In the past 9 years we have rarely if ever bought any name brand food products because of the cost. We would go without favorites or skimp in other areas to splurge "just this once" and suffer for it later. Does this sound familiar to you?
About a week ago I was uplate and flipping through the tv guide for our cable service and saw the title "Extreme Coupon". I figured it was one of those info-mercials trying to sell a book or something like that but was bored beyond tears. So I selected the channel and sat back. It showed this guy they called Mr. Coupon shopping. I watched him load up his cart and thought to myself I hope he is rich. Then I started listening when he popped in tidbits they did not encourage or ask for. He noted this was NOT a usual trip. When they showed his stash he said it happened over time, not from a single monster trip like on the show.
It got over and I sat and thought about it. I always buy generic and bare minimum trying to make our money stretch so we can eat that one week between running out and getting more Foodstamps. ICK I hate that word, but unfortunately my family is in a position to need them. We recently took up gardening in a serious way to help cut our dependance on the retched things, and canning. I kept thinking, if I can do those why not try couponing? First thing I did was look deeper into what I could do on Inboxdollars.com to earn money, and what did I find? PRINTABLE coupons that they would PAY me to use! I went nuts and printed off a LOT, as many as they let me, all of them even if I had no idea what they were for. OOPS. Do not do that folks. Now I have no black ink. . .and coupons I can not or will not use. To fix this a little I went on Yahoo groups and searched Coupon Exchange and found a great group called AmericanCouponTrain or AllAmericanCouponTrain, I am not sure which exactly and I do not have it in front of me. Well, this group runs "trains" where one person sends out an envelope stuffed with an agreed upon number and type of coupons. The person who gets it takes what they need and any that will expire before the date that is exactly 3 weeks from the day they got it, then they put in new ones to bring it back to the original number and send it to the next person. They do this through the train list and the last passenger sends it home to the conductor (person who sent it out) so they can get new coupons too.
I am currently waiting for my probationary 3 trains to arrive so I can pass them along and prove myself able to complete the trains properly. Once I can do that I can arrange and run trains myself.
In the mean time I have a 1 inch binder with page dividers that I have taped strips ofpaper onto to creat pockets for the coupons. At first I sorted them by experation date. This proved difficult to work with and very easily quite messy. Upon asking for advice I was told to catagorize them and nwo I add pockets as needed for new catagories. So far so good!
Another great tip. If you are unsure how to GET coupons try the magazine All You at Walmart, it has TONS of coupons in it. I was amazed. I have gotten 2 copies of the May issue so far but really I want more just because of 2 coupons that make it extremely worth it! The $5 off 1 JMS coupon and the $! off 1 White Cloud TP coupon. JMS, for those who do not know, is a line of womens clothing at walmart, White Cloud is a brand of toilet paper also sold there. Currently the White Cloud is marked down to $2 for a 6 pk of double roll! Use the coupon and pay only $1. With the clothing coupon you may find something on a clearance rack that is that brand, grab it, buy it, wear it and if you are lucky get paid to do so because it is Walmarts policy to give cash back on overages with coupons! Be sure to get a copy of their coupon policy though so that if you run into trouble you can show them that it is allowed. Without it you maybe forced to pay full price or leave without it and that is a shame.
A couple of days ago I saved about $27 on pillsbury products. I matched coupons to a good sale! I got almost 5 times what I would have when splurging for just a couple of dollars more than if I had gotten similar in generic. I prefer pillsbury if I can get it, I tell you what! Tomorrow I will be buying a first aid product for $2.99 with a 55 cent off coupon, its package has a $2.99 rebate form inside! I will get paid to buy then redeem the rebate! Yes only a few cents but come on, overall that makes that product FREE! You can not beat FREE.
Each time I shop I will post what we got and how much we saved. So stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment