Sane Again

Tuesday May 10th...I became sane once more.

I was able to go grocery shopping with a full budget and my buddy.

I had my coupons cut, my recipes laid out for the next two weeks, and some money!

First stop - Smart & Final. Here I got Nik his favorite cereal, HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS. $1.88 is something I couldn't pass up. Not exactly the cheapest I have paid but it definitely was a good deal here in SD.

Next stop - CVS. I was able to stock up on canned veggies and some RAISIN BRAN, Nik's next favorite. The boxes of cereal were smaller but only $1.38 and heck, still under 2bucks, I will take it!

Last stop - Von's. This is where I stocked up on the majority of my food list to last us 2 weeks.  
[heck, this is WEIRD having to wait 2 weeks for a paycheck. for the last 3 years I have received a check every week. HORRIBLE!]
I got Nik his last favorite cereal that happened to be on sale, HONEYNUT CHEERIOS. $1.48 wasn't bad at all!

But let me tell you the best deal of the day!!! 

Betty Crocker cake mixes, frosting tubs, and original brownie mixes were all BUY 2 GET 3 MORE FREE! 
Wait, what? Pay for 2 and get 5??? Kidding me? I had to ask the gal next to me in the aisle if I was reading that right. And THEN I had 75cent coupons. 6 of them!  
It pays to buy newspapers in bulk. 
So...I bought 2 or 3 rounds of 5 items each the first time but they were out of German Chocolate Cake frosting so I had to come back that night to get the new product. After work at 10 I went back with Nik and got 3 pairs of German Chocolate Cake frosting and cake mix and 2 pairs of the FunFetti kind. 
I was sooo happy. We are going to make cupcakes up the wazoo!
(I even got Nik his favorite cake mix - Carrot cake, but shhhh. I am excited to surprise him with that!) 

Well, thank you for checking this out!
All in all...I purchased $296.09 WORTH of food but only paid $138.55.
I saved $157.54 being a 53.21% savings! I WAS STOKED!
Nik was very happy too! We finally have food in our pantry and fridge after 3 weeks of it being empty.
Such a nice feeling. I have had better savings percentages but after 2 months of not being able to shop like this, it feels GREAT!

Story of the Day!

Mark this day on your calendar - April 20, 2010.

And no I am not talking about Weed Day...

I am talking about the day I realized admitted I was an addict.

A Coupon Addict.

Let me share the story with you:
Nik and I have been living out of a suitcase for the last 10days.
All our other stuff has been in packing boxes.
I haven't shopped for groceries or looked at any ads for about 3 weeks.
I haven't clipped coupons for 2 weeks.
I haven't even opened my coupon binder for 2 weeks.
YESTERDAY this all fell apart.
Nik and I FINALLY moved in to our apartment here in San Diego
(and yes it is the actual city of San Diego on our mailing and location address. Everyone asks. True story. No we are not rich [hence the story] it just comes with the job)

Anywho...I had to go shopping for a few necessitites - Milk, bread, eggs, meats, etc.
I went to Vons (which is the same exact thing as Safeway and Smith's). I love it!
My coupon binder was still in a box SOMEWHERE in the apartment at the time of my shopping adventure.
I walked into Vons and felt so naked and so alone.
Naked because my coupon binder wasn't sitting in the shopping cart with me
and
Alone because Nik wasn't with me.
Now, I can handle and NEED to handle Nik not being there because he works EXTREMELY long hours...sometimes until 8 at night.
However, I cannot and WILL not handle my binder not being there. My binder keeps me sane. I realized without her I am lost. I felt so uptight and not "together" about the whole shopping experience. 
IT WAS HORRIBLE!
I walked up and down the aisles with no clue of what was on sale, what I had coupons for, what coupons expired that I need to throw away, NOTHING!
AGH!
I felt like I was committing a murder...a murder of our money...to THROW soooo much of it away!
  ok, so that MIGHT sound a little dramatic...but no joke, I felt horrible! NEVER will I shop without my buddy. She saves me lots of money!

SO...I ended up making it out of there ALIVE, thank goodness, and headed home with $47 spent. WTH!?!?! And I only had 4 bags to show for it. 
Yes, Cali and SD are more expensive to live in but that is just unacceptable. That is what I spend in 2 weeks of groceries. YUCK! The prices weren't too bad, it was the fact that I bought them when they were not on sale and without a coupon. Two very big NoNo's.
I tried to relay this story to Nik but he was so so SO tired, I don't think he understood the sadness I was feeling.
Sad Day, 
This CANNOT and WILL NOT happen again.

Thank you.
Thank you.
You are awesome listeners/readers.
I am sure if you read hard enough, you could hear me and the pain in my voice.
I know my Mamma can! 

The End. 

Let's Save Money!

Do you get the Sunday Paper?

yes

Do you use coupons?

yes

Do you like to SAVE MONEY??

Yes

Now…if you answered YES to all of the above (like me)….did you know you could save even more money by purchasing MULTIPLE Sunday papers???

YES!!!

Well you can.

Ask your local paper if you can receive more papers and possibly get a discount.

