Lessons in Couponing-Part 1

After almost 2 months of couponing, I decided to write down some of my observations, (in no particular order or flow). Here they are for you reading pleasure:

1. Finding a system that works for you is essential.
For me, this means that on Sunday afternoons or evenings, I take out the Red Plum and Smart Source inserts from my Sunday paper which is delivered to my door for the price of $1.25 each week. (This subscription gets me Thursday-Sunday papers.) I don't clip each coupon. I only clip coupons I think I may use. If I'm not sure, I usually clip it just to be safe.

Then, I divide the coupons into the categories labeled in my expandable folder, order them by expiration date, then place them in the correct slot in my coupon holder. Now that it's a routine, it takes about 30 minutes (or less) each week to do all of this. Not bad.


Red Plum



Smart Source


2. Planning a Menu saves you a ton!
Just the other day, I went to do my weekly meal plan and realized I didn't even need to go to the store on my regularly scheduled grocery day. After looking through my fridge, freezer and cabinets, I found enough in there to last a few days. I only need a few days worth because Hy-Vee is having a really great 10 hour sale this Saturday (Aug. 31) I wanted to wait to do the bulk of my weekly shopping until that day. However, I realized that I STILL didn't really need to do a normal grocery day because I had enough meal ideas to last me until my next grocery day next week! Sure, I'm going to need to grab a few things like milk, eggs, cereal and a few other things, but I don't need to buy anything extra for my supper meals this week.

Last week, I didn't see any great deals at Hy-Vee so I bought all of my weekly groceries from Aldi. I only spent $33 dollars for all of the meals for 1 week. I was way under my $50 weekly budget. Planning a menu saves you a ton!

3. There are some items that have coupons available almost every week.
I can almost always depend on having coupons for cereal, yogurt, razors, soaps, cleaning supplies, baby supplies and batteries. There are a few others but these are the ones that come to mind. Now that I'm used to what comes in the inserts each week, I can know when I see a really great coupon and when I have enough Yoplait yogurt coupons.

Some people get frustrated with coupons because they think that the above mentioned items are the only things available to buy with coupons. But the longer you coupon, the greater variety of coupons you acquire. I've been doing it long enough that I can finally read, "Use KC Masterpiece $0.50 off coupon from the 6/03 Red Plum insert and combine it with the in-store coupon of $0.50 off." It takes time to get the most bang for your buck, but it's worth it.

Stay tuned for Lessons in Couponing-Part II.

It's Time to be Honest

I bit off more than I could chew. There. I said it. I can feel the pressure lifting . . .

Shall I share a little background? In typical Julie fashion, it's slightly long winded.

You might know that we are in a slightly odd stage in our married life. Usually you go to school before children, and often, before you are married. However, Jesse only recently (past 3 years) learned where his passion lies, and how he is gifted. So we are doing things backwards and doing the school thing married, and with 2 children. Overall, life is still fairly normal. But the biggest adjustment we've had to make has been our finances.

Some of you can relate I'm sure. Imagine trying to budget for a family of 4 when the Mom stays at home with the kids, and the husband works part time, and attends school full time. Yeah, it can create some problems. I'm not telling you this because I want sympathy, not at all! I'm just telling you what our daily reality is.

Thankfully, 5 years ago our church paid for us to go through Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey. That course is one of the building blocks in our marriage. We will be forever grateful to Cornerstone Church for sending us through the class. We learned how to budget, live within our means, create a small nest egg and get rid of debt. We've been debt free for more than 3 years!

Now back to the family of 4 with a part time income . . . . going to school costs money. Living daily life costs money. Like I've said before, I jumped on the coupon wagon out of necessity. And I'm still on it because I'm saving more and more money each week. As I began to learn how to coupon, I saw a blogging niche I thought I could fill. Helping people match up coupons with good recipes. So many crazy couponers out there live off of $35 dollars a week, but they eat rice and beans and frozen casseroles. I couldn't do that! 5:30 is seriously one of my favorite times of my day. I look forward to the time I can start preparing supper almost every day. No lie. What can I say, I enjoy cooking.

