I'm a Couponing Mini-Van Mom

Yes I am a couponing mini-van mom and I'm not afraid to say it!

Well ok I'm sort of a closet couponing mini-van mom who's outing herself. To you. Right now.

First I just want you to look at the size of my grocery store receipt from this last weekend:

That is the longest thing I've ever seen. (That's what she said.)

It LOOKS like I bought a lot of stuff. Well I sorta did but not that much stuff.

The size of my receipt is the result of my awesome, massive pile of coupons.



I had so many I felt like I was being a bad girl.

I had so many that the guy who was scanning them paused and stretched somewhere in the middle of scanning them and then resumed scanning.

He asked me how long it took me.

I said, "About two hours."

He said, "Well that's not that bad, I know people who spend 15 hours doing this." I do too. I am not that hardcore. But I did save $105 dollars between the $50 in coupons and the other $50 in BOGOs.

And it's actually pretty simple. You all probably know this by now because I'm usually last to the party but if you don't, there is a website called http://www.southernsavers.com/ and it provides you with all of the grocery stores' flyers and sales and it also provides you with printable coupons.

Many times you can use multiple coupons on the same item . You have to find out from the store what they allow but mine allows a manufacturer coupon, an online coupon, a competitor's coupon and a store coupon.

The sweet spot is scoring coupons on items that are on a BUY ONE GET ONE sale! Where you get two and they are both almost free! And then you can stock up! Like on Quaker instant oats (plain) for us! I got 6 boxes almost for free!

You can do this by grabbing a paper on Sunday and clipping the coupons of items you need or would normally use and comparing them to the sales in the flyers and to the printable coupons online. I clip my coupons and go online to southernsavers.com and sift through the Publix and the Target sales. Our Publix will take Target coupons so that's another coupon to stack in the bunch! This week my dad and my mother-in-law got me papers so I used all the coupons I could.

For the past few weeks I've scored pretty big just by doing these simple things, (i.e. $80 bucks for $140 in groceries or my most recent savings of $100.) It takes a little time and a little planning but it's not as hardcore as some couponers who would get everything I got for free! But it's great for anywhere from $30-$100 in saving A WEEK! Money I could totally put elsewhere.

The trick is not buying things though for the purpose of buying them because they are cheap. You can end up paying more that way. You make your list on what you need and products you usually buy and you search for coupons on those things. For me, if I can wait, I'll wait another week on some things to see if a coupon or sale pops up like I did with coffee this week (and voila! 8 o'clock bean coffee just went on BOGO, glad I waited!)

The point is, I was meal planning anyway because I want to eat better and eating better means planning better. Then I started looking at the coupons and noticing that all the items I was buying eventually ended up on sale anyway. And then I found out that there is a cycle to these items and I can actually stock up and save money and stack coupons at the same time.

This process is making me pretty cheap frugal now too. My hairspray just went up to $6.98 from $4.99 and my head is spinning like the exorcist! I'm waiting for a sale on that now, flat hair and all. Out of principle. But I have found that I could get that online for 2 bucks cheaper and free shipping (once it's no longer out of stock, which it is.)

Also there's that whole CVS couponing thing where you rack up bucks back for buying certain items. Which I did this week with Almay makeup, which, by the way, had a $2 off coupon in Sunday's paper this week! SUPER SCORE! I've learned that some people make a living out of the CVS specials but again, I'm not as hardcore as them. But this is FUN!

So do you coupon? Have you ever been to http://www.southernsavers.com/ before? If you're not in the south, is there another site? I'm so intrigued by this new world! Please tell me! I'm obsessed!