Nik and I are signed up to get FIVE

(yes, 5 from the same company)

Newspapers EVERY Sunday!

It is like Christmas morning every Sunday Morning.
We look outside our front door and see 5 red plastic baggies
with Newspapers in them.


Inside those Newspapers are COUPONS!

Oh….what happiness!!

See….

Before November I had NO idea you could order multiple papers to get multiple coupons for the same product.

I had NO IDEA! You know what that means…MULTIPLE opportunities to save on one item and stock up. Can you say AWESOME?!

I can!

So…

Now when there is a good deal on something that I have a coupon for…

I can now get 5 of that item and start storing more in my Food Storage!

Let me tell you a story:


Nik and I got married in the summer and after a few months of grocery bills…we realized that other than Rent Payments, those receipts for groceries were our biggest monthly expense.

One of two things needed to happen:

1) Starve

or

B) Save Money

We decided that starving wouldn’t be the best of ideas…so we went and bought a 3-ring zipper binder, baseball card pages, and dividers.
We then subscribed to the newspaper and started getting one Sunday paper each week.
That was great and we saved $13 (out of $127) on our first majorly-focused trip to the grocery store.

We were excited!

$13 is like a movie and popcorn

or

half-a-shirt!

(lol)

This went on for a few months and we would save a few bucks here and there…then in November came the BEST Relief Society Activity EVERRRRR…

How to Clip Coupons and Budget!

I was SOOO excited to go there and learn how to save us some money!

WHO wants to spend all their money on food??

I’d rather spend money on 

home décor

or

clothing

or

shoes

or

movies

or

go on a FANCY DATE with Nikolas!

Food??

All you do is buy food, eat it, and buy some more.

DUMB but important, I guess.

Becky, the Coupon Genius in my ward that taught the class, gave us some great tips and to go check out our local newspaper’s Savvy Shopper, Amy. I went home that night and looked her up online. It showed Amy having a seminar at the hotel right next to our apartment that upcoming Tuesday.
I was STOKED!
I signed up and that night the two of us went to learn how to save money!!!






The Savvy Shopper, Amy, was GREAT!
She was funny and kept the class alive.
Everyone in the class was so shocked by her money-saving stories and techniques.
With our eyes wide open and jaws dropped to the floor in disbelief/excitement we all scribbled down notes and vowed to never pay full price for an item again!
Going to that class allowed us to get a discount when we order up to 5 Sunday papers.
We pay $18.75 each month to get 20-25 newspapers
(depending on the number of Sundays in the month).
It is AWESOME!

So…we have had many great weeks with our grocery bills.

I get excited for Wednesdays when the new grocery ads come in the mail

and

Sundays when the retail stores and coupons come in the paper.

This is how my week goes –

Sunday: new coupons come to my doorstep for me to clip and organize in my binder.

Wednesday: new grocery ads come in the mail for me to browse and circle with a permanent marker what deals are good for us to buy.

Saturday: I make my shopping list of what he need for meals the next week and what we can stock up and put away in our Food Storage.

Nik and I then go shopping

(it’s always great as a team that way we don’t over spend or get something we don’t need or so we don’t overlook a great un-advertised deal)

and we try to get the most we can with our $25 Grocery Budget.

It has been a ton of fun…especially because we make such a great team!

Now, the best week we have had so far was this last Saturday.

Let me lay out my savings and maybe you will join me in the

Coupon Clipping Fun.

Toiletries (we bought Shampoo, Conditioner, Toilet Paper, and Hairspray):

Pre-savings Total: $43.76

Spent: $27.52

Saved: $17.08

Percent Saved: 39%

# Items Purchased: 20

Groceries (Too many to list…oh and some name brand stuff for FREE):

Pre-savings Total: $99.65

Spent: $34.59

Saved: $68.22

Percent Saved: 68%

# Items Purchased: 52

*Now,

we DID go over our budget for the week

but the prices were

too good

to not get the items at that time.

ESPECIALLY since they were name brand…

and cheaper than the Store brand.

Let me lay out some of the best deals from that day.

 Honey Bunches of Oats (Family Size).

Originally $4.50

Purchased for $1.18

(We got 12 boxes. Heck yes! Some for Food Storage and some for every day use.)

Bumblebee Tuna Cans.

Originally $0.69

Purchased for $0.33

(We got a few stacks of those. Tuna is a cheap staple food for us right now.)

Pasta

(Don’t remember the name but it WAS name brand and not generic. BONUS!)

Originally $0.99

Purchased for $0.50

(Another easy and cheap staple we both love!)

(THE BEST DEAL!)...

Bumblebee Single Serve Tuna Pouch

FREE!!!

I was/still am SOO HAPPY with our shopping trip!

We saved sooo much money and stocked up our pantries really well.

All that money we saved could go to bigger and better things.

I LOATHE spending money on food because it feels like it’s ALWAYS GONE!

This makes me feel better about spending money on food.

Yay!

Anybody can do this and save money just like me!

*Call me CRAZY...

but saving money is

AWESOME!

I'm sure if you tried it...you'd be hooked.