So I thought I would give my hand at blogging for income. I wasn't expecting much, just a little extra cash flow would help. I started The Coupon Cook. And quickly realized that I bit off more than I can chew. I fully believe that I have the creative juices to run something like it. What I lack, is TIME. Jesse and I have been talking a lot lately about how we are going to make life work, where we can make cuts, how we can do it without taking out loans, etc. All the while, we are keeping in mind that our 2 young children are that: YOUNG! If these 2 kids are the only 2 we have, these next few years while Jesse is in school is it! I only have a few years to really pour into them and train them before they go off to school and start learning more about the world. (Yes I realize the training doesn't stop after age 5, but those first 5 years are HUGE for so many areas of development.)

So as I considered all of the ways I can contribute to my family income, I quickly saw that I'm not going to have time to do all of them, AND be the Mom and wife I need to be. Currently, I work super super part time for The Upstream Collective and the Skybridge Community. It's something I really enjoy being a part of. I also am hoping to teach group Spanish classes for children from our home this school year. Right now that involves getting out into the community, and networking with organizations that could put me in contact with interested parents and kids.

I plan on continuing to post on this blog about my couponing journey. I know a lot of people who are getting into it too so I hope I can be a source of help and possibly humor as I mess up quite a bit! But I am going to stop posting on The Coupon Cook. All 15 fans on Facebook will be disappointed I'm sure. :)

God has been pressing into me these past few weeks as I've tried to figure out ways to generate income from home. The biggest lesson I'm learning is that I really am in a prime place in my life to learn to trust God for my basic necessities. Where in the modern day American Christian church do we get to trust God for the basics? Hardly ever! We often times don't really act like we need God for much besides emotional pick me ups and spiritual hugs. God is there for that, but He's there for so much more-if only we'd let Him. So I'm going to be a good steward of the financial resources he has given us, and trust Him with the rest.

Ahh, my load feels so much lighter already.

Free Chicken!

Check out the newest post on how to get free chicken! Be forewarned . . . this isn't for the light of heart!

Learning to Coupon

I'm reaching that overwhelmed stage of my couponing journey. Each week I learn a little bit more, and each Sunday, I cut more and more coupons. Thus, I lay in bed at night with eyes wide open wondering how in the world I'm actually going to make all of these deals work, and if I'll actually be able to use them in REAL LIFE. Remember, I still feel like a teenager asking out his first date when I go to use these coupons. It doesn't help when the cashier gives you a "look" and then after the final sale price is listed says, "Well everything had a coupon didn't it." I'm sure she was just making an observation. But to that teenager, when the girl says, "Well you must like the color blue," he immediately starts over analyzing what she meant by that. Does blue make me look too preppy? Does it remind her of the ex-boyfriend? Is it her favorite color too and she's already starting to make plans for our future wedding??

Learning how to save money takes time, patience and humility. I have the first . . . God's working on me on the other 2. I'm still really enjoying this new fangled idea (to me at least) of couponing. I mean, what's not to love about saving money? But there are a few tricks of the trade I haven't yet mastered. I currently have piles of cut coupons on my coffee table and I'm pretty sure I have some cereal ones mixed with cleaning product coupons because I can't remember which coupons go in which category. I've renamed the tabs in my coupon organizer 3 times. They used to look really cute with a cool color scheme, but now I've had to flip almost all of them over to white so I could write a new category. So much for a snazzy looking organizer that only I see.

Basically, I need to remember to take a deep breath, and realize that I can't be THAT Mom who only spends $35 a week on all groceries . . . yet.

Well, I better get back to organizing my coupons for the week. I have to say though, last week I ended up spending more than $50, so this week, I'm not going to the store to buy any groceries, except for a few basics, like milk and butter. I'm going to attempt to use ONLY what I have on hand. It should be doable because last week I had leftovers of certain ingredients. I still have ham and chicken. I'll try and let you know what I end up making.

