My "Realistic" Coupon Adventure

Since moving to Brigham City, my new favorite hobby is couponing! I would say I am pretty obsessed with coupons.  I have actually been using coupons since before I got married, but now, more than ever I have really made an effort to 'coupon.' The first thing I did was start researching on the internet about couponing. There is so much available that makes couponing very easy and convenient. I do not spend hours clipping coupons or searching for deals on the internet. I think one BIG misconception about coupons is that there are only coupons for processed foods and you can always just buy the generic brand cheaper. This is not true at all! It brings me so much JOY every time I can go to the store and spend less than I used to, and be able to not only get my weekly groceries,  but contribute to my food storage.

I am going to tell you about my shopping trip today. I went to three different stores, Smith's, Kent's, and Walmart. I only did this today because my kids were not with me, otherwise, I would have just gone to Smith's. I like the produce better at Kent's so this is why I chose to go there too. The list of groceries I bought is as follows:

• 2 boxes Post Shredded Wheat cereal
• 2 boxes Post Grape Nuts cereal
• 2 boxes Mom's Best Naturals toasty o's
• 1 loaf Great Grains Multi-grain bread
• 2 gallons of milk
• 1 gallon of 100% orange juice
• 3 jars La Victoria salsa
• 9 Balance energy bars
• 1 pack Mission tortillas-10 count
• 2 bags Garden of Eatin' tortilla chips
• 1 box Beech-nut oatmeal baby cereal
• 2 Digiorno frozen pizzas
• 1 box Jose Ole frozen taquitos
• 8 individual Kraft Easy-mac cups
• 2 packs of Pepperidge farm goldfish crackers
• 8 cups Kroger truly awesome kids yogurt
• 1, 4-pack of Yobaby yogurt
• 2 cups Chobani greek yogurt
• 1 lb. Daisy sour cream
• 4 strips of Fleishmann's pizza crust yeast
• 1 pint blueberries
• 1 lb. strawberries
• 5 oranges
• 3 apples
• 2 avocados
• 1 head romaine lettuce
• 5 roma tomatoes
• 5 yellow onions
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• 2 packs of Solo paper plates
• 2 packs of Solo plastic cups
• 1, 6-pack Brawny big roll paper towels
• 1, 12-pack Quilted Northern double roll toilet paper
• 1 pack of pantiliners

So, drumroll please, what do you think all of this cost? I would say just going to Walmart and buying all this would probably cost around $160. What do you think though? Anyway, the total came to $69.73! Wahoo, right?! I used roughly $37 in manufacturer coupons and then took advantage of Smith's, buy 10 save $5 sale. I LOVE when they have these sales. They seem to have them quite often too. The coupons I used were mostly coupons I printed off the internet and then I had some from Smartsource (the inserts that come in the sunday paper) and Redplum (the insert that comes in the mail on Tuesdays).

One thing that I have found out about coupons is that there is all sorts of coupons for everything! Even organic and natural foods. And really anything that you like, there will most likely be a coupon for it at some point if you watch for it. Did you know that on coupons.com there is a coupon for $0.75 off any brand, gallon of milk, or $1.00 off any 2 lbs. of cheese? (These particular coupons are for Utah and Idaho only). Or did you know that you can stack a target web coupon with a manufacturer coupon, sometimes being able to get items for free? A lot of companies have coupons on there websites and if you "like" them on facebook. I have printed some really good coupons off facebook!! My favorite coupon websites are:

• coupons.com
• grocerysmarts.com
• couponmom.com
• thekrazycouponlady.com
• dealseekingmom.com
• commonsensewithmoney.com

To really maximize your savings, you need to get Sunday newspaper inserts and print coupons off the internet. You can only print two coupons per computer off sites like coupons.com. I would also suggest subscribing to a daily email sent from a site like krazycouponlady.com or dealseekingmom.com. They give the rundown of the best deals and sometimes there will be HOT coupons that will only be available until the print limit is reached. Sometimes these coupons will be gone within hours. I just look through the daily emails and see if there is anything that applies to me and see if there is a coupon I want to print. If not, I delete them. There are many times where there is nothing I am interested in, but plenty of times where they tell about a really good deal or coupon!

I would like to start teaching coupon classes, so if you are interested in finding out more, in more detail, please let me know! Thanks!