Thursday, February 24, 2011

"Couponing"

Today was my first attempt at “couponing”. I’ve been wanting to “learn the art” for a long time now, but finally after hearing some recent success stories from friends, I determined to make it a goal to educate myself and give it a try. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and asking questions, and it looks like I still have a ton to learn, but today was my first time putting into practice what I’ve learned so far. With about a dozen coupons (2 were “stacked” - for the same item), and a great deal going on at Target right now: Buy 7 frozen food items, get a $5 gift card off your next purchase, I was able to get this...

...for $17.67; all of which would have cost me $41.00. Now, to those who are avid “couponers”, this may not seem like a huge deal, but I’m pretty excited about it. This is what I bought:


4 bags frozen vegetables (with 1 Target coupon)

3 small containers Cool Whip

2 Weight Watchers meals

4 single-serving frozen yogurts

1 box (6 count) mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches

7 frozen juice concentrates (2 - o.j., 2 - 100% fruit juice, 2 strawberry daquiri, 1 - lemonade)

2 small blocks cheese (with 1 Target coupon)

4 boxes pasta (2 - whole wheat) (with 1 Target coupon)

dishwasher detergent (with 1 Target coupon)

cotton balls ($0.62 with 1 Target coupon)

aluminum foil ($0.62 with 1 Target coupon)

Halls cough drops ($0.19 with 2 coupons)

floss (free with 1 Target coupon)


A couple tips I got that helped: When shopping for the frozen food items, or for an item that you have a coupon for, look for something that’s very inexpensive to begin with (frozen food items for around $1 or less). Also, in some cases, as in mine, it worked best to do separate transactions: First, buy 7 most inexpensive frozen items; get $5 gift card. Second, buy 7 more frozen items; apply $5 gift card to that; receive another $5 gift card. Third, buy 7 more frozen food items; apply $5 gift card to that; receive another $5 gift card. Buy the rest of your items (use coupons); apply $5 gift card to that. It seems tedious, but using a credit card it actually went very smoothly. You could always buy the 21 frozen items all at once, getting $15 in gift cards to use towards your next purchase, but I wasn’t buying a lot of product outside of the frozen foods.


Anyway, thought I would pass along the tips and info. for those of you who might be interested. By the way, these Kemps Frozen Yogurt Parfaits are really good!



10 comments:

  1. very good! I like couponing too, but Ryan likes it even more than I do I think! Lately I've been pretty stressed with keeping track of my coupons though, but looks like you made some good purchases, and it's stuff you will actually use.

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  2. Okay, I will definitely do this, thanks for the tips!

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  3. Hi, Sarah!! It's been a long time without hearing from you!! Your entry was very interesting because I'm also passing through a process of learning and educating myself in what to buy and where to buy it. I'm learning a lot about organic food and processed food. It's really interesting. I just watched the movie "Food Inc." and thought that maybe you would like to watch it too. You can find the whole movie in seven parts in You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEmIEEQOHpY
    Hope it's useful. Hugs!!

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  4. Great job, Sarah! I don't use coupons a ton, mainly because they have seemed to be for things I wouldn't use, or I could get it cheaper buying generic or another brand. What have you experienced with that?

    We did use 3 or 4 coupons today when we went grocery shopping, and that's kind of the way it goes! I want to watch the youtube video Priss recommended (Hi Priss!) sounds really interesting! I will be interested to hear how your future couponing goes--I hope it is extremely beneficial to you!
    Thanks for sharing!
    Mrs. Gunn

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  5. Way to go....you will get the hang of this quickly and then become addicted...I love looking at my grocery store receipts and seeing 33% saved...40% saved....50% saved.....I sometime tell Dan "I'm going hunting" and he knows I'm on a major "coupon" shopping trip :)

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  6. Nice work Sarah! Be sure to check out pocketyourdollars.com for all your couponing needs (if you haven't already)!! Best way to save is to match up coupons with sales!

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  7. Are you using the moneysavingmom.com site?

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  8. Yeah!!! :) If you get multiple coupon inserts (you can check out Coupon Insanity on FB) it really helps...also printing off coupons online too helps, if you can get to two computers, the savings is even greater. I use a lot of different sites to "help" find needful deals - passionforsavings.com is a good starting place.

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