Couponing

So I have a few goals for my couponing/thrifty endeavor...

The most obvious goal is to save money on things my family already buys.  In case you don't know it, expenses for a family of 5 can add up!

Another goal is to create a stockpile.  I have a vision of our garage shelves lined with toilet paper, paper towels, diaper wipes, toothpaste, easy mac, and enough cereal in stock for my kiddos (among other things, of course) to last for 3-6 months.  I'm learning, so I have no illusions that I'll get there next week, or even next month, but I'm trying, which is really what counts. (In case you're wondering, I don't find this goal in conflict with my declutter goal....I want to stock up on things we as a family love and use....so there are fewer stressful moments when we realize that there is no more toilet paper in the house.  Not that I have experience with that or anything...)

Another goal is to {once again} cook in bulk and store meals in my freezer.  I had been doing this for a while - and had even been organizing meal swap parties for the Sunday school class - and it makes dinners and meal planning so easy.  {Quick realization is that I didn't host a single solitary one of those meal swaps during the fall semester...and I don't think I had one in the summer either.  Shame on me!} So if I combine the freezer cooking with buying some of the ingredients in bulk and on sale, I'll be one happy mamma.

Of course, a lofty goal that I have is to hit the deals so that I ultimately get various toiletries for free (because apparently that is possible), but I know that's lofty and it will probably take a while before I'm ever at that point, so whatever.....any savings is good!

My final goal is to use the money we're saving from being thrifty and couponing and put it to good use.  Whatever that good use might need to be at the moment.  What I don't want to do is save money in this area and have this effort and those savings amount to nothing in our grand scheme of finances.  What a waste that would be.

It's the start of a new month, which means most of the online coupons just reset.  Who is on the couponing bandwagon with me??