Tuesday, March 2, 2010
25% OFF
I love to save my pennies. I buy clothes on clearance at the end of the season for the kids and put them away till next year. I always get a good deal on my family vacations (waiting till Disney offers their packages) , and stock up on non perishable food items my family likes when I know they are a good deal. The one thing I am not very good at is cutting coupons. Now don't get me wrong I do cut out the bed, bath and beyond coupons, and I use coupons I get in the mail for Kohls or Yankee Candle, but I have never been good at cutting grocery coupons. So I am setting a goal for myself this month to cut 25% off my grocery bill. I usually spend about 140$ a week ( this includes my weekly shop and little shops I make during the week for fruit or meats). Given that amount I am going to try to cut 35$ per week off my bill each week.
How will I do this you may ask? Well I have been reading up on blogs and websites about couponing. While I do don't want to be a "super couponer" (those people who spend hours on end trying to get everything for free, paying .05 cents for a cart full of groceries) I do want to start saving on the things I normally buy. So I started this weekend by buying extra newspapers, I plan to do this again but from now on I will pay for the papers and leave them for someone else who does not care about the coupons. I don't want to be wasteful. I will start a stock pile of coupons and start buying things on sale with coupons. I have learned that you can use two coupons when there is a buy one get one promotion (which I never knew) and I also learned that cvs is a great place to get grocery deals too. I know to some 25% may seem like a little but when you keep adding it up 35$ a week that ends up being 140$ a month and over 1600.$ a year. Thats not chump change. Does anyone else out there use coupons and do you have any helpful hints for me?
Maura
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The best tip I could give someone about coupons is to only save the ones that you would have used anyways. Even if you spend $1 on 20 bags of chips, you've still spent an extra dollar. Before going to the store, google "_____ coupon" and find the coupons for the things that you wanted for that week.
ReplyDeleteWe only spend $40-50 on groceries each week (for two), but only use a few coupons. For us, the main savings come in because we never buy packaged snacks or get more than we need for the meals we plan.
Thanks Kasey, So far so good I am trying to cut my 140 per week to 105 per week. This is to start and I hope to cut even more. I have two kids so I do spend a bit more then you guys and I am buying alot of stuff for lunches and snack. Fresh fruit, I make trail mix for the kids, cheese sticks and drinkable smoothies, 100% juice boxes. I do buy some pre packaged stuff like all natural cheetos for my son. He loves them in his lunch box and I don't feel as bad about them as I do the bright orange ones. My daughter loves triscuits for her snack. It is a little harder to stay away from that stuff with a 7 and 9 yr old begging at the grocery store. I am buying meats on sale and freezing them for planned meals and I have started a monthly dinner menu to avoid my kids asking whats for dinner every five seconds and It has made it alot easier to plan what to buy at the store too! It is good to have that reminder though to not just buy something unless it is needed. Thanks!
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