Thursday, October 29, 2009

How Cheap Can You Be?

I've recently entered the world of couponing. A few weeks ago I posted about my first "deal trip" and I thought it was amazing. Last week I had another trip, that I thought was pretty great, too. But this is absolutely amazing! She feeds a family of six for $4 a week! The principles that she uses are the same ones that I've started applying. Maybe I'll get there, too! If only we had the room to store all of our deals...

I love the chicksdigdeals website. Here in Nebraska, they compile a list of all the coupons in the Sunday paper and match them each week with store sales. I started visiting their site last spring, just for the convenience of checking all the store ads in one location. Now I'm hooked on couponing!

You may notice that there's a link on their site to get the Lincoln paper- Sun and Wed for $1/week. That's a great way to get coupons and the store flyers, especially if you decide to do some price matching. Here are some other website for coupon printing that I've found. So far, I've been able to get all of my deals solely from online and in-store coupons.


Most grocery stores have a few coupons on their websites. And of course, check out the manufacturer websites for coupons, as well. Some people find it helpful to set up another e-mail account just for all their coupons and newsletters.

What's the best way to get a great deal? Match a coupon with a store sale. Even better is to put a store coupon on top of that! And if another store has that prouduct on sale, price match! For example, last week the Keebler cookies were on sale 2/$4 at one store. But I had a $1 off 2 store coupon at another store. Plus a manufacturer's coupon for $1.50 off 2. So, if I took my ad to that second store and used both my coupons I could get two packages of Keebler cookies for $1.50. It turns out that the second store had dropped their in-store price to match the competitor, so I didn't need to price match, but I was going to!

And because I can't contain myself any longer, here's the picture from my trip last week. I spent $6.80 on all the food you see in the photo! 2 boxes Kashi cereal, 2 boxes of whole wheat pasta, 2 packages Keebler cookies, 6 jars of Ragu sauce, 1 box Fiber one pastries, and 2 pounds of bananas. I used somewhere around $13 in coupons. I think I need to start framing my receipts!

My goal for the month of November is to buy only deals. That may not work perfectly- I'm out of potatoes, but I'm going to try!

What kinds of deals can you find? How cheap can you be?

2 comments:

  1. Wow! I need someone like you to be my personal shopper or something--I spend $700 every month on groceries and eating out for a family of four...but now I see that I could be doing way better than that.

    Gosh, it seems a bit overwhelming...but I have got to try this!

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  2. AMAZING. I am so impressed.

    Not sure if you have Meijer near you or not, but ours has 10-pound bags of potatoes on sale for $1.69 right now.
    I think that is a great deal!

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