Well, I survived my first adventure in Extreme Couponing! It wasn't very extreme this time but I'm looking forward to when it does become full-blown extreme! I did have some good results and thought I'd share them with you.
First of all, I still spent about the same as I spend in a normal week. But I got a lot of extra stuff that I'll stock pile. Here are some deals I'm proud of:
-Lipton Tea- Regularly $2.69, On Sale for $2.25, Scanned Coupon for $.60, Multiplied for $.60
Final Price- $1.05 (60% off)
-Froot Loops- Regularly $3.39, On Sale for $2.00, Scanned Coupon for $1.00
Final Price- $1.00 (70% off)
-Pillsbury Brownies- Regularly $2.39, Buy One Get 2 Free
Final Price- $1.59/each (66% off)
At Store #1, I saved $25.13. At Store #2, I saved $28.34. Not a bad start, eh?
Also, I earned fuel perks at each store as well as $5.92 for my local school.
The results: I'm going to continue on with this madness in hopes of getting better and better!
3 comments:
Ok, you are good. I used to do couponing back in the day when I worked from home and had three children and a husband to feed. I was never extreme with it, but at the time stores did double coupons so it was easy to get great deals. I would regularly save anywhere between $15-$25. Not bad in 1990's economy. I still use coupons, but the are from a website that will load them to my loyalty card. I don't have to remember I have the coupon, I just have to do my shopping and scan my card. The deduction is automatically applied, and I get points for a discount on their gas prices and free minutes for a back-up cell phone I have for emergencies. Not a bad deal. I think the phone has about 5000 minutes on it at this point. But now that I'm buying food mostly for me, I really don't care about name brands. I have favorites at the 4 stores that occupy one corner in my town. I go from store to store buying sale items and the store brands that I prefer. I rarely need a coupon. The nice thing for me is that the store that gives the phone minutes and discounts for gas prices gives double points at their pharmacy. I have lots of prescriptions.
And I should have said that next year I qualify for senior citizen discounts that I completely plan to utilize. I know the stores operate on a thin margin of profit, but I operate on a thin margin of income so we are even. If they want to give me a deal, I will take it and be a loyal customer in exchange.
I'm impressed. I used to try to utilize coupons, but there were a couple of things that got in the way. 1)the majority of coupons were for items I never used (so like you I wouldn't buy the item just cause there was a coupon for it) and 2)when I did cut out the coupons I would either forget to take them with me, or if I had them with me, I'd forget to give them to the cashier.
But in any event, I always did, and continue to, shop for the sales. If I want something and it's not on sale, I don't buy it. If it's something I know I'll use in the future and it's on sale now, I try to buy it if the budget allows.
Our local store has a lot of buy-one-get-one deals, and very often has buy-one-get-two deals. One week I saved more than I had to pay. Not bad.
Post a Comment