All this for $.22 out of pocket!We have managed to get ourselves into a world of debt. When we moved here 4 years ago we had everything paid off except our minivan and of course our new home. About 6 months after we moved here I got into a car accident and we had to get a new vehicle (didnt have to be new but our used one ended upcosting us too much monthly), so our car payment doubled. Then we proceeded to spend atleast $1000-$2000 more a month than we made. You can see where this his headed.
I am relatively new to the saving money thing (ask my husband) but I jumped in with both feet and haven't looked back. The end of July I was told to either find a job or start saving money. So being as I don't take direction well, and if I got a job my family would never see me, I decided I would save money. And boy, what a difference it has made. No longer do I have to leave this room while my husband does our weekly bills. Now he is a lot less stressed, at least I think he is. He also is more than willing to share my money saving techniques (when it comes to shopping) with his coworkers and friends. He will frequently forward me emails from his friends/coworkers with the questions they ask him.
When I would go shopping I would think nothing of going to BJ’s Wholesale Club and dropping $400 in one order. Or going to my local grocery store and spending $200 in one trip, then go to the store everyday there after and spend an additional $40-$90 daily. Even Walmart where I thought I was saving money, I wasn’t. I could never stay on the grocery side and stick to buying just groceries. I could justify a monthly trip to Walmart and spend and additional $300 with the other spending I was doing too. Plus we went out to eat at least once a week, if not twice, depending on what was going on that week. Plus I was willing to buy crap my kids wanted without thinking twice.
The first thing I did was print off pretty much EVERY internet coupon I could get my hands on. I also started reading up on anything frugal, signed up for newsletters and signed up for free stuff. Me, being me, instead of doing a little bit at a time, I was trying to do it all at once (plus we were training for the MS 150 by cycling 100+miles on the weekends). I would get my paper cut out every coupon, then look over my sales and be in a hurry to use a coupon. I was going to Rite Aid and CVS and getting items that I THOUGHT were a good buy, and the free after rebate (FAR) items. I was going to all the grocery stores, including Super Target and Walmart, Dollar General, pretty much everywhere there was something on sale that I was interested in. Looking back, I shouldn’t have bought most of what I did at the times I did. And the CVS thing, that I had a very hard time with since I was trying to do so much at one time. Quickly I stopped the drug store stuff, it was just too much.
Here is what I have learned, some of it the hard way. But if you are reading it you are most likely are where I was a few months ago. Don’t make some of the same mistakes I did.
Take it slow- Focus on one area at a time. Shoot for a small reduction in your grocery bill. I remember when my husband said “If you can get our grocery bill down by 30% that will make me happy.” Well I have taken our monthly grocery bill (which includes anything you can buy in a normal grocery store) from about $2,000 a month to $500 a month and this month I am shooting for $400 for a family of 5.
Multiple coupons- Really, you need multiple quantities of the same coupons. There are many ways you can get multiple quantities. What I personally do it I get ONE paper delivered to my house on Sunday (we actually get it Friday –Sunday, but we only need the Sunday, it was cheaper this way). I go through the coupons as soon as I get up. No really, I mean it, I go out to the street in my bathrobe and get the paper. I then look at the coupons in the paper (though there are many places that lists them by state on line, though they are not always exactly right) and decide how many more copies I want. Sometimes I won’t get anymore papers. Lately I have been getting 4-8 more copies of the paper though. I just go up to the Paper box and buy them out of there. For me they are $1.00 each, if I were to buy them at CVS like I have read others do and use the ECB they are $1.50. Of course you can ask family and neighbors for their inserts but for me, I have found people are just too lazy to do this for me. It is too difficult for them to set them aside for me. I have even said I will take them after you cut out what you want but IF I get any it is short lived and lasts only 2 weeks tops. Every once in a while my husband will bring me an insert that has some missing that a co worker brings to him. That is still appreciated. Another good source is eBay or The Coupon Clippers. I buy mine from eBay. I have also found that buying them this way is sometimes better. Not everyone gets the same cents off coupons that the rest of the country gets. For instance a few weeks ago I got a coupon in my circulars for $.30 of Land O Lakes butter. On ebay I found $.55 off Land O Lakes Butter. I bought 20 of the Land O Lake Butter. Is it worth it to buy them off the internet? I feel it is. If I can save more than I spend then it is worth it. Same goes for buying extra papers. If a paper costs me $1.00 out of the box to buy it and there are $5.00 worth of coupons I want, then to me it is worth it. You can also join forms where you can trade coupons too. Also I am told some Libraries have a box to take and leave coupons. Some people dumpster dive or go to recycling centers. I can’t do this because our recycling center and trash called “convenience site” here specifically say no dumpster diving/trash picking. I have also heard that some stores will let you take them out of the Sunday papers that don’t sell. I know in Florida at the store I worked at we actually sold the Sunday paper all week, though that seems to be something particular to Florida.
