just saying....

Hey everyone, thanks for bearing with me. I got a visit from the overdue fairy and they turned off my Internet (thus the reason why I am writing this quick blog from a school computer...got to love college!) but it should be on again soon. Thank you everyone for still reading I have still so much to share and am thinking about doing a Wednesday Wellness post to blog my healthy couponing/life choice for the week. I will post a lot when I get back up and running. Again thank you everyone!

Being fair!

Day 9
Maybe it comes down to morals, or maybe I have just been paying too much attention to my law and ethics class this term, but some people are down right mean!

So as I have said I have been couponing for a little over a month before I started this blog. One thing I found out quickly is that there are mean shelf clearers in my area.

A shelf clearer is someone who just because they have the coupon capacity for it will take everything off the shelf. No one else can get this deal after they have done this! At my Walgreens the store has even gone as far to put little notes out saying they are sorry that these items are out of stock and they will not be offering rain checks! Last night I went to Wal-mart to get in on a great deal. Use the $2.00 off Dial body wash coupons from this Sundays insert and buy a travel size body wash...by doing that you get 1.03 overage you can use on other products you do not have coupons for. When I got there I only found 1. The one I found I had to dig for so whoever grabbed the others didn't know they forgot one, yeah! But I still have 3 of those coupons I would like to use!

Another thing I have noticed is that some people like to take peelies. Now if there is a tear pad on a display I will take a couple of those coupons but peelies are stuck right on the product. like this...

That I feel is not right! If you have a coupon for the product and you want to combine it with a peelie buy the product, don't take the peelie off a product you are not buying just because you like the savings!

Well here is my last pet peeve. I decided because of people like these I would wake up early yesterday and get the garnier deal at Albertsons (buy 2 garnier shampoo or conditioners - makes them 2.50 each. use 2 printable 1.00 off garnier coupon and the Albertsons twice the value coupon makes the final price .50 cents each). So I walked down to the store at 7 am. I bought 2 local papers from the cashier and went to look for my twice the value coupons. I had planned on buying the shampoo and conditioner and some cat food. I had no problem finding the albertsons ad so I grabbed the shampoo and conditioner but when I headed down the pet isle I realized that I still couldn't afford the cat food I had a coupon for so I went to look through my papers I realized that someone had taken the smart source and red plum coupons! Pouting I walked up to the cashier who was looking at a paper himself when I walked up and began my transaction. 

"Really quick, can you check that paper and see if there are any red plum and smart source coupons in there, mine didn't have any." I said
" I was just wondering about that myself, " he said. "Another lady was looking at the papers for a bit before she bought hers and I think she took a lot of the adds out."

We confirmed that my paper had been rummaged through and the inserts had been taken so he went to a just opened bundle of papers and grabbed me 2 more. When I got home I realized that these two had been gone through but I at least had the red plum inserts.Worried that I wouldn't get the coupons I needed I later sent my husband back to the store to get a Portland based paper.

But why if your going to buy a paper anyway, why not buy 2 or 3, not steal from other people buying the paper! Be fair!

there that's my little soap box for the day. Hope you all have a good day.

Some hits and misses

Day 7
During the week it's a bit hard for me to post but I will get better.
I do check facebook and my blogs every day. I have even created a facebook for this page here. When I find out deals via facebook or the blogs I usually share them on Face Book.

I did do a couple attempts at shopping this week. 1 was really successful, the other to not so bad. I have an hour long break during school on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I rushed over to Shopko. For thise of you who know Shopko ( they do not have meny locations). I love the place because of thier great clearnace deals. I was able to get a set of 4 glasses for a friends bridal shower tomorrow for only $4.99. The sad part is that they have a really great deal on Pringles ($1.00 each) but they do not accept the food stamp card. (Yes I am on food stamps, no I don't plan to stay that way thus part of this whole couponing craze). Didn't need them anyway :)

On the way home from school that night I decided run to Wal-Mart and give in to my idea that carrying around a coupon binder would make me look silly. I already had a zipper binder that I was using for school, so I was able to grad some baseball card holders for about $5. 

