First Month We Saved $63.40 Using Coupons And Watching Prices While Shopping

Can you believe that using coupons while shopping saved us $63.40! Granted it took a little more than coupons alone to save us that much. Conducting price comparisons from store to store or even buying gas in a larger city just because you are there can save you money.

     Products labeled Great Value aren’t always the best deal either. Let’s face it you can’t always replace your favorite Oreo cookies but you can use a coupon to save a little with simple coupon shopping.

Saving Money On Gas

Not so much a way to save money with coupons but still a great savings idea. We live in a smaller community so the supply and demand of gas dictates the prices at our local gas stations. We had a trip out of town to visit a doctor that practices in larger community. Now we are fully aware of the gas prices being less so we chose to take the wife’s car because it was lower on fuel. We purchased 16 gallons of fuel which was $.10 a gallon cheaper saving us $1.60.

Now I wouldn’t recommend traveling 40 miles out of your way to save money on fuel. You have to use your own judgment of whether the cost saving justifies the trip.

Saved Money Using The Gift Card

We Saved $5.00 today while shopping before we even walked in the front door of the grocery store. Today was a no coupon shopping day. We needed to get meat and produce. Obviously we watched our spending and the price per Oz or the price per pound and saved. We prchased over 8lbs. of ground meat, 6lbs. of country pork ribs and saved $.30 per pound on both. Both great saving for something we needed at the grocery store. $4.20 savings on the meat purchases and the gift card from HP brings us for a total today of $9.20.

     There is a little more to the story in saving five bucks though. A few months ago we needed to buy HP printer ink and low and behold the clerk gave us a $5 loaded Wal-Mart gift card courtesy of HP. She didn’t have to but it’s nice to know there are some honest people still in this world willing to inform you of some special offers even while checking out.  Let’s face it, she didn’t have to be nice and we all know that service clerks aren’t paid all that well.

Second Day of Coupon Shopping

     Cold air on my face with a slight breezy morning I was excited to get my day started. I took a quick trip to the local convenience store to retrieve the local Sunday newspaper to look for new coupons and deals. My wife waited at home with anticipation of her Sunday news paper. It has been about a week since are last shopping trip to our local grocery stores. Coffee hot and waiting for me I rushed home to start our coupon shopping adventure.

      We spent about thirty minutes or so looking through all the ads and clipping the ones we would use today and coupons we might use in the future. Last week we saved $10.80 so we have already recuperated are $10.00 we use monthly on the newspapers.

     Shopping went well today. We saved $11.20 in manufacturer coupons. Then I noticed a great deal on chicken with a $.81 per pound savings so we stocked up on white meat and bought a little over 20lbs. of chicken breast. This gave an additional saving of about $16.20 from are local grocery store and there grabber add to get you through their front door to grocery shop. Total savings today was $27.40 in the green.

     Are coupon supply is growing after one full week of collecting are Sunday newspapers and printable coupons from the internet. Now we try to get good deals if it something we would use in the near future like today’s deal on the chicken. How could anyone pass on that local grocery deal from $1.78 a lb. to $.97 a lb?

Coupon Initial Research

1^st – Make a phone call to your local grocery stores to find out what their policies are on coupon redemption. A few grocery stores might double or even triple the coupon amounts. I recently called my local grocery store and found out that they will only double coupons up to a value of $.50. This makes a $.50 coupon total one dollar in savings.

2^nd – Grab your local Sunday news paper to claim your manufacture coupons to use while shopping and local grocery store sale savings. Manufacture coupons will always save you money while shopping. Grabber sales are always in the local grocery sales adds page that get you to shop at a certain store over a different store. These grabber sales pitches are sometimes better than using your coupon on that current shopping trip.

3^rd – If you have access to the internet, check on the latest printable internet coupons from manufactures.  Claim your additional coupons that weren’t in the local Sunday newspaper. Most printable internet coupons require you to download a quick program that allows you to print coupons from manufactures.  Most printable internet coupons are good for one month. Receive additional coupon savings from your printable coupons.

Most important- Plan your shopping trip each time before you head out the front door to shop. Educate yourself on prices of your local grocers.

First Day Of Coupon Shopping

     Today was the very first day we tried coupon shopping. The result for today’s shopping efforts before coupons subtotal was $134.43. After using our small stack of coupons the subtotal was $123.63. Total coupon savings of $10.80. Not bad for a couple of amateur coupon shoppers that started coupon clipping a couple hours earlier from printed internet coupons.

     After unloading the groceries my wife browsed a few other coupon websites to download and print are next batch of coupons for shopping. This adventure has already become addictive in a short time frame.

     We stayed true to what we would normally buy at the grocery store and still saved money with are coupons. We are trying to make subtle changes in shopping with are coupons to really see how much we were spending and saving in these hard economic times.

     With just a few coupons and a weekly trip to the grocery store $10.80 a week will be an easy $40.00 to $50.00 a month saved while shopping with coupons. When you have four kids in the house you can’t ignore the easy ways to save money. Let’s face it six people in one home is a large family by today’s standards.

     All in all this new sport of coupon shopping is fun and exciting. I even actually enjoyed shopping with my wife. It was like what’s next or where is the next deal at honey. Heck we might even get to retire some day!!!