Good Deals Come to Those Who Wait – Couponing Update #1

One of my favorite quote’s is “Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet”. Oh how well that applies to couponing. I’ll admit I spent the first week of couponing staring at a pile of clipped coupons wondering if I was wasting my time and quite frankly wanting to quit. But I committed myself to this project for 3 months so I was going to keep going. And after getting organized and especially after getting in my first shopping trip, I started to see how couponing could really help me reduce my skyrocketing grocery costs.

Getting organized.

To me this was the most important thing. The first week I started I had a huge pile of coupons from the Sunday paper sitting on my kitchen table. This clutter just made me stressed. So I made it a priority to get organized. I got a binder (happened to have one sitting around) and some baseball card holder inserts ($5 for 18 sheets at Target) and proceeded to create a filing system for my plethora of coupons. Ah, now I had all my coupons organized into categories and I could easily see what I had just by flipping through the pages of my binder.

Learning the lingo and matching coupons to sales.

So the next hurdle for me was learning the coupon lingo: BOGO, Catalina, Peelies….what the? I had to school myself on the terminology used in the coupon world. Fortunately I came across a site that offers a crash course on couponing. The Krazy Coupon Lady is an awesome site that helps noobs like me learn the in’s and out’s of couponing. I think without this site I would still be staring at a pile of coupons on my kitchen table feeling like couponing is a waste of time.

The information that KCL offers for beginners is awesome, but what is REALLY valuable is how they list EVERY sale at the major grocers and drugstores AND they match those deals to the available coupons. For me this is pretty huge as it saves me a lot of time going through circulars to match coupons to weekly sale prices. If I’m sounding like a commercial for The Krazy Coupon Lady it is just because the site has been that valuable to me. I have no affiliation with them whatsoever.

Waiting for the deals.

So now I’m organized. I have my coupon binder, my subscription to the Sunday paper and a website that matches sales and coupons. I’m ready. And what I’ve learned is that couponing is about being prepared to take advantage of the deals when they come. You may have coupons that sit unused for weeks or even months because the coupon alone doesn’t offer a great deal. But then comes the sale for that item and you can get the product for pennies on the dollar. That is when you stock up. Couponing is about buying opportunistically. You stock up when the product is cheap so you don’t have to buy when out of need when the product is full price.

My results so far.

I have to say I’m proud of my shopping results so far this month. But I’ve learned I can do better and will do better as I continue to coupon.

Here’s my haul:

Barilla Picollino, $0.42 / 1 lb box, purchased 8

Ortega Chilies, $0.37 / can, purchased 16

Breyer’s Ice Cream, $2.49 / 1.5 quart, purchase 6

Coppertone Sunblock, $4.98, purchased 2

Cottonelle Toilet Paper, $9.99 / 18 ct, purchased 5

Scott Paper Towels, $4.44 / 6 ct, purchase 5

At CVS this week, when you spent $30 on Scott and Cottonelle (or other qualifying products) you received a $10 gas card. Factoring that in I paid $.040 / roll for paper towels and $0.44 / roll for toilet paper. Pretty good, especially on the paper towels where I was paying over $1 per roll.

Crest toothpaste, $0.24 / 6.4 oz tube, purchased 2

Dove Men’s Bar Soap, $1.99 / 6 pk, purchased 3

Head & Shoulders Shampoo, $1.50 / 14.2 oz bottle, purchased 2

Luv’s Diapers, $11.5 / box or .11 diaper, purchased 2 boxes

Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner, $1.99 / 12.6 oz bottle, purchased 2

Pantene Shampoo, $0.99 / 12.6 oz bottle, purchased 2

Tampax Pearl, $0.99 / 18 ct box, purchased 1

Free stuff:

Oral B toothbrushes x 2

Hershey chocolate bar

Sharpie markers x 2

Papermate pens x 8

In total I paid $129.94 for $253.07 worth of product. That’s a 49 percent savings off of sale prices. I’m pretty happy with that, but I know I can do better! For example, I paid $1.99 for the Dove Men’s soap. Had I been better prepared, I could have gotten that at Walgreens for free!

I’m also pretty proud of the fact that everything I bought is stuff that I use and need. We are now stocked up for the rest of the year on paper towels, toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner. And even with all of this stocking up our grocery bill this month is half of what it was last month. But I’m confident that it can be even less. And I’m happy to say that I believe that couponing is becoming a way of life for us.

Tagged as: Extreme Couponing