Coupon World

(If anyone has seen my table it is huge and my items filled it!)

Every time I talk with a mom she seems to be in with concept of couponing and saving her family loads of money on shopping, essentially groceries. My first thoughts are: (1) how do they find the time to process & organize all this, (2) do they buy a lot of things just because it is on sale that they don't really need?, (3) where do they put all of it ?. Now for some I already know the answer. Their job is to save their family money since their kids are in school full-time & they are still at home, no negative intended, or they are probably more organized than I am=) They probably do buy some things they don't need, but if they can get it for free they sometimes will donate to local shelters, etc. (fantastic idea!) I also know a few who don't park their cars in the garages so lots of storage =) I for one love to hop in my car in the garage without stepping into the pouring rain or scraping the ice off when I have three kids waiting on me. Anyway, this week Albertson's (who is usually ridiculously expensive), is having a great sale. So, I got in touch with one of these coupon mommies and drilled her with the ins & outs. Thanks Shari for putting up with my harrassing! I won't go into all the details, but I think I did pretty good for my first time! Shari spent $86 and saved over $500!!! I managed to spend $50, I did set a budget and saved $145.44!! I did learn it is who your checker is that makes all the difference =) I also did not have all the coupon doubles, yes DOUBLES, that Albertsons was offering, so if I would have just had 2 more sets of 3 (I'll explain later) it would have saved me $12 more dollars and I didn't have to do a thing except get one more albertson's ad!! The checker looked for me but did not have any at her grasp, shucks!! I did manage to form a good line behind me =) Anyway, here is the breakdown:

2-cases of 8 bottles of powerade

1-Bounty mega size 8 pack paper towel rolls

8-boxes pasta roni

2-6 pack trix yogurt

2-6 pack yoplait kids W/DHA yogurt

2-mega size hershey bars (for smores of course)

4-kraft pasta salad bacon & ranch

2-dozen large grade A eggs

3-boxes quaker oatmeal

1-box fiber one muffin mix

2-boxes pillsbury toaster strudels

2-packages green giant frozen vegetable (24oz.) family size

2-boxes trix cereal

4-boxes fruit gushers fruit snacks

4-boxes fiber one chewy granola bars

1-4-stick box butter

2-gallons 1% milk

1-peanut butter

1-smuckers jam

1-sara lee bread

3-lean cuisine dinners

1-container gerber fruit puffs

I think I am newly inspired =) And I think these are things that are great for our house!!