Posts Tagged ‘Couponing’

By Samantha

This is the second in a monthly series on couponing.

I’ve watched Hoarders. I’ve seen pictures of people’s basements, full of more canned goods and toilet paper than ten people could use in a life time. I know that when people hear the phrase, “I’m stocking up.” they refer back to that crazy coupon lady who they saw walk out of the grocery store with two grocery carts full of paper towels and salad dressing. Well, today my friends, I would like to change your outlook on “stocking up“. Stocking up on groceries and household goods, can actually save you a lot of money in the long run. I am not going to tell you to buy a bunch of things that you don’t use or will not need. I am going to tell you to stock up on things that you use on a daily basis. For me, these things include laundry detergent, butter, peanut butter, toilet paper, and cereal.

Would you believe me if I told you that I have four containers of laundry detergent in my laundry room right now, and I didn’t pay more than ten dollars for all of them combined? What about the fact that I have five jars of peanut butter (I have a 2 year old who loves PB&J) in my pantry right now, and I paid less than five dollars for them combined? There’s four tubs of butter in my refrigerator that I paid less than four dollars for combined, and six boxes of cereal in my pantry that I paid less than ten dollars for combined. It’s all true! If it weren’t for coupons, and good sales…none of this would be possible! Today, I want you to learn how to get stocked up on your basic household items, without spending a lot of money. Today, I want you to form a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Stocked up”.

How do I get stocked up?

First you need to decide what items you would like to have more of, so that running out of that item never happens. For me, that would be things like toothpaste, deodorant, laundry detergent, cereal, peanut butter, etc. Then, look for these items in the sales ad of your grocery store. Most of the time, you’ll find at least one (if not more) of the things that you would like to have more of, in the sales ads. Make sure you have coupons for the items you are interested in. If you don’t have a coupon for some of these things, sometimes it does you well to go ahead and get the items anyway. For instance, I will generally pick up a bottle of laundry detergent if it’s on sale for “buy one get one” because I’ll get it half off, generally not paying anymore than a couple of dollars for it. That’s pretty good considering that laundry detergent can run your grocery bill up when not on sale.

How much is too much?

If you are going to stock up big, I recommend doing it on different days. For instance, don’t walk into a grocery store and walk out with 50 gallons of bleach if they were having an awesome sale on it. I know someone who got 12 gallons of bleach that they paid hardly nothing for. What’s the point? Do you seriously need that much bleach? Going over board on stocking up, does make it unfair on the rest of us. We can’t get the good deals, if you’re buying the store out. Be reasonable. While I was stocking up on toothpaste, I would only buy a couple of tubes a week, and two tubes a week added up quickly. I actually stopped buying the stuff, because I was running out of room. There is absolutely no need to wipe out the grocery store in one setting.

Buy toilet paper when it’s on sale and you have a coupon. Buy butter when it’s on sale and you have a coupon. Buy laundry detergent when it’s on sale and you have a coupon. Even if you don’t need it at the moment, you will need it soon and by then it may not be on sale. Instead of paying 2 dollars for laundry detergent when it’s on sale, you will end up paying the full price of 6 or 7 dollars for it. Instead of paying 50 cent on a tube of toothpaste when it’s on sale, you’ll have to pay 3 dollars for it when it’s not on sale.

Why should I buy something when I don’t need it?

Don’t worry, Hubby had this same question to, and the answer is simple. Have you ever turned on the washing machine to make way for a giant load of laundry that you had been ignoring for a couple of days, only to find that you were out of laundry detergent? Now you have to load the kids up in the car, and head to the grocery story to fork out 12 bucks on bottle (or box) of detergent. Had you bought the detergent when it was on sale, you would not only be stocked up on it, but you also would not have paid so much for it. Now, I don’t have a laundry room full of laundry detergent, but I do generally try to stay a bottle ahead…that way I never run out.

Bottom line, stocking up is good if you do it smart. Make sure you are not stocking up on things that are full price. They need to be on sale, and having coupons for them is a plus. Wouldn’t you like to never have to worry about buying toothpaste again, or maybe toilet paper, or laundry detergent, or cereal! How nice would it be to be able to just open up another bottle of detergent when the other runs out, or pull out another deodorant when the other runs dry? You don’t have to worry about remembering to put certain items on the grocery list, because you already have them! There’s no more worry, and no more stress!

If you have any questions on how to get stocked up, or how to use coupons, please feel free to drop me an email. I want to help anyone I can save money.

What are your tips to save money at the grocery store?

Samantha is a stay at home mom of one crazy little girl. She writes out her antics almost daily on her personal blog, Apple Juice and Milk,in an attempt to help others feel better about their lives… when compared to hers.

By Samantha

This is the first in what will be a monthly series on couponing.

I know you have seen them. Those crazy looking ladies in the grocery story, with a Zip-Loc bag full of coupons, desperately flipping through them and piling groceries on top of groceries into the cart. I know you’ve thought to yourself, “Why would anyone want to subject themselves to this apparent humiliation of being labeled a crazy-coupon-lady?” You have probably rolled your eyes at these crazy-coupon-people, and continued to the register where you paid full price for a bottle of laundry detergent.

Well, let me enlighten you.

Using coupons, and saving lots of money doesn’t mean that you have to turn into that crazy-coupon-lady you see in the grocery  tore every week. There is a better and easier way to go about couponing, and I am going to teach you how. But first… let me give you a little background on why I started using coupons for my weekly grocery trips.

