coupons, coupons, coupons....
I mostly get my coupons from the Sunday paper. My grandparents get the Olympian and pass it onto me, so I get the coupons from their paper. I also buy the Seattle newspaper because it has better coupons in it. (coupons vary by area) I buy the Sunday paper before church and flip through the coupons to see if there is anything really good. I also look at the ads online in the morning to find out what is on sale. I am mostly taking about toiletry type stuff that I find for free at Walgreens or Rite Aid. If there is are really good coupons in the paper I will stop after church (or have Justin stop) and buy a few more copies.
Now I know some of you will be stuck on this because you are having to pay for the newspapers. There has to be more than 1 really good coupon for me to buy a bunch of papers. Here is an example of a good week:
6 newspapers x $1.50 = $9.00 (yes that week I bought 6. don't judge me yet)
coupons - remember I had 6 of each
~$2.25 off electrasol. Combined with sales I got 6 dishwasher detergents for free
~buy one get one free shampoo/conditioner.(loreal brand I think) they were on sale at both rite aid and walgreens buy one get one free. so a bogo(buy one get one) coupon combined with the sale equaled 12 FREE shampoos/conditioners.
~$1.00 off powerade. we don't usually buy this, but it was on sale for .88 cents. So I got .12 cents overage on each one. It went towards the total of the other stuff I got, I didn't get money back. (that is confusing, I will get into it in another post) So 6 Free powearades.
~$1.00 off V8 Fusion. This is the only juice I let Judah drink. No high fructose corn syrup, no added dyes, and it actually has real fruit and vegetables in it. I usually pay around $3.00 for it at Walmart. So this didn't end up free but it is something we buy anyways and money off is always good.
~plus other coupons that I've used, but the ones I listed are the best deals.
So yes I paid $9.00 for the newspapers, but I saved a lot more than $9.00 on the other things. It paid for itself with the detergent, which is something we would buy anyways.
I also print coupons off from theses sites: (we don't have a printer so I either go to my grandparents, or have Justin print them at work. It's kinda a pain)
A Full Cup : this is a Target coupon generator. It's the coupons on the Target site, but you can print of as many as you want and it prints nicely with a bunch on a page as opposed to one on a page if you use the Target site.
Betty Crocker
Cool Savings
Coupon Mom
There's more, but that should get anyone interested off to a good start.
And if there is a product you like go to their website and they sometimes have free samples or coupons on their site.
You can usually only print out a limited number of each coupon. It is per computer, so if you have access to more than one computer that will help.
I save my coupons until they expire. Something might not be on sale this week, but 2 weeks from now it might end up being free. Free is good. If you will use it buy it even if you already have shampoo in the cupboard. :) Or you can donate free stuff too.
You can use one store coupon (target, walgreens, rite aid, etc.) combined with one manufacturers coupon. I will get into this more next week, as I this got pretty long and now no one will read it. :)
11 comments:
we get the paper then I take the in laws coupons if they are good.
I wouldn't buy more papers that is just me. Hey to each their own.
do you know about freebies 4 mom blog. she will post coupons and free things. Like the walmart free samples that always come with a coupon.
oh and saving your coupons. is good cause more stores will put those items on sale a week after they come out. That way you get it on sale plus use coupons.
If you use igoogle at all they have a couponsurfer that you can add on to your main page. It gives you a list of items with the amounts so you can just look over it and if you want more info you click on it and from there you can print off if you want. I have found a few ones there...
You saved a lot of money! However...I must point out that to get your "free" stuff you paid 9 dollars for papers and around the same for gas to drive to those stores. So, it was actually around 18 dollars for your purchases, plus whatever small sum you might have paid...I know you've saved money. But I would be more interested in the breakdown of the real cost since it's not actually free. A hard thing to do because if you just divided all the items you got by the amount spent it could be cents for shampoo and cents for a candy bar, and that's not really fair...but it would be interesting nonetheless. I figure if you paid 5 dollars out of pocket for the shopping trip and you claim all items as free but the shampoo and detergent, each of those items would be about 1.27. Still a good buy. But 23 dollars spent.
beauty school drop out: is the freebies 4 mom blog the one that you posted about awhile ago? it sounds familiar to me and i'm not sure if it's because i read it or not. i'm gonna look into that. :)
jami: i do use igoogle and i had no idea there was a coupon feature i could add on. thanks for sharing that.
shalisa: i think it is a bit much to add gas to my prices. i go to olympia every few weeks and save everything i need up to get on that trip. when you (not you specifically, but people in general) buy something at the store you don't say i bought it for "x" amount and then i used "x" amount of gas divided by "x" amount of items so the item was actually "x" amount. just seems over the top to me.
i don't know if it was your intent, but your comment left me feeling like i need to defend the way i choose to shop. it works for me and it saves us a lot of money. i do figure if i go into a store and buy detergent that equals the value of the coupon and i don't pay any money out of pocket for it then it is free. i guess that is where we are disagreeing. i can see if i was driving to seattle to get an item that i had a coupon for, but it is either shelton or olympia with other necessities included in the trip. basically i would be going there anyways with or without the coupon shopping.
