my binder.
4. Check out the sites! There are a ton of extreme couponers out there and a lot of the stay at home moms go to lengths to create their own coupon match up sites so they can also share the wealth. These wonderful individuals will take the stores' weekly flier ad that most of us get in the mailbox and list each item with the corresponding coupon match up. This is how you save tons of money!!! Yes, $.50 off a vitamin water is great when doubled without a sale when the bottle is typically $1.69, but if Bi-Lo has a sale on them for $1.00 each (FREE with that same $.50 off coupon), wouldn't you rather wait to buy it when it's on sale?
I'm only familiar with Southern based grocery stores, so I typically go to www.southernsavers.com. However, www.slickdeals.net is a huge wealth of coupon knowledge and includes weekly threads for almost all major stores (Walmart, Meijer's, Publix, CVS, etc). Between these two sites, I've learned all I know.
5. The way to do this. Stockpile!!! Yet again, I will dive more into this in the coming posts, but the trick to this is not to go out and buy your typical groceries this week. Buy only what you NEED for that week and then STOCKPILE on the products you and your family use that you have a coupon for and is on a good sale. When I started, I only bought one thing or two of meat for the week (again, I live alone - your supplies my vary), eggs (for breakfast), salad, and some veggies. If I needed other basics, I would look through my coupons and use them even if the store wasn't hosting a sale on that item this week.
Then, whatever had a great deal combined with my coupons, I stocked up and bought as much as I could. For example, I don't eat spaghetti every week, but I had $.60 off Bertolli's spaghetti sauce. Bi-Lo doubles coupons and had a B1G1 (buy 1, get 1) Sale that week. I had 4 of those coupons so I bought 4 jars for less than $.80 each!!! Now I have 4 jars in my pantry on hand to use when needed.
Same thing with Special K cereal. Food Lion had them for B1G1 and I had a large stash of $1.00 off any Kellogg's cereal (thanks to the paper and those flashing in store coupon dispensors in the aisle). So I bought 6. I never really ate cereal for breakfast in thepast, but for less than $.70 a box and 5-6 breakfasts per box, my eating habits have definitely changed!
As the week's go on you'll find yourself rarely buying things you have to have each week (except maybe meat) and more items that you need to replenish your stock.
6. One small note about the ethics of couponing (I'll get more in detail about this too later on), don't buy more than what you could use before it expires. You won't see me out there buying 20 boxes of cereal or shampoo to sell at a garage sale or just because. I don't need that many so I don't buy it. There are others of us out there that use those same products and to stockpile just to clear the shelves is not the purpose of doing this.
There will be more to come! I promise I will try to update as often as possible and please, ask questions if you have any!
I hope to expand on these basics in the coming posts and I plan to work on this site 2-3 times a month; however, if you have questions about anything, I will do my best to send a timely response. If I seem to get the same question multiple times, I'll try to do a monthly Q&A post to highlight frequently asked questions.
How to Get Started:
1. Start buying more than 1 Sunday paper each week. You will save far more this way - (i.e. Buy 1 Get 1 Sales will typically allow you to use one coupon per product so you'll need two coupons). Please note that about once a month there is a week. Obviously, you don't want to buy 2 or more papers that particular week. Southern Savers has a great website to check which weeks will have coupon inserts
http://www.southernsavers.com/2008/12/2009-coupon-inserts-schedule/
How many papers you buy is entirely up to you. I buy 4 total each week. For a single woman that lives alone, this seems to work well for me. Parents who have 2,3, or even 4 kids, you may want to buy more - it just depends on how you want to stock pile.
2. You can also find coupons on the internet (this subject definitely deserves its own post and I'll get into this subject - how to find them, ethics, etc - on another day). Some great starter places are:
www.coupons.com
www.slickdeals.net (go into the Drugstore/Grocery forum)
www.couponbug.com
3. Organization. You've got tons and tons of coupons now. You can go a few different routes on how to organize them. So far, I know of two great ways to do this. One is by keeping the inserts fully intact and filing them, and the other is a binder with photo or baseball card pockets. Personally, I like to always have my coupons on hand in my car in case I hear of a great sale so I prefer to spend the extra time to clip all my coupons from the insert and place them in my binder.