I also wanted to say that if anyone reading this is wanting to get started couponing, but you don't know how, start now! I'm learning too so we can learn together. I plan on blogging quite a bit about this whole process. If you are really interested, here are some basic first steps:

1. Go to Wal-Mart and buy a $1 coupon organizer. It makes you feel more organized, and more official. Like you just joined a crazy Mom club . . . which you have.
2. Buy a Sunday paper (or ask someone who doesn't use the inserts if you can have them).
3. Look through the coupons and cut ANY coupon you think you MIGHT want in the future. This has been my mistake the past few weeks. I keep seeing deals that say "Use the 3/11/10 coupon for Suddenly Salad" so clip it now, even if you don't need it this week.
4. Look through your cupboards and make mental (or real if you're uber organized) notes of what is there.
5. Make a menu of at least 3 meals you could make with ingredients you JUST have on hand.
6. Then check out your coupons and gather 2-3 more meals based on things you can buy on sale.
7. When you arrive at the store, grab the weekly special paper and see what stuff is on sale. Try and use coupons only on things that are already on sale.

This is the BASICS and how I've been starting out. I'm getting better and saving more each week. If you need help coming up with a menu, leave a comment with your list of food items/or coupons and I'll help you out! Seriously! You can email them to me if you need it. OK. Let's keep learning about this together.

Seriously . . .

You need to go to Hy-Vee. I just bought 2 dozen eggs for $1!! $.50 each?? You'll never find that at Aldi!

Other deals:
-$1 Hy-Vee box cereal (stock up on knock off rice krispies, cheerios and cornflakes to use in rice krispie treats, baby snacks, and casserole toppers)
-10% off a bag full of dairy items
-2/$5 Tennessee Pride sausage (and if you have the coupon from this past Sunday for $1 off, it's even cheaper!) Use 1 lb of sausage in lasagna, and the other you can save for a breafast for dinner meal, pizza, or an actual breakfast!

I'll be looking at recipes with eggs in them over the next few weeks because I now have 3 dozen eggs in my fridge! I'm thinking quiches, breakfast casseroles will be on the menu. Anyone have some great recipes using eggs that are not specific to breakfast? I'd love to hear them!

P.S. I pretty much live right across from a Hy-Vee so it's pretty convenient for me to stop in there when I'm checking on a coupon deal. In case you were wondering . . . .

Healthy Coupons!

Yes, coupons for healthy/organic foods are skinnier than that coupon you have for $1 off a package of Little Debbie cake rolls. So if you are a Hippy, check out this site for some healthy coupons! She has great links to deals for 7th Generation Diapers, organic baby blankets, chemical-free hair detangler, etc.

Thanks to Lorrie at Natural on a Budget for the great site!

Coupon Ethics

As I'm a pretty recent couponer (yes, it's a word), I'm trying to learn what the appropriate coupon ethics are. Here's an example from yesterday:

I had a coupon for $1 off 2 packs of Rayovac alkaline batteries. On various sites, I'd read that there were some Rayovac batteries on sale for $1 at Target. People using 2 coupons were getting them for free! Well I went to check it out (and buy 2 loafs of bread for .50 each at the grocery store next door!) and by the time I was in line, I realized the packs I had in my hand were not alkaline as the coupon insisted. Also, how were people getting them for free since the coupon said it could not be combined with any other coupons, and the limie was 1 per customer. I only had one coupon so I felt OK about that, and I also figured that if the batteries I had didn't align with the coupon's requirments, it wouldn't work.When I gave the coupon to the very friendly cashier, she had no problem scanning the coupon. It took the dollar off just like that!

So here is my question that I'm researching (and we all know that "research" done online is totally legit . . .): do coupons have bar codes on them that let the computer know how to apply the price reduction, in accordance with the coupons requirements? Or is it solely dependent on the cashier reading the coupon correctly?

I want to make sure I'm doing this all legally so I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the subject as well as any legitimate sites that provide coupon guidlines. Here is a great article I found and I'm now headed over to one of my favorite sites, The Coupon Mom.

Hy-Vee Deals Today and Tomorrow!

For any of you living near a Hy-Vee, now would be a good time to head on over! They are having some big sales. I made my first stock pile purchase today. Hy-Vee brand 8 oz. shredded cheese usually costs about $2.06, but today they are on sale for $1 each! (Limit of 5) Shredded cheese is something I use often, whether it's my homemade pizza I make almost every other week, or in my favorite enchilada recipe. And recently, I've been buying block cheese and shredding it myself because I use less cheese, and it's cheaper. However, when I see $1 shredded cheese, I BUY IT.

