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??

Thinking ahead

So I came across this post today that pretty much sums up great ideas about not getting caught off guard for Christmas when it comes to presents....

Check it out.

My foray into couponing

Well, I mentioned earlier that I was going to try my hand at couponing.

So I tried to 'coupon' this week.  I'm using coupon as a verb and that's intentional.

I'm determined to get this figured out.

But I''m also trying to start small.  Taking manageable bites.

We'll see how I do....

Attempt #1:
Target

Rimmel Mascara - $2.99
--Manufacturer coupon for $2.00 off 1
--Target coupon for $2.00 off 1
Rimmel Eyeshadow - $3.99
--Manufacturer coupon for $2.00 off 1
--Target coupon for $2.00 off 1
Up and Up lotion - $3.84
--Target coupon for $1.00 off 1

Now, I had thought that I would accumulate 'overage' with the stacking of the coupons for items that I could use toward the purchase of the lotion.  This did not happen.  I'm not sure if it was supposed to happen and the guy simply messed up, but it didn't.  He manually adjusted the 'store' coupon to be sure that it was exactly the remaining amount of each of the Rimmel products.  I guess I could have stopped there and walked out with two eye products for nothing, but I was already at the counter with people behind me and just decided to go with it.

Some things that might work in my favor with this are that I'm enough of a girly-girl to know that I need eyeshadow and mascara, but not enough of the girly-girl that I care about the brand.  I hold this opinion in many areas, so perhaps this will serve me well in this coupon adventure.

The total of the items without coupons = $10.82
Amount paid = $3.07
Total saved = $7.98

So to you coupon people 'in the know', did the guy mess up when he adjusted the coupon amount or was I supposed to get some overage in this transaction?  Just wondering for future reference.

How do you think I did?

Couponing

I'm trying to venture into the world of couponing.  I have 'liked' a number of sites on Facebook that I'm hoping will give me some guidance to the secrets of this trade.

I want to be able to get my groceries, or toiletries, or whatever, and say I bought some absurd amount of stuff for pennies.  Or a few dollars.  Or saved half.

Or something like that.

If you have any tips, or favorite websites, or groups on Facebook that will bestow upon me this knowledge, please pass them along.

Really.  Please.

Certainly I can figure this out, right?