The moment of truth!

So, my day went as follows: Midwife appointment at noon, then off to shop! We went to a total of 5 stores to grab the very best deals.Kroger, Publix, Ingles, Rite-aid, and Walgreens. Now that may seem a bit excessive to some of you but let me tell you something, we would have never saved as much as we did today had we only gone to one or two stores. I combined the sale items found in my weekly sale papers and coupons clipped from the local newspapers to optimize my savings. As it turned out, we didn't full price for ANYTHING we purchased today! Not one single item! Now let's review my stash...



10 boxes of cereal
4 tubes of toothpaste
4 boxes of jambalaya mix
2 bags of cookie mix
3 packages of refrigerated ready to bake cookies
5 cans of homestyle biscuits
5 cans of cinnamon rolls
2 packs of 4 count light bulbs
10 cans of canned ravioli
4 cans of condensed soup (the kind used for cooking)
4 cans of SPAM
2 42 count packs of diapers
2 100 count boxes of plastic sandwich bags
10 frozen pizzas

Total retail price: $161.88

But we didn't pay retail price for anything.Sto what did we end up spending for all of this stuff? Drum roll please................... $91.34!

That is a total savings of $70.54, which means that I more than tripled my goal for this week! Plus I got a good little jump start on my stockpile (we'll get into stockpiling a little later on when I get a few more notches in my belt). I am so thrilled that I can hardly stand it. I still can't believe that after going to 5 stores and purchasing ALL those items that we didn't even spend $100. When was the last time you spent less than $100 a week for groceries? Of course not every week will be as successful as this week, some weeks I'll save less, others I will save more. For instance, this week I did not need bread, milk, eggs, cheese, etc. but next week I may, so I have to hope that one of the stores in my area has one or more of those items on sale and that I have a coupon (or several) in order to get the best deal.

So how did I manage to save almost as much as I spent? It's actually a very simple system although it may seem complex at times. Basically I went and purchased a Sunday paper Saturday afternoon, grabbed the local paper out of my driveway and went to clipping. Even if I saw a coupon for something I wouldn't normally use, I clipped it anyway because if that item goes on sale and I can get it for cheaper than my usual brand, I'm going for the cheap stuff. That's another thing, if you're going to really dive into extreme couponing, any "coupon queen" will tell you that you have to let go of brand loyalty. You may absolutely love Mayfield milk, but if Publix has a buy one get one free on their brand milk, you just need to bite the bullet and make the switch to save a few bucks. After all, a few dollars here and there really add up in the long run. So after clipping every coupon for everything (unless it was for something I really won't use like adult diapers or denture cream) I organized them all in my binder and then checked all the sale papers. This is where you will save the most money, try to focus on things that are on sale AND you have coupons for. Example: Ingles had a sale this week on cans of name brand biscuits and cinnamon rolls, they were 10 for $10. That by itself is a steal, but I just so happened to have 5 coupons for that particular brand, 2 75 cents of two cans, 2 40 cents of 2 cans and 1 30 cents of two cans. So on top of already saving a bundle, I was able to shave an additional $2.20 off the total cost. That's means that I got 10 cans for $7.80! Another example is that the same store had frozen pizzas on sale 10 for $8, I had 2 coupons for $1 off of 5, so I got 10 pizzas for $6.

So today was a huge success, I more than met my goal & I saved money. I am quite pleased that my mission is off to a good start. I hope that some of you out there were able to save a few bucks as well. Stay tuned!