Sunday, January 30, 2011

Coupon Swap

I love Sundays!  The first day of the new sales.  Saturday mornings are great too, the new ads come and best yet.....the coupons!  I have had so many interesting conversations with people lately who are looking to get into couponing.  I have several thousand dollars worth of coupons, there is no way I can use them all.  Many people have been asking me where I get them.  The truth is EVERYWHERE!  The recycling bins, friends, family, newspapers, you name.  I realize not everyone has that kind of time.  So ladies and gentlemen, I would love to share the coupon wealth :)  We all are using different types of coupons so lets share.

I will start the swap off with a large envelope of current coupons.  Send me your name and address and I will mail it to you.  Take what you would like and add to the pile what you do not need.  Mail the envelope to the next person on the list, if you are local you can drop it off.

The deals this week are great!  Kmart is doing double coupons up to $2 this week!  Don't miss this one.  Limit of 5 coupons per person per day.  Walgreen's has FREE Blink Eye drops plus a coupon, you make $.50 a box!

Happy shopping this week!  Let me know if you would like to join the swap.

Friday, January 28, 2011

What a Deal! Ice Cream!

Check out today's Groupon in St Louis! $5 for $10 Worth of In-Store Fountain Dairy and Grocery Products at Oberweis Dairy! They have fantastic milk and ice cream.  That a great deal for a fun treat!

Save even more by heading over to ebates, then search groupon.  Click on the link to open the groupon site and order your groupon.  You will save an extra 3%!  

Here are the links!

Ebates
Groupon.com

Happy Eating!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

How do you do that?

How do you do that?  It is a question I get asked a lot.  How how to you save all that money?  I can't answer all the how do you questions, but this one I can.  I have a grocery budget of $150 a month.  We are in a produce co-op that for $23 every other week keeps us stocked with fresh produce.  I highly recommend finding one in your area, the products are fantastic!  We get milk and meat from Sam's, a one a month run for meat and twice a month for milk.  That leaves us with the last step....the grocery store.  I spend an average of $30-$50 every other week at the grocery store.  We are a family of 5 and if you have ever seen my pantry it is full!  We also have a stock pile in the basement.  Now, he comes the how.

The first key is building your base.  Think about your core meals and the things it takes to make them.  These are items you always want to have in your house.  Once you have a stocked pantry, the rest is easy.  When the items you keep in your stock are on sale, stock up.  All sales rotate, so buy it now and use your coupons.

Try not to run out of items, if you are down to one of an item, add it to your shopping list.  If you wait until you run out, you may have to pay full price.  Once it is on your list, check your coupons and sale ads.  If it not on sale, leave it on the list until the next week.  If you can , keep it on the list until it is on sale, then stock up again.

This is how the weekly bills get down under $50.  What you are really buying every week are fresh, noncoupon items, and items you are stocking up on.

Getting the Sunday paper is key.  There are usually at least two inserts of coupons in there.  Online sources are great to ad to you stash.

This is our method and it works for us.  Everyone will have things that work for their situation.  I hope this helps answer the question I've been hearing a lot today.  How do you save all that money?

The deal of the day was Worcestershire sauce of all things.  $.25 a bottle.  Such a deal :)

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

First Shipment of Coupons Almost Ready!

I spent last evening going through my coupon binder getting ready to shop this week.  I started pulling out all the expired coupons and my goodness!  I knew I had a lot of coupons, but I pulled out $427 worth of expired coupons!  I am guessing there is close to $1000 of coupons still in the binder.  I was very excited!

I will be posting some photos of all the items I have gotten for free so far this year.  My kids favorite item so far is the free boxes of dog treats!  They were so excited, they started handing them out to the neighbors for their dogs.  (My kids are huge givers!)  My favorite item so far has been the free cereal we got for Circle of Concern.    so much fun!

I also want to thank everyone who has volunteered to send me their extra coupons!  I have such generous friends and family!  Thank you all.

Monday, January 24, 2011

A New Year...A New Idea

Welcome to my new blog!  I never thought I would be a blogger, but it seems the best way to get a message out.  I am a stay at home mom of 3 wonderful boys.  As the kids are getting older, I have been looking for something to do to give back.  We have been very fortunate and things always seem to work out for us.  Since I am a huge believer in paying it forward, I decided this year I would use my talents for good.   I love to shop and I LOVE a deal.  I have used coupons since I was old enough to use a scissors, but this year I thought I would use more.  My goal started to save as much as I could, cut our food and toiletry budget and buy as much as I could to give to Circle of Concern.  January went great so far. I have a huge box for Circle, most of it was free or under a dollar.  This left me with a new problem.  Hundreds of dollars of coupons that were going to expire!

So, that brings me to today.  Today I adopted an Army Base in Germany and I am going to send all the expired coupons to them.  I have put out the call top all my friends, please don't throw those coupons away!  They are such an easy way to help someone else.  I started this year wanting to give back, I never thought that my binder of coupons would eventually be able to help so many people.  I am hoping to end this year with a post that will inspire, a post that will let everyone know how many people were helped.  Times are hard for us all, but we all have an area that we can give.  Someone's trash really is someone else's treasure.

If you are interested in donating but don't want to do the overseas shipping, I would be happy to forward your coupons for you!