Thursday, November 20, 2008

Grocery Store Victory!


Well, I'm not anywhere close to the point where I go to the grocery store and buy $152 in groceries for $0.35! (I still don't understand how people are able to do that.. crazy!) But this past week I did save $12.00 in coupons!

For some time now I've been clipping coupons. Now I can't say that it always saves me a lot of money. For one, coupons are usually for name brand items, so saving 25 cents on a box of $4 cereal... not such a good buy...especially, when you can get off brand cereal for half the price. So, I have have started scouring the grocery store ads, either online or the ones that come in the paper, and have been trying to double up sales that grocery stores are running w/ coupons. This can equal out to some great deals. For instance this past week Matt and I picked up cereal for $1 box. It was already on sale, plus I had coupons!

MoneySavingMom has been a great resource for me when it comes to finding good coupon deals. Now, she is a pro and she admits that it takes time to work up to the savings that she is able to accumulate. But it is still helpful to reference.

Also, if you haven't yet... you should really give Target a try when it comes to groceries! Their food is not expensive as sometimes it is rumored to be, as long as you buy their off brands, Archer Farms and Market Pantry. They both have really great products. Plus, you are able to use both manufacturer coupons with Target coupons on the same item! (go here for Target online coupons)
Target, also offers gift card promotions fairly often, where if you buy a product (normally name-brand) you get a gift card in return. I have scored some great deals by doing this!)

One more tidbit.. if you have a coupon but the store you are at doesn't carry the product, a lot of times they will honor the coupon on a similar product. Just make sure you ask an employee first, but it has worked often for me!

My hope is that since I am getting into this habit now, while shopping for only 2 people, I will be better prepared when I have a whole family to feed.

I'll post more later about my grocery shopping attack plan, including meal planning, grocery lists, coupon organization.. and so on.

Do you cut coupons?

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

Hi Jessica! I've been visiting your blog for a while now, and have recently added it to my bloglist. I have recently started clipping coupons as well, and I love it! We don't get many in our local paper, so I do a lot of searching online. Another great place to find quite a few is in All You magazine. It is a cute, inexpensive magazine, and you can usually find several coupons in each issue. If you've never looked through one, you should pick one up!

Jessica said...

thanks jennifer for the recommendation! I haven't looked through one before, I'll definitley do that!

Macaroni and Cheesecake said...

I've been doing coupons for a little while, but not a ton and only for things we use. But recently I've started trying to match them with sales at the grocery and I've saved a ton! Especially for Thanksgiving. I've got a long way to go however. I do find myself wondering how they get so much for like $5!

Ginger said...

do you have CVS Pharmacies in KC? If so the CVS Extra care card is a great way to save a buck I'm not as good at it as some people. But there is a lot of information on the CVS website. I think the most I ever saved on a trip was 15.00 but it's still worth a shot.