Yesterday (even though it still feels like today for me) I decided to put all of my cut out manufacturers coupons into the binder. Would you believe it took me almost 4 hours??? But I felt so much better ater I did it. Now I shouldn't have an excuse for missing any coupons as long as I have my binder with me. I don't have to shuffle through my small cardboard organizer as much. I did decide to put all of my printable coupons back into my cardboard organizer though, they didn't fit nicely into the baseball card pockets. Plus I have made a conscious decision to keep coupon books I get from say, Albertsons or Walgreens,I can put them in the little file folder part of my binder :)

My really successful trip (yesterday) was at Safeway (known by different names in different places.) Right now they are running a sale when you buy 8 participating items they take off an extra .50 cents. Here is what I bought.

Each of these I had a coupon for.

Original price was $2.49 when you use it as part of the sale it goes down to 1.99 each
- $1.00 off of 2 = 2.98 total

(actual picture from the Safeway ad)
as you can see, these are also 1.99 each using the Mix and Match sale.
-$1.00 off of 2= 2.98

(again another ad picture)
2 = 1.58
- .50 off of 2 = 1.08

on sale these were 1.69 each, I bought 2
-1.00 off of 2 coupon = 2.38

So my grand total for all 8 items = $9.42
Total year to date savings = 25.38

One more blog for the night before I try to go to sleep.

I wanted to share these articles that were recently in my local paper, they have really good advice in them and are pretty interesting reading. Enjoy!
The joy of clipping, Eugene Register Guard
&
Couponer etiquette, Eugene Register Guard

A blog about coupon blogs

Ok, I should really say this now before I get too far into this expierement. I learned a lot from watching Extreme Couponing but I also owe a lot of my education on the topic to the various blogs I read daily. So I want to give credit to them, as they do deserve it! Here is a list of all the blogs I currently follow.














And these are just some of them. (some buttons wouldn't loan and others didn't have buttons.) So I would also recomend you look up:

Loaded Coupon Book
I Heart The Mart
Printable Coupons and Deals
Cut, Clip, Save!
and as of tonight.... Stockpiling Mom.

I could not learn as much as I have so far without reading these blogs, so if any of these blog auther's are reading this, Thank you so much.
Check them out, tell them Jo sent you.

Day 4

A Trip to Walgreen's
It has been a long day. I got some alone time when I went to my doctors appointment today so after the appointment I headed to Walgreen's.

Each store has unique specials/ savings that really make couponing worth while. For Walgreen's, it is their Register Rewards. I am still learning about everything I can do with these so I will share with you what I know. You get Register Rewards by buying participating items. These rewards are like cash back that you can use only at Walgreen's. In the ad you can scope out what sale items will get Register Rewards. You really have to read the fine print though because some Walgreen's have restrictions that limit how many Register Rewards you can get per transaction.

You can use manufactures coupons to get the Register Rewards which = big savings and sometimes even freebies! See the example I posted? This is what you will see in your local Walgreen's ad. Note the total is "like paying" and not your actual total.

I did my first transaction actually on the other side of town. The great thing about Walgreen's is that when they decide to build one in your area, they can not stop at just one! My town has a population of about 57,000 people and is 8 miles east to west. In my town we now have 3 Walgreen's! Anyway I started at the one near my bank. This is where I decided to make my initial transaction and get my Register Rewards.

It was on sale for $9.89
I used 1 manufacturers coupon for $4.00 off
I paid 5.89 and got a $5.00 Register Reward back!
So it was like paying .89 cents!

The cashier at this store was really nice, so I decided to ask her, how many Register Rewards can you get per transaction? She was able to tell me that you can get 1 Register Reward for every item that offers it. This means that even if you have say 10 of these razors, you will still get only one $5.00 register reward for it. However, if you got this deal and say got one of the Sobe's that are on sale for $1 that offers a $1 Register Reward (making it free). Then you would get the $5 from the razor and $1 from the Sobe :)

Also before I left, she said "You better take one of these" and handed my their June 2011 coupon book! I don't remember seeing this on any of the blogs I follow. ( blog about blogs coming up shortly). It was like giving a little kid a piece of candy! I was so happy :)