My mom used coupons when I was younger. She had one of those accordion style organizers, but she didn’t really succeed much with coupons. Just a few things here and there. About a year or so ago, she started using coupons again except this time she was taught how to use them properly. Her first week grocery shopping with coupons, she saved nearly 100 dollars. A few weeks later, hubby received a pay cut at work (excuse was the bad economy), and I had to find a way to save money. Considering that we had no debt, and the only bills we paid were rent, and utilities… I decided that tackling our groceries every week would be the place to start. Since hubby and I had gotten married, we did our grocery shopping at Wal-Mart– mainly because they were so much cheaper than the regular grocery stores. Even still, we were spending about 60 dollars a week on groceries (not counting the weeks that we had to buy diapers & formula), and hardly bringing anything home to show for it. Just enough food for supper for the rest of the week. So, my mom sat me down one Sunday afternoon and taught me the art of using coupons.

Excited to buy groceries with my coupons, I quickly saved $10 the first week. That may not sound like a lot, but to a couple of broke people, it was a fortune! Those $10 soon turned into $20, and $20 turned into $30, and before too long I was saving more than I was spending. On average, our weekly grocery bill is around $30 and we are coming home with a lot more than we used to when we were shopping at Wal-Mart.

So, are you ready to save your family some money? I mean, lots and lots of money? How does free groceries sound? What about paying twenty five cents for a box of cereal… name brand cereal at that? Well, then…take notes, because I am going to teach you how to work the coupons!

Where do I get coupons?

You can generally find coupons in the Sunday Newspaper. You know, mixed in with all of the different ads. If you’re not looking for them, you’ll swear they’ve never been there. But they have been. There are generally two to three different magazines of coupons in the Sunday Paper. There is Smart Source, P&G (Proctor and Gamble), and RedPlum. All three come in a magazine type booklet, generally with an advertisement on the front and the name of the company. When you open these books, you’ll find tons of great coupons for different products like shampoo, deli meat, snacks, laundry detergent, deoderant, etc.

What do I do with the coupons once I cut them out?

Go out and buy yourself a 3-ring binder, dividers, and baseball card holders. Organize your 3 ring binder in the order in which a grocery store is generally laid out, and then slip in your coupons for each divider into the baseball card holders. Here is a wonderful website that will help you get your notebook organized!

How do I find out what is on sale?

Grocery stores and pharmacies (like CVS, Rite Aid, & Walgreens) generally put an ad in the Wednesday newspaper and Sunday newspaper with a list of their sales; but I tend to go the grocery store’s website and look at their ads from there. I write down what sales I am most interested in. You can go to Southern Savers website; she actually already has the grocery ads listed with what coupons to use (and even coupons you can print out) and how much an item would cost using the sales & coupons.

When it’s time to go grocery shopping, I take an envelope and write my grocery list on the front. I then slip the coupons that I am going to use inside the envelope. It’s important that your coupons are also organized inside the envelope. Depending on how many coupons you have, it can be hard to find the one you want to use quickly. If I am going to more than one grocery store that day, I put my coupons in order of how they are listed on my list, and in order of which grocery story I am visiting first, second, etc. It is also a good idea to take your 3-ring binder shopping with you, because there are also a lot of sales that aren’t listed in the ads and you could miss out on some more really great deals!

Working The Sales

Just because something is on sale, doesn’t mean it’s a great deal. Make sure that you are getting the most out of the sale and your coupon. For instance: Kelloggs Mini Wheats were on sale, buy one get one free (B1G1) and I had a coupon for $1 off of 3. After calculating how much the actual price would be with my coupon, I came up with it costing 5 dollars to get 3. That’s when I found another coupon for a 1.50 off 2. So I ended up paying 2.50 for two HUGE boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats.

When an item is Buy One Get One Free (B1G1), you do not have to buy both items to get the sale price. You can buy just one of the items, and get it half off! For instance: A box of spaghetti is on sale B1G1, for a total cost of 1.20 for 2 boxes, but you only need one box. By getting one box instead of two, you will pay only .60. – Some grocery stores will let you use a manufacturer coupon AND their store coupon together on one item. Use those two together and you’ll get an even better deal! For Instance: You have a Mini Wheats coupon for a 1.00 off of a box of Mini Wheats, and you also have your grocery store’s store coupon for 1.00 dollar off of a box of Mini Wheats, if you put the two coupons together, you’ll get 2.00 off of that one box of Mini Wheats (can you tell how much I love Mini Wheats?)! – Some grocery stores will double your coupons up to .60! For Instance: You have a coupon for .50 off of a bag of shredded cheese, the grocery store will double that coupon, giving you 1.00 off of that bag of cheese.

Doubling and tripling coupons can really, really add up. This is how you can get a lot of things for free, or just a few cents. For more grocery store savings tips click here. There are also websites you can go to, to print out coupons. Yes, grocery stores do take printed out coupons. You don’t have to have any special paper, and you won’t be arrested for trying to forge a coupon. I know, I was a skeptic myself the first time I used my printed out coupon. I still get a little nervous when I hand the cashier my computer coupon, but they take them without a second thought. Some of my best deals, I have gotten with a printed out coupon! Coupon Mom [DOT] Com provides several different websites that you can print out coupons with. There are even restaurant coupons too! If you think that you lack the time or the dedication to use coupons, make it fun! For instance, treat yourself to something with the money you save on groceries in a week.

If you save $50, take that money and buy yourself some new shoes or a new dress. Maybe you’d like to put the money you save back into a savings account to save for family vacation or another big event you have coming up. Whatever it may be, you are saving money by using coupons and that means you can put that money toward other things that you may want or need to save money for! Leave a comment with any questions you may have about couponing. I want to make sure I can help everyone I can save the money that they deserve to be saving!

What are your tips to save money at the grocery store?

Samantha is a stay at home mom of one crazy little girl. She writes out her antics almost daily on her personal blog, Apple Juice and Milk,in an attempt to help others feel better about their lives… when compared to hers.