When I came upon the idea of couponing I thought it could help save us money every month. Now that I have been at it for a few months I have been astounded at how much I save. I have enough household items to last our family a year. I have so much in the freezers (we have a huge one in the garage too) that I recently had to eat the last of the ice cream to fit in the purchases that I had just brought home. My cupboards run over. I have things everywhere. My kids rooms are the only place left for the stuff to go. I feel so blessed. I find things at such a cheap price on sale and then save more with coupons/rebates/promos. When I find something at a really good price I stock up.
This has saved us. Ken was furloughed for 3 weeks in April. Unpaid. Fortunately we had tax refund money to make up the difference. I was still perfecting my couponing skills then so we had normal spending then. Ken was told 2 weeks ago that he has to take another furlough by July 17. 21 more days off without pay. He has had such a reduction of hours that he doesn't qualify for paid holidays anymore so there goes Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day too.
In preparation for the next furlough I have been able to cut our grocery spending and we are living off of what we have here, some great deals at the store, and a few dollars worth of produce. We have to be very careful but we will make it due to couponing and stocking up. I am so grateful for the Law of Tithing. We have paid our tithing faithfully and we have been so blessed. I feel like I have been given a new skill. Here are some pictures of my shopping trips lately. It may seem like a strange assortment of items but I shop differently now. I have enough of most items that I do not need to shop for them weekly like I did before. I only get things that are a great deal and add them to my stash.
This isn't all that I have shopped for but it does give an idea of how I am doing things now. The first amount under every picture is what the store said I should have paid before their sale and my coupons. HOWEVER, this is at Albertson's and Walgreens and we all know they jack up the prices there. I prefer not to look at how much they say I am saving but rather how much these same items would have cost me at Wal-Mart or Winco.
$14.79 / I paid $0.55 / I think that this would have been around $6.00 at Wal-Mart.
I had to buy the banana on the one transaction because the receipt showed that the store owed me money.
$28.15 / I paid $0.91 / Maybe $15.00 at Wal-Mart
Had to buy that candy - another coupon "overage"
$24.87 / I paid $2.25
This stuff was all free except the frozen meals and those were less than $1.00 each
$80.26 / I paid $10.09
That is 10 pkgs of hot dogs there
$90.39 / I paid $18.16
$9.03 / I paid $2.03
$172.59 / I paid $38.65 / ?? at Wal-Mart?
Chex Mix Turtle Bars ROCK!
$84.51 / I paid $25.47 / maybe $50.00 at Winco
$14.07 / I paid $2.57