sorry if i misunderstood what you were saying/implying, your comment just caught me by surprise.
so i definitely am pro-coupon. i use them, but i don't seek them out, i just take what comes my way and it seems to work alright for me.
my question for you would be how many coupons can one use at once? such as you said the store coupon + manufacture. is that it? or can you use 1 store + 2 or more manufactures if they come from different sources (online, different adds, etc) (kind of like joanns where one could use an online, a newspaper, and a store coupon all at once). i'm not sure how much ground "manufacture" coupons cover...never tried to work the system, but am curious about the potential. :)
How is it that I never knew you could use a coupon from a newspaper and one from online at the same time? That is exciting news!! :) haha
and does anyone know if any of our grocery stores double coupons? or honor other stores' coupons?
No one around here doubles. That gets you the REALLY good deals. :) And Walmart price matches and I "think" they might take other stores coupons (within a, I think, 20 mile radius).
You can use one store coupon and one manufacturers coupon (doesn't matter where it's from newspaper, online, etc.) PER ITEM. So if you have 5 bottles of shampoo you can use 5 store coupons and 5 manufacturers coupons. If you only have 5 items and 10 coupons, most cashiers will argue with you even though it is completely legal. I make sure to get other things I need to balance it out.
This gets confusing which is why I haven't blogged about it yet because I don't know how to explain it well.
If one of your coupons is for $1.00 off 2 shampoo's then if you are buying 5 shampoo's you can only use 2 coupons because that coupon is going towards 2 items. If you used 5 of those coupons you would need to buy 10 items. Confused yet?
Also some cashiers hate coupons. Typically the younger guys don't blink an eye at them. Older women for some reason will criticize your every coupon and argue with you on each one. I have found a lot of cashiers that don't know their coupon policy. And once recently asked for a manager because the cashier was so rude to me about my coupon. (it was at walgreens for their store brand diapers and with a coupon that they had posted on the shelf with their diapers. I was only buying 2 packs and using 1 coupon it was a $5 off 2 packs, totally not going overhaul at all. she kept trying to hand me back the coupon and tell me it wouldn't work. she wouldn't listen to me when i was trying to tell her it was on the shelf with the diapers. it was a walgreens coupon. totally bad experience. i don't want to go back because i am afraid i'll get her again.)
I also try to not be "that coupon lady" if you know what I mean. :) I make sure my total isn't going to go below zero or I know there will be a problem and they won't know what to do and then will probably refuse my coupons out of not knowing what else to do.
Coupons can get confusing. Every store has a coupon policy on their website that will let you know exactly what that store accepts. But for most stores (target, walgreens, rite aid, etc) it is one store coupon and one manufacturers.
thanks. totally not confusing, but i can see how it could be. you explained it well. :) thanks for answering my questions.
good tip on checking out store sites' coupon policy. i also try to find the same cashier (one that i've developed a friendship through over time) and then there is another lady that knows me, so i don't think i'll have to wrestle much (and with the coupons i've used they've always gone out of their way to accommodate me) with that--but then that is just my grocery shopping. i don't go really anywhere else but cosco and target...
Sorry to put you on the defensive. It was not my intent. I was just trying to get a better feel for what the real cost might be. I like coupons, and have couponed in the past. I don't do it much anymore because I find it takes more time for me than money saved. But I love the deals you get, so I'm interested in your strategy. BUT...
Not everyone shops in Olympia on a regular basis. It seemed to me that you were taking a trip for items you found in the ads that week, so you find a coupon and sale on Sunday, now you have to use your coupon during the sale, thus a trip that week sometime. If I wasn't planning a trip to Olympia during the week, now I have to make a special trip. Do you understand? Like you said, you'd go with or without coupon shopping...so I can see not counting gas money in your situation. And you do a lot of other errands as well. If I DO go to Olympia I like to do everything at once as well...but it's a rare occasion. Maybe once a month at the most. And actually I DO count in my cost of gas. I don't do it to everything, say my groceries at Freddy's, but for example, I do figure out how much it would cost me to pick strawberries or blueberries in Olympia. I figure out the price per pound based with my gas cost. Now it's the same as buying from a local stand or grocer. So...I don't go. (Or do based on the price) Or I want some clothes from Old Navy, I check online, and shipping is less than gas...so I pay the shipping instead or buy similar items from a place that offers free shipping. Now that I think about it, the price of gas has also changed my grocery habits as I stick to Shelton, I used to take a trip to Olympia to hit all the sales with my cooler in the back. Those days were gone at 2.50 a gallon. So...gas cost is a big issue for me. That's why I mentioned it. That's all. To each his own.
So...you say Walmart will price match...so now is there a way to get your same drugstore deals but buy from Walmart instead?
I like to suggest KindCoupons.org. You can also save money by using this site and also help a charity.
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