What a Deal!

So, ya'll know how many times I've mentioned that I can't stand Wal-Mart. I have many reasons... basically I just don't like going. It's a twenty minute drive and it would take up my whole evening or morning whenever I would go. On my days off I don't want to spend them at Wal-Mart! So since we've been living at the rental house I started shopping in town. I figured really by the time you add in gas money and those "extra things" I would always pick up at Wal-Mart that I didn't really need I wouldn't be spending any more money and it would save me a lot of time. Then I learned (from some friends) about this little thing called "couponing". Yah, I've known what a coupon is for a long time... and I would use them here and there for a few things if I had them, but normally I would cut them out and forget to use them or lose them or well you get the point! haha!

When I was introduced to this new concept of couponing I was intrigued because these people were saving big bucks (on stuff they used every day!)... and really who doesn't like to save money? I figure the more money I save on stuff like toilet paper that's not really fun to buy that just means I have more to spend on fun stuff like clothes for my boys :) OR as my husband would say, more money to save and put towards our new house so it will be paid off sooner... yah, I think my way of thinking is more fun, but either way works ;) haha!


So- I've been trying my hand at this couponing thing and I've been doing fairly well, but this past Friday night I scored my best deal so far I think! I was so excited when I got home that I put it all out on the table to show Ryan and then decided to take a picture.

I bought- *3 packs of Diet Coke (those don't last long around our house- I have an addiction) :(

*2 packages of Charmin toilet paper

*1 package of 8 rolls of Bounty paper towel

*2 jugs of Purex detergent

*1 bottle Dawn dish soap

*3 boxes of Kleenex

*1 bottle of Pantene Shampoo

*1 bottle of Pantene Conditioner

*2 cans of Tomato soup

*2 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup

*1 thing of lip balm

Grand total spent out of pocket was $14.00!!!

I had coupons & I had extra care bucks (from CVS) to put towards this purchase. Normally I would spend 14.00 on the pop and on the pop and if the pop was on sale that week it could be the pop and the dish soap or something, but anyway! I was so proud of myself! I went home and put it out to show it to Ryan and he wasn't nearly excited, he didn't jump up and down or anything?! haha!

I use couponmom.com and coupondiva.com to learn more about couponing!

I will say that it does take me a little longer to plan my shopping list and to get organized to go, but to me it's been worth the extra 20 minutes of planning time. I also shop at Jay C in town and they have great sells on baby food (and goodness knows we go through a lot of that) and if you use your Jay C card you get store coupons a lot of the time.

It's important to me to only buy stuff that we are going to use. I only cut out the coupon if it's something we use in our house anyway. We have plenty of shelf space to store a stockpile of stuff like toothpaste (got that for free a couple weeks ago), shampoo and conditioner, toilet paper and paper towel, etc... so I only buy that stuff now on sale w/ coupons and get it for a fraction of the cost I would normally buy it at if I just got it at Wal-Mart (or wherever) when I needed it.