Try not to be brand loyal- I am lucky in the respect that for most things we are not brand loyal. My family could care less what shampoo they use, or toothpaste, deodorant, milk, meat, nuttin! Well except Mac N Cheese it does have to be Kraft, though I don’t buy it too often I think my son gets migraines from it when he has too much. Most everything else we don’t care. I have read people have to have certain ketchup, mayo, mustard, that just blows my mind. I will say there are a few things that I won’t buy or if I do it had better be free so I can donate it. Like Jiff peanut butter, I never have liked Jiff, but I do have it in my pantry, I think my husband doesn’t care.
Always be on look out for overages from coupons-even if you won’t use the items. Last month I was buying Tabasco Hot Sauce because I could get $.50 overage with my coupons on each one. I was able to buy all sorts of stuff with that $.50 overage. I was buying 6-8 at a time and using that money to pay for my bad habit of International Flavored Coffee creamer. I have never even opened a bottle of hotsauce. I donated 30 bottles of hot sauce to my husband’s friend church. If you itemize your taxes you can get the write off on it if you donate a lot. We just donated $500 worth of stuff to this place.
Stockpile-simply put, you have to buy large amounts when it is at what you feel is its lowest price. You will quickly learn what lowest price means and if you pay attention all or keep a price book (I just pay attention). I am sure I bought a bunch of stuff when it was not at its lowest point. As a matter of fact I was so busy trying to stock up (I guess I am somewhat of a hoarder) I didn’t always think “is the price going to go any lower”…But hind site is 20/20.
Join a forum where they discuss stores and sales- and make sure it is an active one. When I first started I joined a forum. I stayed on that forum for a little while. I learned some things. They actually had some great leads to online deals (I got a 12 pc set of Circulon pots for $55 DELIVERED). The coupons and individual grocery stores on this site were not all that great. Then I found this place call Hotcouponworld.com OH MY, things have changed since then. That place is far superior to the first place I went. Plus they have morals and they don’t let you talk about things that are illegal in the coupon world. They also list each individual grocery store and most have what the sales are for that week. Then people post what deals they find. They do coupon match ups for you, list the Catalina deals (those coupons that you get after you pay for your groceries), list what coupons/rebate forms can be found at what stores and what they find on clearance at their store.
Rebates-I never used to be a rebate person. I was the one that would take the form then never get around to filling it out and sending it in on time. And that is exactly what the rebate issuer is hoping! Now I do it and I have gotten some sweet little checks. It is almost like Xmas when you find one in your mailbox. My husband has been taking mine and depositing them in a retirement fund for me. Hey every little bit helps right. Also Rite Aid has a much simpler rebate form. All you have to do it go to the site, set up your free account and then put in the receipt information that is it. At the end of the month you submit to get your check and about 2 weeks later you get it in the mail. Walgreens (Wags) has one too, but you do have to mail that one in but it is all on one form. You submit it at the end of the month too. Plus they will give you an extra 10% if you agree to accept payment on a Walgreens gift card. This is good; you can then buy the next months rebate items with that gift card. Also on all rebate items you can use coupons too.
CVS-Ok, now I did mention the CVS thing a little bit earlier. IF you are not good at math this may not be your thing. But there are sites you can go to and they will do all the work for you. After I had the coupons and sale issues under my belt I gave the CVS thing another try. Glad I did. I got it this time. Now I know I never need to pay for toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, shaving cream, make up, moisturizers, shampoo, conditioner, plastic bags, laundry soap, beauty supplies, dryer sheets, deodorant, pain meds, female items, diapers, and candy ever again. Pretty much everything you can buy in a drug store (except prescriptions, tobacco and beer) can be purchased for free of just literal pennies. I have tried to explain the whole CVS thing to friends and family. Either I am not doing a good job of explaining it or they are just to lazy to do it. I bet it is a little bit of both-but mostly laziness. It isn’t rocket science. You buy what is free after ECB (extra care bucks). ECB are store credit…Like all last month they had if you bought Colgate tooth paste you got $2.99 back in ECB, and that ECB could be used to buy another Colgate toothpaste. They can also be combined with coupons. So if bought the second toothpaste and used your $2.99 ECB and a $1.00 coupon then you would have an extra dollar to spend on that transaction. That is called overage. They do a good job explaining this at hotcouponworld.com. Walgreens has a program somewhat similar, but I personally not a fan of Walgreens. They like to issue store coupons, so if you forget to use the stupid store coupon you are then charged the shelf or sale price. Why can’t they just put the item on sale and let everyone have it at that sale price. Of course they are banking you won’t even look at the flyer and if you do, then hope you will forget to give them the coupons. I like to forget to give the coupons (not on purpose) and then return the item which requires a manager and make them rering it at the coupon price. It makes the managers actually work.
