Couponing

Couponing and meal planning is something I used to do when we first got married but with the business of work and school I let it fall to the wayside. However, now that I am not working and we added another person to our household it has become even more important to try to be good stewards of our money. So in order to help reduce our grocery spending throughout the year I have taken up couponing again. Twice a month I plan our meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for about 2 1/2 weeks worth then I use the meal plans to create our grocery list for food. I ten cut coupons and create a plan based off local sales papers and coupons on where to purchase our food needs for the meal plan. Using a meal plan has greatly cut down on our grocery spending and I find when I have things planed for meals we are less likely to go out.

With the remainder of our grocery budget, I look though the sales papers and coupons to create a plan to purchase our health and beauty items as well as our household cleaning items and paper products. If there is something we are out of I will buy that but beyond that I only purchase items that are on sale and I have coupon for. This allows us to “stock pile" on items like toilet paper, paper towels, and laundry detergent to name just a few so that we do not run out and I am able to purchase items at their lowest out of pockets cost. I know it seems time consuming but with a little patience to look though the ads, cut coupons, and meal plan along with help from great FREE websites like Money Saving Mom and Southern Savers I have had great success reducing our grocery spending.

Using this method, I have been able to save tremendous amounts of money on products we use a lot! I have a fabulous example from this week’s endeavor. At CVS this week I purchased the following items:

Tide Detergent, Dishwashing Tabs, Diapers, Face Wash, and aMulti Pack of Water(not pictured)

The total out of pockets cost before sales, coupons, and extra care bucks would have been $39.99.After the sale, my coupons, and using extra care bucks I only spent $4.88 out of pocket. That’s a savings of $35.09! Plus, I earned another extra care buck to spend on my next purchase!

I hope this has inspired you to consider couponing if you haven't already. I certainly believe it is worth the effort!