Also, tomorrow the dairy section is having a good deal as well: fill one paper grocery bag with dairy items and save 10%. This is a prime opportunity to combine coupons with a great store deal. As for me, I already used some of my best dairy coupons earlier this week so I'm not going to go spend more money just to save 10%. But if you happen to have a lot of dairy coupons, you need to take advantage of this deal!

Click here to learn more.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to finances, everyone has their own Bottom Line. I've decided there are 3 main Bottom Lines: Environment/Organic, Time, and Money. Let me explain how I categorize the stereotypical grocery shoppers.

The Hippies: These are the people who place the environment above all else. It doesn't matter if that bottle of cleaning spray costs $8.99. It's chemical free and won't harm the environment. The Hippies are usually found at food co-ops, organic grocery stores and in their own garden. To them, it's worth it to spend the money on something that is organic and chemical free.

The Yuppies: When I'm behind a 20's something wearing $100 shoes, talking on her cell while she absently unloads her groceries onto the belt, I know I'm behind a Yuppy. Or a DINK. (Duel Income No Kids). This woman doesn't care what she spends at the grocery store because she makes enough to pay for it. Sometimes these people come in the form of a Grandma who works full time and would rather spend her time with family. For these people time is their bottom line. They work full time so it's not worth it to them to spend the time clipping coupons. I fully expect and hope that one day I'll be like this. Sure, I will still look for deals, but there will come a time when my Bottom Line will not be money, it will be time.

The Penny Pinchers: That's me. My Bottom Line is money. I stay at home with 2 kids while my husband works part time and attends graduate school. Money is my bottom line because it has to be. We don't have the luxury of spending whatever we want on groceries. We have a budget and we stick to it. So to me, it's worth it to take the time to clip coupons.

Of all of these three types of people, not one is the correct way to live. You just need to decide what your Bottom Line is. Couponing can be frustrating for some if their Bottom Line is Time, but they think they "should" be clipping coupons. If you are a Coupons For Life! kind of woman, DON'T make those who despise couponing feel like they are less than the ideal woman. And you Hippies? We're glad you love saving the environment, just don't scoff as those of us who don't have the money to save it with you.

I hope you are enjoying reading about my coupon and money saving journey. But if your bottom line isn't money, like it is mine, I understand that you might not find the coupon tips that beneficial. Hopefully, you can still find the recipes and menu planning helpful. Let me know if there's something you'd like to see on my blog to help you with YOUR Bottom Line.

"CVSing"

My very first trip to a CVS Pharmacy . . .

I headed out the door with my Wal-Mart coupon organizer and CVS Sunday ad in hand. As I walked in I scanned the store looking for an employee who could help me sign up for the Extra Bucks CVS reward card. Standing in line I remember thinking. "This is a memorable moment. Someday it will be a fond memory of the day I started making money off of CVS." And then I took a tissue and dabbed at my tears while I composed myself.

OK, most of that didn't really happen. But I was excited to finally give this CVS goldmine a try! It was fast and easy to sign-up for the card and the cashier even gave me my very own card right away. It came with 2 key chain versions as well.

Next, I headed for my target: a 64 count box of Huggies diapers on sale for $19.99. With the CVS card, the price went down to $9.99. And did I mention I had coupon for $3 off? Oh yeah. That brought my total down to $6.99. Seriously? $6.99 for a BOX of diapers? That's almost half the price of the Target brand I usually buy!

When I arrived at the cash register I kind of felt like a teenage guy asking out his first date. Do I hand them the coupon first? Are they going to roll their eyes at yet another Mom using coupons to get free stuff? Turns out you first hand them your CVS card, so they can ring up your sale purchase. If you have any coupons to use, hand them over next. On my receipt, there was a bar code at the bottom and a note that said I earned 10 extra care bucks(ECB's). Woo hoo!

I was feeling very ambitious now. So I thought about toiletry things I needed but haven't yet bought because I didn't have coupons. I went back down the aisles and grabbed a few items totaling $7.

When I arrived at the cash register for the 2nd time, I was excited to use the ECB's to purchase these things and then get more ECB's back! Turns out I was wrong . . . I COULD have used my ECB's to purchase those things, but the amount needed to equal at least $10. Darn it . . . So I talked to the cashier and asked questions to make sure I understood the whole system correctly.

