Coupon Clipper Update
2009 February 16
I spent a lot of time this weekend organizing coupons and applying lessons learned from the class I attended on Friday.
I headed out with the following items in hand:
- Coupons sorted by store in a mini accordian folder.
- Clipboard with shopping lists for each store, automatically generated by The Coupon Mom’s website. (“Grocery Deals by State” section.)
I did not take pictures of my purchases like all of the other coupon-clipping-crazies do, but here’s the run down of what I spent:
Meijer
Total: $79.90
Out of Pocket: $41.22
Saved: $38.68
CVS (Transaction 1)
Total: $60.75
Out of Pocket: $38.44
Saved: $22.31
CVS (Transaction 2)
Total: $121.40
Out of Pocket: $36.11
Saved: $85.29 (used Extra Care Bucks from previous transaction)
Kroger
Total: 58.89
Out of Pocket: $38.52
Saved:$20.37
So, I realize that I spent $154.29 out of pocket, which is a lot more than I would like to spend every week. I chock this up to a few factors:
- I’m new at this and I was completely overwhelmed…and uncomfortably warm.
- I had to get some things that either weren’t on sale or I didn’t have a coupon for because we were really low on a lot of the necessities. (I need to remember that this amount is for groceries AND toiletries/household items – many of which I will not need to replace weekly. I’ll continue to stock up on some of these items, but only if it’s an amazing deal.)
- I was completely forgetting that you don’t have to get all 10 items to get the 10 for $10 deals. Duh! I knew that before I took the class.
- Although some of the deals reduced the price of the items significantly, the items themselves were pricey to begin with, so I still paid a good amount out of pocket. I need to look for better deals!
- The Coupon Mom website is really helpful because it basically takes the store ads and puts them into a list (I heart lists!). It also takes into consideration coupons that apply to the items that are on sale. What it does NOT do is take into consideration the cost of multiples. For instance, ground chuck was on sale for $1.88/lb. But you have to buy at least 3 lbs. and the minimum amount I could find at that price was over 5 lbs. So, that was a $10 purchase all by itself, which I wasn’t calculating correctly. (If you’ve never used the Coupon Mom database, you have no idea what I’m talking about and that’s ok.)
Regardless, when you add up the savings ($166.65) it’s pretty amazing that I got what I did for what I paid! (We have enough cereal to last us through the year!) I hope I do better next time, though.
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Impressive. Ia the $166.65 still around?
dad ;)