I started couponing a little over a year ago and, boy, am I glad I did.  It started off to be fun just to see how much I could save, but, while it’s still fun, it’s more out of necessity now.

This week, one of our local grocery stores is doubling coupons up to $1.98.  I always get jealous of the people who can get a bajillion dollars worth of groceries for two pennies, but I watch it and stock up on what I can and watch our grocery budget closely.  It looks skewed with no meat or veggies some weeks (like this shopping trip) because I buy when the sale cycles are right.  This was yesterday’s trip:

Before coupons and sales, the total was $160.89.  I paid $45.39.  My freebies on this trip were: (1) cheese singles, (3) salad dressings, (3) four-pack drinkable yogurt, (3) four-pack dessert yogurt, (3) cans chili.  (4) frozen pizzas were $0.17 each.  Olivia was totally stoked by those because I never, ever buy them. I’m so glad she’s easy to please.  She thinks ramen noodles are a delicacy.  Dog treats ranged from $0.50 to $1.39.  The expensive ones are for Rosie (our new to us puppy) and obedience school (we’ve been using Bil-Jack, so her taste is pretty picky while we’re at school, so Little Caesar treats will have to do.)

I had two trips today because one store didn’t have what I was looking for, but I did okay.   There is no picture because, while I was setting it up, I managed to knock over a cup of water and was too frustrated to do it again, but today I spent  $21.38.  Total before sale and coupons was $92.93.

My freebies today included: (1) rice and (2) new Philadelphia cooking cream cheese things.  So, while it wasn’t much, the biggest scores were (1) box of Multi Grain Cheerios for $0.25, (2) 34 oz. containers of Maxwell House coffee for $8.97 – shelf price of ONE was $10.97 and (3) Green Giant boxed frozen veggies for $0.40 ($0.133 each). I think everything else today was .50 or less, with the exception of laundry detergent and it was the Saturday special for $2.97.

It’s a lot of work and planning, and often times re-planning, but it’s fun in the end.  It’s teaching  Olivia a lesson in saving and watching our money, but it’s a shame a 6 y.o. has to absorb the reasoning behind it.

Somebody asked my why a lot of my items were quantities of three.  It’s because one of the stores I shop the most will only double coupons for the first three.  Anything after that is face value.  Besides, I don’t want to be greedy. There are a lot of us who are watching our budgets.

Will be a few weeks before there’s another coupon promotion – and it’s kind of a crap shoot at this point if it will be much of anything.  As it stands now, aside from milk, bread, fresh fruit, I don’t have to shop again for at least a month.  That I love.

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