In addition to that, I figured that if I gave a seminar on cutting costs and getting good deals, I should try to be more diligent in doing this. I had gotten a flyer that said I could get the Sunday Chicago Tribune for 50 cents a week, and I knew I could use at LEAST 50 cents in coupons a week to make it worth my while. So, I ordered the paper, and then I went to the supercouponing.com site and started looking for deals that I could get with my coupons.
So, now I'm trying to be really diligent about saving money. I don't want to spend lots of time doing this, but I do realize that in the beginning, I'm going to have to put some time in to get myself organized. I'm sure after I've done it for a month or two things will start to flow more smoothly.
So, on Sunday, I got the paper and got all my coupons and put them in a folder. Then I started looking through some of the ads - but I didn't spend a lot of time, because I knew that I could get the best deals late Sunday night to early Monday morning if I just waited for the blog author to post the weekly deals. Monday I spent the day doing my cleaning and tried to do some organizing, and got started figuring out the deals that I wanted to get. I wrote out what I wanted by each store, and if there were coupons (which there were), I clipped those ones or printed them, and put them together. I grabbed some scrap paper that we have had laying around and I folded it around the coupons for that store and then I wrote the name of the store. Although I stayed up way too late working on it, I was organized and ready to go in the morning.
Tuesday morning, I dropped Delaney off at Preschool and then I headed to my first store. Dominick's was the furthest out, so I decided to start there. I went in and started doing my shopping, looking for the things that were on my list. I was able to get all of them except one. I ended up saving about 50%. I spent $28.60 and saved $27.81. Not a bad way to start. My biggest problem is that I hardly ever shop at Dominick's, so I don't know the layout, and I think I spent most of my time looking around for the items that were on my list. I need to get a store layout, or write one up, and then it will make my shopping time go much more quickly.
Next I stopped at Sam's Club. I didn't initially plan to stop there, but I wanted to see the price on Pork Loin. I like to get the 8lb. pork loins and cut them up in 2lb. sections for pork roasts or slice them into boneless pork chops, which is much less expensive than regular boneless pork chops. But I wanted to see if it was under $2.00 a pound, and it wasn't, so I kept going. I ended up picking up some frozen chicken breasts, green beans and strawberries. Even though I didn't get "savings" there, I still paid a really good price for everything - and the strawberries were AMAZING!
Next stop was Target. I didn't get everything that was on my list there. There were coupons for $3.00 off Nivea Body Wash and Nivea Body Wash for Men, and the store price was only about $3.04, but the shelf was empty. Guess everyone else had gone to cash in on the same deal. I did come across Diet Coke and Fresca for $2.50 per 12-pack and stocked up. Those prices don't come along very often anymore. But I ended up spending a lot more at Target than I intended (who does walk out of Target with only what was on their list??? LOL) I ended up getting birthday presents for my niece who turns 3 on Sunday and some stuff to help me organize. Oh, and I HAD to pick up the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 DVD. It was $5 off, so that was a good deal!
Then it was off to Jewel. Jewel also had Diet Coke on sale for $2.50 a 12-pack if you bought them in quantities of 4. So, $10 for the equivalent of 2 cases. Again, I didn't know the layout of this store very well, so I felt like I spent most of my time walking around trying to find the items on my list. I will end up getting that figured out. I did find the ham, and I had a $9 off coupon if you end up spending $20 - easy peasy! LOL. I found a 6lb. ham that was only $10.67, so after the coupon, it was $1.67. Bonus! Then I came across an endcap that had Dr. Pepper on sale for 4 for $10. Same deal as the Diet Coke! Total awesomeness! Of course I had to get that. I LOVE my Dr. Pepper. I limit myself to one or two a week, so two cases worth can last me almost 6 months or longer! I ended up saving 48% in that store.
And I finally hit Walgreens. There was one item I wasn't able to find, and another item was on sale for $3.99 and I had a coupon for $4.00, but it wouldn't go through because the coupon value was greater than the item amount.
So I'm getting started. Now I have to work on a Freezer Inventory, Pantry Inventory, try to do my menu planning based on what is on sale, and get my store layouts. I also want to get a running price list. I usually shop at Aldi, because they have the cheapest prices, but Woodman's has prices that are great compared to Jewel, so I need to get my price lists put together, because if sale prices at Jewel and Dominick's are more expensive with coupons, I'll want to use those coupons at Woodman's instead. But Woodman's doesn't advertise much of their prices, so it's hard to know when they are having sales, and most of their sales don't even make it into their sale ads. But I'll figure it out. If I can save 40-50% on my groceries and paper products, it will totally help pay for the gas hikes we've been dealing with. So, I'm going to put in the effort over the next month or two to get it worked out and hopefully by time school starts in the fall, I'll have it all worked out and it will be a breeze and take hardly any time at all.
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