Nothing In Life Is Free

It cost me my time each week to save money for my family. As a stay at home mom who does not bring in a regular income, it is my job to save money. I have learned how to spend my time wisely searching for deals and planning our spending. "A penny saved is a penny earned."

To get the most bang for my buck I am willing to do some work. Every Sunday I start with pulling the sales ads for the local drug stores and grocery stores from the newspaper and from the “BAG”. This includes ads for any store such as Target, Walmart etc. that I can purchase groceries, household items and toiletries from as well as any other store that I may be interested in making a purchase from that week, such as JoAnn's or Kohls. I take the time to carefully look through the ads and circle items of interest as well as items which are on sale that I would be interested in trying for a small fee or FREE! This process takes an hour or two.

The next step takes an additional couple of hours. Now, I gather my coupon inserts and clip all the coupons. At this time I also clip any coupons I may have printed during the week as I read the coupon bloggers sites that I visit at least 3 times weekly and those I receive in the mail. When I finish clipping all my coupons, I then separate my coupons and file them in my coupon organizer.

Now, I go back to my sales ads and go through my coupon organizer and match the sales items with a coupon. Some groceries stores will double the face value of the manufacturers coupon up to .99. To maximize my savings, at some stores i.e. Target, Walgreens, Kroger Stores etc., I stack coupons, that means I clip the store coupon and stack a manufacturers coupon on top of that to purchase items for pennies or sometimes I even get the item for FREE. (You can never use two manufacturers coupons on one item.)

To keep up on grocery and drug store deals, as well as retail and restaurant deals I spend at least an hour a day, four times a week reading coupon blogs. I have a choice few which I have saved on my computer to make reference to. This is where I extend my savings from our necessities to our extra curricular activities. My goal is to never make a purchase without receiving a discount.

To learn more about how to save money on your weekly shopping trip, join me at my Coupon Classes and Gathering, Monday, June 13, 6:30-8:30, contact me for details