I finally started using coupons again!!

I have been stocking up on coupons for the past several weeks. As some of you may remember I had gone to a coupon class recently which a wonderful lady from my Church held (Thank you Mary Ann!!). But with my staying home taking care of Mackenzie I am not presently bringing in a paycheck and so I figured this is one way that I can add to the family income. Many years ago when my girls were little I used to use a lot of coupons - but it has been a LONG time. Nowadays there are several sites where you can go to for help. One being Coupon Teacher here on Blogger. Some other very helpful sites are www.YourCouponBuddy.com and Sunday Coupon Review which I have listed on the side of my page here and then there is www.southernsavers.com (which I have been using quite a bit as I get organized) and www.moneysavingmom.com. I gather the idea is to combine your coupons with the store specials. Especially when they have their double and triple coupon days, which these sites listed are really great about letting you know when they are coming up!! Also taking advantage of your CVS, Riteaide and Walgreen programs.

Well, as I was saying, I had my first coupon savings trip. Harris Teeter was having a Super Doubles coupon time. Which is where they double all coupons up to $1.98, with a maximum of 20 coupons per day, per household. So I did not take any coupons with me for less than a dollar as I figured I would take advantage of the higher savings of course! I forgot to take a photo of my shopping so maybe next time and my receipt seems to have disappeared. Probably hubby has it for entry into the budget. However now is when I have the time to write so I will go by memory. I ended up spending $147.15 with a savings of just under $90.00. I realize I could have gone much cheaper but was buying some meat which I had no coupons for. They did have some lovely Salmon on sale which we ate that night. It was a melt in your mouth meal! I marinated it in some of the Kens Ginger Honey marinade (which I had a coupon for $1 off of 2 which doubled at $2 made the marinades a good value.) . They also had a special of by 2 get 3 free on the Breyers Ice Cream. I had a $1 coupon for that too, which was doubled to $2 off. Making all 5 ice creams cost about $8. So we had Fried Ice Cream for dessert, Yummy. The Kens dressings were also on the buy 2, get 3 free deal. So I used my $1 coupon which doubled to $2, making all 5 dressings cost just under $4. With $2 off my Guacamole was about .90 cents. Without my receipt I don't remember a lot of the other specials, sorry. I did buy 2 of the Boston Butt Roasts which I liked the look and the price of. I use them for making barbeque. However one was just over $5 and the other was just under $9. When I got to the checkout the lady scanned one and then kept trying to scan the other. Finally she just scanned the first one again, giving me that price. So I saved almost $4 unexpectedly here as it was the more expensive one giving her problems!!

I was very pleased with my first attempt at coupon shopping. Now I am excitedly waiting an opportunity to go to a Triple coupon day. If you are not aware, there are ladies out there getting their groceries for just short of free. It really is doable and can help making staying at home more easily done.