4. Check out the sites! There are a ton of extreme couponers out there and a lot of the stay at home moms go to lengths to create their own coupon match up sites so they can also share the wealth. These wonderful individuals will take the stores' weekly flier ad that most of us get in the mailbox and list each item with the corresponding coupon match up. This is how you save tons of money!!! Yes, $.50 off a vitamin water is great when doubled without a sale when the bottle is typically $1.69, but if Bi-Lo has a sale on them for $1.00 each (FREE with that same $.50 off coupon), wouldn't you rather wait to buy it when it's on sale?
I'm only familiar with Southern based grocery stores, so I typically go to www.southernsavers.com. However, www.slickdeals.net is a huge wealth of coupon knowledge and includes weekly threads for almost all major stores (Walmart, Meijer's, Publix, CVS, etc). Between these two sites, I've learned all I know.
5. The way to do this. Stockpile!!! Yet again, I will dive more into this in the coming posts, but the trick to this is not to go out and buy your typical groceries this week. Buy only what you NEED for that week and then STOCKPILE on the products you and your family use that you have a coupon for and is on a good sale. When I started, I only bought one thing or two of meat for the week (again, I live alone - your supplies my vary), eggs (for breakfast), salad, and some veggies. If I needed other basics, I would look through my coupons and use them even if the store wasn't hosting a sale on that item this week.
Then, whatever had a great deal combined with my coupons, I stocked up and bought as much as I could. For example, I don't eat spaghetti every week, but I had $.60 off Bertolli's spaghetti sauce. Bi-Lo doubles coupons and had a B1G1 (buy 1, get 1) Sale that week. I had 4 of those coupons so I bought 4 jars for less than $.80 each!!! Now I have 4 jars in my pantry on hand to use when needed.
Same thing with Special K cereal. Food Lion had them for B1G1 and I had a large stash of $1.00 off any Kellogg's cereal (thanks to the paper and those flashing in store coupon dispensors in the aisle). So I bought 6. I never really ate cereal for breakfast in thepast, but for less than $.70 a box and 5-6 breakfasts per box, my eating habits have definitely changed!
As the week's go on you'll find yourself rarely buying things you have to have each week (except maybe meat) and more items that you need to replenish your stock.
6. One small note about the ethics of couponing (I'll get more in detail about this too later on), don't buy more than what you could use before it expires. You won't see me out there buying 20 boxes of cereal or shampoo to sell at a garage sale or just because. I don't need that many so I don't buy it. There are others of us out there that use those same products and to stockpile just to clear the shelves is not the purpose of doing this.
There will be more to come! I promise I will try to update as often as possible and please, ask questions if you have any!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
FREE Shoes!
Thank you Brooks!
I filled out a form on Brooks website back in November, and surprise, surprise, I became one of their lab rats this month!
I was selected to test the Launch model - the only catch is that I will occasionally have to fill out surveys and possibly have to mail the shoes back to Brooks. I think that's a small price to pay. :)
Anyways, they're not the prettiest things in the world, but, so far, they've been quite comfy. I suggest a lot of night running with these. ;)
Wear testing is a great opportunity for runners overall. It's great to know that running companies truly care how runners feel in their merchandise and this is a way to ensure that your feedback is heard. Of course, it's a huge benefit for those of us that are dirt poor and almost rely on freebies.
Here's the link to sign up for wearing testing at Brooks:
You may not get selected for several weeks or months and possibly not at all, but you won't get picked, if you don't sign up!
CVS Run - $2.49
Today was a great run:
Transaction #1
2 x All Small & Mighty Laundry Detergent (Sale B1G1 free at $7.49 ea)
2 x $1.00 off one All Small & Mighty Detergent
2 x Tylenol Rapid Release Gelcaps 100ct (Sale $8.00 ea)
1 x $3.00 off any two Tylenol products coupon
1 x Bandaids with Neosporin 20ct ($4.49)
1 x $1.00 off any Bandaid product coupon
1 x Bandaids Blister bandaids 6ct ($4.99)
1 x $1.00 off any Bandaid product coupon
Total: $48.xx
After Coupons and CVS savings: $22.xx
Extra Care Bucks Used (ECBs): $19.00
Total Out of Pocket (OOP): $2.46
Earned $10.00 ECBs back
Transaction #2
1 x 16ct Charmin Toilet Paper (Sale $9.99)
Total: $12.xx
After CVS Savings: $9.99
ECBs Used: $10 (from Transaction #1)
Total OOP: $0.00!!!!
Earned $2.00 ECBs back
Grand Total OOP for all transactions: $2.46
ECBs remaining $2.00
Today I saved...$53.00!!!! Whoop!
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