Coupons, Coupons, Coupons!

I've recently got onto the coupon train. I haven't subscribed to any newspapers just yet but I have done pretty well with internet coupons and using a couple of store's coupons. It all started when I was talking with my friend Rachel about her grocery budget. Since she has two little boys just slightly older than my two I knew she'd feel my pain in the pocket over feeding these hungry boys but She was said that she gets just about everything free or close to free! Wow I thought, free?! Really? That just sounded too good to be true but then I talked with my other buddy Karen and she said she does really well with coupons too. So, being the TOTAL cheapskate that I am I decided to jump on board and give it a go. At first I was totally overwhelmed what with all the crazy "coupon code" talk and store policies and trying to figure out which coupons I could use together without breaking the rules. It was a bit over my head. So I decided to just start with two stores, the two in my area that seemed to have the best savings and that were the most convenient for me. These two were Rite Aid (which I had never shopped at!) and Safeway. I then signed up for everything I could and that's where it kinda' took over :) I tend to over do at first and then find the happy medium so of course, I over did with couponing! But now that I've got all my accounts set up and all of my websites working together I've got a system and I have been saving quite a bit and spending a lot less time doing it! For Rite Aid I signed up for their wellness plus card (it's just like a safeway card except as far as I know you can't load coupons to your card like you can for Safeway), their video values program and I check their single check rebates. And yes, that took a lot of getting used to! For Safeway I signed up to three online coupon sources; Cellfire.com, pgesaver.com and the safeway coupon source and I already had a safeway card. I also figured out when each store started their new sales each week. For Safeway they begin on Wednesday and there is usually an extra weekend sale and for Rite Aid they begin on Sunday. For each store, I check the weekly sales fliers online and while I am doing that in one window I have the krazycouponlady.com open in another window to cross check the coupons available online (they have an online coupon database as well as an ecoupon database). I make my lists based on the things that are on sale in the flier that also have manufacturers coupons online or that I have in my coupon organizer (yes I am that cool!). So once I've got all my coupons and the sales fliers looked over I check iheartriteaide.com to see if she has found anything that I missed (she usually has). I then get my coupons stacked and sorted and I am ready to go! So far Rite Aid has been the best investment of time, coupon wise. I save SO much on diapers alone! Here's what I got this week;

I spent a little over $12 ($20 out of pocket but I got $8 off my next Rite Aid purchase)!! And I am sure there are better deals to be had, I'm definitely not great at couponing just yet! But it sure does feel great to go to the store and come out with a little more money in my pocket and a trunk full of groceries. Sometimes I even make money on my coupon deals (via Rite Aid's single check rebates, which are really easy!). I still have trouble with Safeway every once in a while because I can't quite figure out why sometimes my ecoupons don't work but all in all I still save a lot. I have been under budget on groceries for a couple of months (not last month though, we had lots of company and I slacked on my coupons) and that has felt so great! I think I have it down to a science that I can use long term and hopefully benefit my family! So I know what most of you are probably thinking "but all I find coupons for is junk food and expensive name brand stuff", and I thought that too. If you look around though you can find all kinds of organic coupons (check mambosprouts.com and earthfare.com) and yes, coupons for name brand stuff but all of the gain and shampoo in the above picture was absolutely free! The soft scrub cost me $1 a bottle and the toilet paper was $2! Yup, that means I got four packages of diapers for about $9. Its definitely been more cost effective to buy diapers now than to use electricity and time washing all of my cloth diapers. At any rate, I am sold on coupons :) It's fun!

Another money saver that I just found and started doing last week is 5 minute home made bread. It really does take only five minutes (without a bread machine!) and it's delicious, simple and cheap. My sister in law Jamie is trying it too and she's loving it as much as my family is. Here's a link to the recipe I've been using and to the recipe Jamie has decided to use;

whole wheat bread;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSOoH686_b8
simple white bread;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFJZPm-_2-M

I have been using a bread pan and cooking spray instead of a pizza stone and corn meal because we use our bread mostly for sandwhiches. In the recipe I have been using for wheat bread I have been adding an extra half cup of water and the first time I made it I used all white flour because that's what I had on hand. The dough is very sticky but it works perfectly! We love it!