When I arrived home, I read the CVSing guide on http://www.southernsavers.com/ which explained what I'd missed: The first time you buy an ECB item, you pay real money. You can then use those ECB to buy other ECB items. AND, you'll get the new ECB bonus. So they just keep rolling over! You can use ECB to pay for normal items, which I'm sure I'll use once I get a better hang of this. But you get the real things for free when you use ECB to purchase other ECB items.

Whew. I'm so glad I got my first CVS trip done. I may have felt like a fish out of water but now that I understanding it more, I can't wait to keep rolling those ECB!

Anyone else a CVSer? What deals are you finding?

UPDATE: Thanks Kaci for the tip about Money Saving Mom. I check her blog frequently but I didn't know that she listed the specials for ECB's each week at CVS! Click here if you want to read more about it!

My Recipe Coupon Match Up Shopping Update

So yesterday I made my first real attempt at shopping for groceries for a week, using a menu that was based off of coupons, sales and store promotions. My goals was $50. I want to get that down even further eventually, but hey-I'm just starting out with this coupon thing!

I first went to Hy-Vee where I realized I'd made my first mistake: Weekly specials are changed every Wednesday so last weeks specials were still up, while I had this week's coupons from the Sunday paper. Oops. But it worked out fine because Hy-Vee was offering some things at sale prices that I also had coupons for. If you remember my list from yesterday, I ended up buying cottage cheese, yogurt, sugar and hot dogs from Hy-Vee.(plus a few other items)

• I bought 2 4-packs of brand name yogurt for less than a dollar each because I had TWO coupons, for each. (One printable, one from the paper.) I think I spent less than .50 on each!
  
• The cottage cheese was name brand, but it was on sale, and then I had a coupon for .50 off so it made it cheaper than I could have bought it for at Aldi. That's a deal!
  
• All in all my total was $10.10 because I saved over $6 in coupons! This ratio encouraged me because the first time I attempted coupons with no real list and no real plan, I saved $10 and spent a total of $80!

At Aldi . . . I also messed up there. I had left my blog post up on my iPod so I could read my list at the store. When I arrived, for some reason, it only showed a white page. (And it had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn't connected to the Internet in case you are wondering if I'm that stupid.) So I had to re-create my list from memory . . . which means I forgot some stuff after the fact. I did however discovered a few things at Aldi:

• Chicken is cheaper there than Sams! $5.49/3lbs vs $11.89/6lbs at Sams
• Produce isn't really cheaper there (nor is it that great). A head of lettuce is $1.19 and I can get romaine or a head of lettuce at Hy-Vee for .99. Grapes at Aldi are REALLY good, but they are more expensive.
• You can't pick just a few potatoes or a few onions at Aldi. So although it might be slightly cheaper or the same amount to buy a 3 lb bag of onions at Aldi, I wouldn't do it because I know I won't use all of those before they go bad and I only need 1 or 2 anyways. I'll keep getting my produce at Hy-Vee so I can pick exactly how many of each thing I want. At Aldi, you usually have to buy a big bag of something.
• Canned items are hands down way cheaper at Aldi. Trust me.
• I got a dozen of large eggs for .77 at Aldi!! That's a deal!
• My hot dog purchase at Hy-Vee was a great deal . . . until I saw that I could have bought the same amount for less at Aldi. This is a prime example of how even after using a store discount combined with a coupon, sometimes Aldi is just cheaper!
  

After I was done at Aldi (where I only spent about $22.00 for almost everything else on my list!) I stopped back at Hy-Vee to grab some ham because I wasn't sure if it was cheaper at Aldi or not. There I realized I'd forgotten some things from my Aldi list and my time was running short so I had to grab the cheapest thing I could (Hy-Vee brand) for each item. Guess what happens when you go to the store with no plan and no coupons? You spend almost $18.00 for about 4 items!

Although I made a few mistakes and spent way too much at Hy-Vee that 2nd time, I'm glad I was able to see the drastic difference between shopping with a plan and coupons, and NOT. Plus, I was able to add more items to my list of each store. Like I mentioned before, I take my trusty iPod with me and I have a running list of prices for the things I regularly buy. This will help as I do future planning because I can figure out ahead of time if the coupon deal will be cheaper or not.