So then I headed to my side of town to pick up my mom's prescription and take advantage of my new $5 Register Rewards. I thought I could be crafty and use this purchase to get another Register Reward. Nope. (If you know different please tell me.) I needed toilet paper anyway, so I grabbed a 12 pack of Angel soft . I could have sworn the tag said that I would get a $3 Register Reward and pay 3.50 for it but either the tag was wrong or it was actually on sale. Thinking that I would have gotten another Register Reward I went and grabbed two 9 oz Johnson and Johnson baby lotions ( 2 of my friends are expecting babies, so I have been slowly getting stuff together to give to them.) It was a fairly slow day so I asked this cashier if I could do two transactions. He said not a problem. Here is how this played out.

I wanted to get the toilet paper with my Register Rewards from the other store. I also had a .50 cent printable coupon that I tried to apply, but the register wouldn't except it :/ However, the Angel Soft ended up being on sale for $6.00 so after my Register Reward, I paid $1.00 for that transaction.

Then it was time for my baby lotion. These were on sale buy 1 get 1 half off. The first one was $2.99 and the second one was $1.49. I had 2 coupons for $1.00 off ( also printable) bringing my total for this transaction $2.48

Here is my little man, showing off my haul!

So retail price for all three transactions (assuming that the toilet paper is on sale and I had no coupons.)
$ 20.37
 Actual price that I paid today = $9.37
A savings of $11.00......total saving for the year thus far = $17.28

day 3 (read day 2 first ) :)

Target has become one of my favorite stores! You can really get some great deals there. For one, they have a savings card. For those who have good credit (not me!) it can be a credit card used only at Target . Option 2 is a debit card that is directly attached to your bank account, all you need is a blank check. Both of these cards takes 5% off of your entire purchase, even clearance items!

Another little snippet of info that is good to know... Target offers printable coupons that can be used in combination with manufactures coupons. Get coupons here! In the past month that I have been collecting coupons I have been printing these coupons as well. I used to think that shopping at Target was only for Christmas and when you have extra money but lately I have walked out of the store paying less then $20 and having more then one item in my bag.

Here is what I did today.

From Target.com

I had 2 coupons I printed out a couple of weeks ago for $2 off of a women's top. These Merona tops are on sale this week for $6, with my coupon that made them only $4 each. I ran into a little snag at the register though. Apparently the coupon I had limited the coupon 1 per transaction. (always read the small print!) thankfully the cashier was nice about it and let us do three separate transactions. I will explain how that works in a bit.

Here is my third transaction

Here is how it worked out.
The Pampers sensitive wipes are 1.97 right now. Pampers sends you coupons if you sign up on their website here . My coupon was for $1.50 - final cost= .47 cents. Pocket change hehe :)

Up and Up is Target's store brand.
I had a 10% off 2 office supplies Target coupon.
Binder clips original price $1.49 - 10% = 1.34
Paper clips original price $1.29 - 10% = 1.16

I also had .50 cents off up and up beauty supply.
Small bag of cotton balls, original cost .97 cents - coupon = .47 cents

In today's paper was the Crest Pro health for me (the kids toothpaste I mentioned in day 2)
original price $2.79 each which means it would be $5.58 if I paid full price for both. I paid $3.58

I printed out an Aleve coupon a while back but I can't remember where I got it from. A good resource for coupons you need that you can't find is a coupon data base. The one I use most often is a full cup.com . You can search for lots of different coupons here. Anyways...
Aleve 50 ct, original price $5.39 - 2.00 printable coupon = $3.39

My total for all of the items in my third transaction if I didn't use coupons would have been $16.69. With coupons we paid only $10.41. Not bad that means I saved $6.28. See I am learning.

Back to the idea of doing multiple transactions. Usually it isn't much hassle, however a word of advice ( this comes from many sources) if your multiple transactions are going to be large, let people with smaller items go after you have made your first transaction. After all, everyone hates long lines and I for one do not like to keep people waiting. My transactions were small. Usually Target has deals where you buy a certain amount of a product ( like 3 packages of Huggies Diapers) and get a $5.00 gift card. It is a good idea if you plan to make a purchase to get the $5 card to have your first transaction be the things you are purchasing for said card. Then take the card and use it towards another transaction. If it is slow, most cashiers will not mind doing the transactions back to back but please keep other customers in mind.

well that's my day/ days thus far. running total of saving starting today $6.28
later 'today' after a doctors appointment I am going to go to Walgreens. My second favorite store :)

Day 2

One thing you should know about me is I am a night owl so most of my new blogs will be at night.

