A couple months ago a friend started couponing and as we chatted I became more and more intrigued. Started looking at one of the sites she told me she checks each week. www.coupondivas.com
I was amazed at the prices of some of the items when you combine coupons with the sale prices.
I decided to sign up to get our local paper and also started picking up the Chicago Tribune for their coupons. Each week I take a look at the above website and see what items are at a good price and are items I could use. I DO NOT purchase items just because I have a coupon for them. I make sure it is something I could use. I also don't go crazy with stockpiling, but I will grab several of one item if it is something I know I can use. For instance I was able to get 6 tubes of toothpaste for .50, 4 boxes of waffles for $2.00, 4 bottles of dish soap and a carton of eggs for $1.42.
After a couple weeks of small couponing 'hauls' I started getting excited. I began to wonder if I could find coupons for generic brand products. There are several local grocery stores here. I googled each of these stores generic brands to see if any of them offered coupons. The only one that I found was for Essentials Everyday (which is at Al's Supermarket here). They usually have 1 coupon in the papers once a month and they are usually GREAT coupons. Once I find one that I know I could use, I head on over to ebay and check for their coupons there. I can usually get between 10-20 for about $2-3, but they save me between $10-$30. Here are some of the hauls I have gotten from Al's using these coupons.
This was my first haul from Al's using Essentials Everyday coupons. This particular coupon was 'Buy 1 item, get 1 item FREE - amount not to exceed $2' PLUS everything here was on sale that week, PLUS because it was around the holidays they had coupon booklets with additional coupons in the amounts of .25 - .75 off each of these items. It was amazing and as the cashier was checking me out she said, 'I feel like there should be cameras here filming this. This is so cool!!'
Here is my receipt. I paid less than $40 for over $100 worth of groceries. Woohoo!! This was SO exciting for me.
This was my first haul from Al's using Essentials Everyday coupons. This particular coupon was 'Buy 1 item, get 1 item FREE - amount not to exceed $2' PLUS everything here was on sale that week, PLUS because it was around the holidays they had coupon booklets with additional coupons in the amounts of .25 - .75 off each of these items. It was amazing and as the cashier was checking me out she said, 'I feel like there should be cameras here filming this. This is so cool!!'
This was from my trip today. My total for everything was $11.01.
I went to 2 different stores.
CVS: I got the 4 bottles of dish soap and eggs for $1.42. The dish soap was on sale for .99 and I had 4 coupons (2 for .25 and 2 for .50). The eggs were $1.79. On top of the coupons I had $3.50 in ExtraCare Bucks which act as cash!
Al's Supermarket: The coupon I had this time was for $1.00 off any 2 Essentials Everyday products. All items aside from the cereal was $1 or less. So most of these items I got for .50 or less!
I think couponing is going to be essential for our family in the coming year. With me not getting a consistent paycheck in the summer we are going to need to stock up now to get us though the summer. We currently have 2 refrigerators just so we can use both of the freezers. We are looking to get a deep freezer to help stock up. :-)
Excited to continue couponing!!