Rainchecks-Most stores have rainchecks. So when you go to the store and the item is on sale and they are out of it get a raincheck. Most rainchecks last 30 days or longer. It should say on the raincheck itself. At one of my stores their rainchecks don't expire, so I save them for when they have triple coupons. Also something else I have been doing is getting a raincheck if I ordered coupons and they haven't come in yet so I can still get the sale price when I do finally get the coupons. I just did this last week. The coupons I ordered didn't come until the day after the sale ended, so the last day of the sale knowing the mail had come and my coupons weren't in it I went to the store and got a raincheck. This also works well if you don't want to get 20 boxes of something right then, getting the rain check (even multiple rainchecks) can help you not have to store quite so much. Like when my local grocery store had ice cream buy one get two free. That is a lot of freezer space that a 1.75qt of ice cream takes up. I wish I had gotten several rain checks.
One of the questions I get asked is “Yeah but, it is worth it to drive around to get this stuff?” Well, I think it is. I am not traveling 50 miles to get just one tube of tooth paste. Last summer I had found this Iams coupon for $3.00 off ANY bag of cat food. If you took it too Dollar General they had 2lb bags of cat food there that were $2.75 each. You do the math, that means at the very least free, if not overage (depends on how attentive the cashier is). I acquired 70 Iams coupons for less than $5 on eBay and then my hunt started. First of all, Dollar General was only getting a case of this at a time. A case contained 12 bags. Not every store had 12 bags on the shelf, so me being the obsessive person that I am decided I would go to as many stores as it takes to use up the 70 coupons. By the way I have 4 cats, so if you were wondering if I needed it, yes, that is also the cat food they ate at that time and still do, I still have quite a bit of it left. After the first attempt I went on a Dollar General shopping spree and hit about 6 stores to the north of me then another day I hit another 6 stores to the northwest and west of me. I did it, I got all 70 bags all for free or better. Was it worth it? I think so, I did also get a few other things too while I was out on those trips too.
Saving money TAKES TIME. If it were easy everyone would do it. It drives me nuts when those that don’t have (or claim they don’t have) won’t do the coupons or even try and save. Yet they still complain they have no money. I spend a lot of time seeking out the deals. BUT part of that is my own doing. There are a lot of resources out there that do the work for you like "The Grocery Game" "Hot Coupon World" and "Coupon Mom" plus others. My absolute favorite is when someone thinks you can “contribute more” because you can save more. Is that fair to me? Just because I don’t have a full time job outside of the home doesn’t mean I don’t work and make money for my family. As it is now, with what I have been doing, I “make” at least $2000 a month, between cutting our grocery bill down to $500 a month, my eBay and the secret shops. Plus we don’t go out to eat nearly as much anymore saving us more money.
Also I read a lot where people whine "they don't double coupons here" Florida doesn't have any that I am aware of. But also realize that at those stores that double they usually charge more for groceries. So unles you are able to ONLY get items when they are on sale and you have a coupon then that isn't always better. I have a Food Lion not far from me and I shop there, they still have free stuff after coupon and they do not double. People rave about Publix in Florida having great deals and they do not double. But what I have found it the best deal are found at the stores that have higher prices becasue their sale prices tend to be lower. The key is sticking to the "Loss Leaders" they have. Meaning the prices are so low they might actually be loosing money. They are banking on you going to that store for that really cheap item, then buying more than just those loss leaders. Right now I have 20 $1.00 coupons for Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta and Food lion had it on sale for a dollar. I will have to pay the $.02 tax per box, but I will be getting my 20 boxes of $.02 pasta when some spaces frees up in my pantry.
I have so much stuff in my house now. I never realized that saving money means more stuff! I have had to convert a shelf that I had for eBay stuff into a stockpile for my HBA and non foods , my pantry is so full I don’t have any more room and my freezer is stuffed fill (we had to buy one for the garage too) and so is my refrigerator/freezer too. My kids jokingly say we are ready if anything like “Jericho” happens.
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