Couponing

Right now it seems like couponing and saving money is all the craze. My ward has a "frugal living" enrichment group. I was invited to a grocery smarts class. Everyone wants to save money.

So, I thought I'd do a post on my take on all of this stuff. I am not willing to drive to tons of stores and the only stores close to me are Walmart Market, Harmon's and Smith's. I tend to like to buy a lot of things that don't have coupons... produce, meat, bread, milk, etc. So what I do, is I go to Walmart Market and I PRICE MATCH. Walmart will meet anyone's sell prices. So, I go to The Obsessive Shopper. She taught the Grocery Smarts class that I went to. Click on UTAH... that is where I live anyway. Then I click on the list that says "all in one." This gives me a list of the sales at all the stores in Utah in a table format. The first column is starts... 4 & 5 stars are good deals. Then it tells you the item, regular price, if there is a coupon and what the final cost will be. The list is in order of store. So I click on start... that turns my whole list gray. I click on the things that I think I would want to buy and it turns them white. I go through the whole list looking for the best deals. Then I click "shrink." It shrinks the list down to just the items I'm going to buy. I print that list and take it to the store with me. I will write on the back the items that I need that aren't on the list. Then I go and cut my coupons. I just file them by type (smart source, red plum and P&G) and I put them in date order... I write the date on the front so I can see it better, but the date is also really small on the binding. I don't cut out the coupons until I know that I need them. When I go to the store I also take my ads in case they want to see it in the ad... they rarely do, but it depends on your checker. I load up my cart and I try to keep the things that don't need to be price matched separated so I can give them to the checker first. I tell her that I'm going to price match everything else and she will ask me how much it costs and I look at my list and tell her. Then I give her my coupons at the end. It is a bit time consuming, but I feel like I'm getting what we need and building up my food storage. The other thing that I do is I always check the MEAT dept. to see if they have anything that they have marked down because it is about to expire. I buy it and put it in the freezer when I get home.

So, here's my last trip. I'm not as good as those ladies that get a whole cart for $25, but I got a lot of stuff and here's what I spent...

$87 .... I have a $10 rebate for the cereal that I can send off which will make the final cost $77

I got...

• 3 capri suns
• 10 boxes of cereal
• 2 milk
• 2 sodas
• 2 fruit cups
• a chicken
• boneless pork ribs
• 2 listerines
• 4 packages of shredded cheese
• 6 boxes of kleenes
• 2 pkgs stay free
• 2 toothpaste
• 2 boxes of pasta
• 2 boxes of band aids
• 2 pkgs cookies
• marshmellos
• brown sugar
• yogos
• tp
• nectarines
• bread
• dishwasher detergent
• various canned stuff
• etc.

You can look at the picture. I think I got a lot of stuff for a pretty good price. I had over $20 just in the coupons and I also price matched everything. After rebate, my cereal will be 25cents a box.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know in case you want to join all of the crazy couponers out there.