I've found a new hobby, and can't seem to pry myself from what has now become an obsession. I'm not sure if I should apologize or just offer to share my secrets in the hopes that you can benefit from my craziness. I've told you before about my Craigslist Crazy persona, and now I've added to the craziness. I'm now Coupon Crazy!
You may remember months ago when I set out to shrink my grocery budget. After awesome tips and insights from you, I came away with a smaller budget, a great spreadsheet to use for sales/coupon comparisons and confidence in my shopping! However, I recently discovered that I wasn't even coming close to the savings potential out there. I stumbled across a few blogs that I'm now using to aid me in my couponing, and my shopping habits have now changed AGAIN!
I have a few favorite blogs that I check on a daily basis starting with athriftymom.com. This site is great because she shares great deals (especially if you are an Albertson's shopper), but also links to other blogs that share the weekly deals at CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Safeway (Von's, Kroger, and Randall's in other areas), and a plethora of other stores. Believe me, she covers it all.
I love CouponGal.net for the same reasons. The gives the run-down for awesome Target, Walgreen's and CVS deals. Plus, she throws in hints for great deals. Today, I grabbed three new Conair blow dryers for $5 each! Last week she showed me how to get a new KitchenAid mixmaster for $190 (regularly priced $500)!
DealSeekingMom.com is one of them that (I think) Amanda pointed me to. She's awesome at highlighting great retail deals at all the stores - Yankee Candle, Bath & Body Works, Victoria's Secret, Wal-Mart, and anywhere else you can think to shop!
CouponMom.com is a bit different than these previously mentioned blogs, because it is a more in-depth site. I love to use her site because it is more like a spreadsheet and shows me which coupons to get along with the percentage I am saving. Plus, I can check off which deals I want to get and then print off a great spreadsheet that I take to the store for my list.
I've used a lot of other sites that I find through links on these sites, and I know there are many more out there. They all do the same thing in showing me where the best sales are and how to maximize my coupons, from newspaper inserts, magazines, manufacturer websites, online coupon sites, etc. I start off with four copies of the Sunday newspaper. I file away the coupon inserts, labeling them with the date they were distributed. I also print off the online coupon databases when they update at the beginning of each month. And, each day, I print off the max number of manufacturer coupons that are featured on each of the blogs previously mentioned.
Believe me, my shopping habits have changed dramatically. But, so has my budget! I still get a few deals at Sam's and Wal-Mart, but it's rare for me to go to each of those places. I did go to Wal-Mart last week to pick up a few bags of AirWick scented oil starter kits and motion detector fragrance kits for the house. Yes, my house smells awesome now! And, it will for a long time because I got 12 of these kits since they were on a great sale for $5 each. And, I paid $12 total for all of them! You may be laughing at me, because my family was laughing at me, too. But, then Daniel came to Target with me one day and saw me leave with 3 full bags of groceries and pay just 99 cents! He's so much on board that he made my weekly Target run for me last week. With an envelope of coupons in hand, he made my day by spending $30 and saving $84 for me! Now, that's a devoted husband who will even do my coupon shopping for me!
I think Target has become my favorite place for deals. Here's some of my sample purchases in the past month. On this Target run, I got these 20 cereal cups, a mini loaf of bakery bread and 6 bars of soap for the kids for free! I must tell you, that's not the only trip I took advantage of the cereal sale. Before the sale was over, I think I picked up about 60 of those cereal cups. (For the past few weeks, they've had cheesesticks on sale, and I think we have about 50 cheesesticks in our fridge - cheddar, swiss and pepperjack).
On another trip to Target, you'll see I got 1 gallon of milk, 3 pounds of bananas, 6 ears of corn, 1 loaf of bakery bread, 2 boxes of 12 Pop Tarts, toothbrushes, and a bunch of other stuff. You won't believe it, but I paid $6 for all of this. I'm serious!
This was a trip to CVS. There's the new Bounce dryer bars, 3 Dawn dish detergents, 1 Glade reed diffuser, 3 Downy fabric softeners, and 3 Softsoap body washes (their new Nutri-Serum is great!) all for $12. I'm not kidding!
To show that it's not just groceries I'm buying, here's my bounty from a recent trip to Victoria's Secret. I got a travel kit (priced at $25), a bar of (awesome) Pink soap ($5), tin of mints ($3.50), lip gloss ($7.50), and two pairs of VS panties ($17) and I only paid $9 in total! Now, that's retail therapy!
As you can see, I'm starting to get the hang of this coupon game and I hope I can put more attention back on my blogging now.
UPDATE: I used http://hip2save.blogspot.com/ for a slew of Wal-Mart deals tonight. Saved about $60 and spent just $31. Woo-hoo!
Photobucket">
5 comments:
YOU ROCK! I can't wait to check out all these sites! These are some amazing deals!!
I am definitely going to check out these sites too! ...but what are you going to do with 3 hair dryers?
Ha ha, Leah! My sister has been using my blow dryer because she doesn't have one so I was just going to order one for her. Then, I decided to order 1 for me as a back-up when mine goes out. Then, my mom said she could use 1 so we're all getting new dryers.
I think about you whenever I come across cat food deals. If you want them, I can send you all my cat food coupons. Let me know...
That is AWESOME! I really enjoyed this and I SO need to get into this more. I do look at ads and use lots of coupons, but not to this extreme, but I REALLY want to! I will check out these sites and may be asking you for help - haha!
Ah, the 3 dryers makes sense now! :) I appreciate the offer on cat food coupons, but the brand I buy is only available at Petco and not too common. If you see any Petco or Halo brand coupons, though, I'd love them!
Post a Comment