Savings!!

**EDIT** For those of you who were wondering what we were going to eat for the next two weeks, here's the picture that disappeared! See, Mom, we DO have food! lol Anthony will have something for his Ulcers, and the boys will have good breakfasts. Plus, I still have some ground meat in the freezer.

A few months ago, my sister was kind enough to email me some websites that she had discovered. They all contained information on how to use coupons to get the best prices for the items you want. I learned how to wait for a big sale, use my coupons, and get items for free or cheap. I immediately went out and bought a bunch of things at different stores, spent less money than normal, made my husband proud of me......and spent 6 hours in town with 4 boys (one of which was less than a year old). I was exhausted! I knew I needed to make my coupons work better for me (I've always used coupons, because that's the way my Mother did it-just not to that extreme), but at that point I did not want to even THINK about doing that again. So, I just used the coupons as I needed to. I still was saving some money, but I just wasn't going crazy with it. LOL Last month, I decided that I needed to step it up, and start making my coupons work for me. I was reading all these blogs on how these women were going to the store, buying $200.00 worth of stuff - and only spending $10.00. I'm thinking, "I'm so jealous! How do they have time to do that?" So, I decided I'd go in the evenings (without the boys) and try again. Two weeks ago, I went around 8:00pm, to Target, Walgreens, Kroger, and Wal-Mart. I got home around midnight, but I also came home with enough money in my pocket (from the grocery account in our budget) to buy a new cheap printer/copier/scanner. I seriously needed one that worked, for school (I homeschool the boys), and for printing out all those great coupons. I still needed to figure out how to get the most for my money; so for two weeks, I printed and clipped coupons, bought an extra paper, organized all the coupons in a binder, and made a list for shopping for our big two-week shopping trip.

I started talking to my Sister-in-Law, Nicole, yesterday, about my plan to go to the stores. I'd been talking to her over the last couple of weeks about the coupons, and she had decided to try it out. She also had been searching out the ways to make the coupons work for her. She decided to come with me last night, and watch me in action! lol I was a little nervous. I was actually going to try to show someone how to shop with coupons, and I was still learning myself. I knew we'd have fun, though.

Well, we left her house around 7:00 last night. We went to Walgreens, first. I have never really shopped at Walgreens, before. But they can have some GREAT deals. By the time I finished in there, I had spent $59.89 out of pocket, saved close to $75.00 (due to sales and coupons), and walked out of there with $13.00 in Register Rewards (coupons that act like cash on my next purchases). When Nicole and I had added that all up, we were so excited. She didn't buy anything, but I think she was as excited as (if not more than) I was! LOL On top of all that, we had a cashier who was wonderful! She was helping us figure out how to use the RRs, and showing us how to get the best deals when checking out! We fell in love with her. She was so excited to see two young girls (lol -31 and 22 were young to her) trying their best to save money.

We were raring to go then! Our next stop was Target. We found some more great deals there. I walked out of there having spent $19.72 out of pocket, $10.00 in gift cards that I had just received (I did two separate transactions so I could do this),and saved $42.42 (sales and coupons). Again we were driving away with big grins on our faces!

Next stop was Kroger! Again, the deals were awesome! I spent $15.99, and saved $15.53 (sales, coupons, and this store doubles coupons up to $0.65). I normally budget $200.00 for two weeks worth of groceries, and overspend a lot. That includes diapers, detergent, etc... anything and everything. At this point I had bought a ton of stuff and still had $100.00 left. That included two packages of diapers and some other normally expensive items! Now it was on to our last stop!

Wal-Mart!!! I didn't do as well there with the savings, because I've not got going in this "saving money with coupons" as well as I want. So, at Wal-Mart I was buying more things that were not on sale, because I needed them. I couldn't wait until they went on sale. That is my goal...someday soon I hope! LOL But, I did spend $91.02, and had $24.50 savings in coupons.

I came home with over $25.00 left. That didn't seem right to me, so I added up what I'd spent. $59.89, $19.72, $15.99, $91.02, and the remaining $25.00. That was $211.62, but I'd only had $200.00. I was deeply confused, until I remembered that I had had $35.00 in my pocket to start with. So I ended up going $11.62 over budget, but walked away with a TON of things and $13.00 to spend at Walgreens next time. Maybe I'll get it figured out eventually.

Anyway, by the time I got Nicole home, it was 12:30am. By the time I got home and unloaded the car, put up the cold stuff, and took care of a couple of boys (we've recently taken two of our boys out of nighttime diapers - in an effort to save money- and they have to be gotten up a couple of times in the night, to go potty), I got in the bed around 1:30am. I think I saw 2:00am, before falling asleep. Nicole called and woke me up at 5:30 this morning (because I asked her to-I'm trying to get up, and go to bed earlier).

So, this has been my experience with saving money this week! I just hope I didn't burn Nicole on the coupons, though! We were out awfully late! lol Here are some photos of what I managed to get last night.

Maybe I won't have to buy diapers for a couple of weeks!

Hopefully, I won't need toothpaste for quite some time! haha

I think we're good in the cereal and muffin department as well!

I got the candy for free, so Nicole and I split half of it last night. The boys and I split the other half today. And I still have one left! lol


Proverb 31 - My goal is be like the Virtuous Woman! Hopefully, doing coupons, will get me that much closer!