Stick with me-I hope to keep saving more money!

Let the Couponing Begin

Have you ever known someone who spends hardly any money for groceries yet makes out of the store with more groceries in her cart than you? I hope to be that person in your life.

OK, not really but I do hope to be that person who spends very little on groceries. Right now Jesse is job hunting, and once his school starts in the Fall he'll be going to school full time, while working part time. This couponing thing has now become a necessity. But I'm not going to lie . . . it's kind of fun!

About a month ago we drove to Virginia to buy a mini-van from my Aunt and Uncle. I think the real reason we went was that I needed someone to tell me about the addicting game of saving money through coupons. My cousin Emily gave me a basic lesson and directed me to some great websites. I left Virginia with a new mentality of shopping.
Lessons from Emily: Combine manufacture's coupons with store coupons and then use them to buy things already on sale. Also, CVS Pharmacy can be a gold mine!

Then we ventured west past Knoxvull (that's how they say it . . .) and stopped in good 'ole Nashville to see Jesse's Aunt and family. While we were there, Jesse's cousin gave me a coupon lesson too! So between 2 cousins, I came back to Iowa ready to start saving!
Lessons from Keely: Create your menu for the week based on what's on sale. Don't create your menu and then find out what menu items you can get on sale, and what items you have to pay full price for.

Now that we are on our own and buying all of our own groceries, I've started clipping coupons and shopping around. I've been to Sams, Hy-Vee, and Aldi (all stores fairly close to our apartment) to compare prices of all the items that I usually have on hand, or use in recipes frequently. I took my iPod touch with me (It's like my 3rd child-I can't leave home without it!) and made a running list of how much things cost at each place. Here is what I discovered:

Sam's-Has the cheapest milk, and the cheapest frozen chicken breasts. Occasionally I'll buy ground beef in bulk there but it's not something I use often in recipes so it's not on my list. Overall, I wouldn't say that buying in bulk at Sam's really saves you that much. (See Hy-Vee info to understand why)

Hy-Vee-Their in-store promotions combined with manufacturers coupon and/or store coupons can get you some really cheap stuff. Here were some of my deals last week:

• I bought 4 boxes of cereal at 2 for 5$, then used a 1$ off coupon for each pair, THEN I got a gallon of FREE milk because Hy-Vee had a special. Four boxes of name brand cereal and a gallon of milk for 6$. Pretty good!
  
• I had a manufacturer's coupon for .50 off a box of pasta. Then Hy-Vee had a sale going on that took another .75 off. So I ended up spending .53 for a box of pasta! Since I'd already done comparison shopping, I knew that it was cheaper than I could get at Aldi.
  

Aldi-I know I know . . . it does kind of feel like you are shopping at a second hand food store, but trust me-the food tastes fine and it's a great steal of a deal. If I know that I can get something cheaper at Aldi, then I DON'T buy it at Hy-Vee, even if it's a great coupon deal on a name brand item. I will say that I'm probably not going to buy my meat or (some) produce there if I can avoid it. The produce is hit and miss. Their grapes we've bought there are the BEST, but some of the stuff . . . well I know why it was so cheap. In general, here are the things I buy at Aldi on a regular basis IF I can't get it cheaper elsewhere using coupons:

• Eggs (.88/dozen!)
  
• Dairy products
• Cereal
• Chips/snack food
• Canned food items
• Ice cream
• Deli meat (sometimes)

This is what I've learned so far about couponing. I'm pretty much a rookie. Tomorrow I'll post my menu for the week to show you (and so I can remember!) how I'm planning my week of meals based on the deals this week. I'll be shopping at Hy-Vee and Aldi tomorrow so if you want to follow along with my menus, (and you live near a Hy-Vee and Aldi) find your Sunday paper and clip those coupons, then read tomorrow and I'll give you a week's worth of meals you can buy for cheap!

Coming soon . . .

• CVS deals. This week I'll attempt to buy a large box of diapers for only $6.99! I'll let you know how it goes!
• A list of great websites that have helped me understand how to save money using coupons, while not losing the big picture, and not spending all of my time doing it.