Couponing...

A friend turned me on to coupon clipping. I've not done coupon clipping much before because most of the foods in the coupons we didn't eat. I usually buy bulk and not much processed food but I decided to take a look at it and see what I could do.

Here are my deals at Walgreens yesterday. Bought one pack of Huggies at $8.99, used a $2 off coupon, got $3 in Register rewards to use next time I am there. Bought 2 packages of Kotex for 2 for $6, used a coupon for $2 off 2 packages, got $3 in Register rewards for next time. Bought 4 packages of Nabisco crackers or cookies for $0.99 each, with coupons for $2 off 2 packages for 4 boxes of crackers/cookies free! (Actually made $0.02 on it) (Kevin already took one of the cookies to work. He likes these kind of things for snacks and will purchase them for too much at a convenience store.) Buy one Haagen Daaz ice cream, get one free, plus used a coupon for $1 off of two for a total of $3.79 for two. Jordan and I ate these last night for supper as we were in town for symphony practice and a concert. The register rewards of $6 are good on my next purchase at Walgreens as long as my total comes to $6. So basically the diapers were $3.99 and the Kotex were $0.50 each.

At Cashwise last night I scored pretty good. I don't usually buy sugar cereal except for birthdays but it was a good deal and I don't mind having it once in a great while so I got two boxes for $1.98 each with a coupon of buy 2 and get $1 off so they ended up $1.48 a box. I bought 2 packages of Huggies brand diapers and pull-ups at $8.98 each with a $2 off one and $3 off another in coupons I received in the mail. The sweet deal of this was if you bought two packages you got a free baby wipes, to which I had a $0.50 coupon which was doubled. They do take coupons for free products! So the diapers were really $5.98 each and free wipes. Chicken drumsticks or thighs were buy one get one free with a $0.75 off each package with a coupon on the actual package of chicken, coming to $2.24 for each package ( I normally pick these up for Isaac to eat for $6.99 a package). I got a free bag of potatoes for buying $25 of groceries. I did buy 8 lbs of bananas, a mayo, and three dry curd cottage cheese without any coupons or being on sale so that made my total savings only 35%. Two boxes of valentines for $1 each, (regular price $3.49). Plus, at Cashwise you always get a gas coupon, mine was $0.04 off a gallon and gas there was $2.48/gallon. I don't normally even try to coupon, just buy what is on my list and get out of there. I am going to give this a try though and when I am in town take a closer look at the deals available. I have to quit the sugar cereal deals because guess what we had for breakfast two days in a row, cereal! It is way too easy when we are running behind. You can check out www.valleydealseekers.com for ideas and www.coupons.com for coupons. The ladies at Valley Deal Seekers offer a class on how to do this. They both have snagged about $600 worth of grocery items for around $60 doing coupon combining, stacking, register rewards, Target gives $5 gift cards when purchasing certain items, and looking at the ads each week. After you get the hang of it, it won't be so time-consuming.