OK with that being said, I wanted to say thank you so much for your support, keep it coming, I am going to need it :).

OK today was Sunday. Sunday means coupons and sales in your local paper. But I am sure you knew that. So what I am betting some of you do, is get a paper and only clip out the brands you like or know you need. That isn't bad if you really are particular about what you buy.

Buying A paper is good, but you can save more buy buying more. For instance I technically have a family of 6 depending on the day (me, my husband, my mom, my daughter, my son and my step son.) one coupon would not create much of a dent in my budget. So I started buying 2 papers. That is pretty good but still will only make a small dent. So what I have done (only this week mind you) is asked my local friends on Facebook to save me their Sunday inserts if they do not use them. This weekend my good friend Mona was willing to give me her insert so now I have three of every coupon instead of one. A lot of the coupons in today's insert were either bogo (buy one get one free) or required you to buy more then one item. So instead of getting 1 kid tooth paste today I got 2, and can get another one at another time when the sale is a little bit better.

Also I don't just cut my favorite brands. When you are trying to save money you can't be too picky, right? Besides how many of us really can say "I've tried it all." Here is where I am going to contradict myself a little bit. I do separate my inserts into two piles. Pile number one I instantly cut and know I will use. The other (usually smaller) pile is my save just in case coupons.

I do this because of two reasons 1) I don't know anyone who needs denture cream or Metamucil yet. 2) These coupons, can possibly one day be money makers! Some stores will not allow you to have overages ( they will not actually pay you to take stuff out of the store) what they will do is apply that overage to the rest of your purchase. What do I mean? Well as you will soon figure out as I did, there are certain items you rarely find coupons for. The biggest item I have not been able to find coupons for is a staple to a lot of American families....MEAT. SO if I have this planned right, I may be able to use these coupons towards the purchase of meat, eggs, and even brands I would lie to purchase but do not have the money to. Some stores have a section of  clearance items. At my closest grocery store they have a clearance shelf unit near the bottle return area. I have noticed a lot of stuff on this self unit, mainly vitamins and other various drug section items.

So I organize my coupons that i clipped out right away into my coupon file. I keep thinking about buying a binder but haven't gotten around to it yet. and the coupons that I might not use, I put into a folder and write a note of what is in the folder and when it expires. I will also start bringing a list with me when I scope out a sale so that I know what coupons to bring with me when I actually go shopping. Pretty smart right?

Again though I am just starting out and seeing what works for me. if anyone has advice I would be glad to take it. Also if anyone has questions I will do my best to answer them. It is now 11:10 PM pacific time. Since this is a day by day blog i do have plans to do another blog here in a couple minutes, making it my third day post so keep reading! Thank you!

Day 1

Hi!
I am Jo, and I am about to embark on a one year experiment. The objective, CHANGE.  Change in myself, my family and even my community. How do I intend to make such a change? With change of course, that is pocket change.

The idea started a couple of months ago when I sat on my couch and watched an episode of TLC's Extreme Couponing. It blew my mind! These shoppers were going into a grocery store with binders full of coupons and coming out with hundreds of items and paying very little for them. I did have some of the other common reactions to the show, who really needs all of that stuff? But my present financial situation had my inner voice saying "I do!" So I did more research, could some one really save that much money couponing? I looked into some of the blogs of the featured couponers from the show and was really impressed. They all had really good information about how they got started and advice for other new couponers. They had similar stories to mine, some hardships financially that had led them to look for other alternatives. But through couponing they were able to persevere.

I started couponing a bit, on a very small scale. Going on the advice from these blogs I was able to not run out of toilet paper! Now to some that might be a weird statement but to other's like me it was a blessing. A little background on me: I am 30 years old, I have been married for 7 years and have 2 kids (my daughter is 8 and my son is 4). I live at my mother's house because it saves money and my mom is disabled and needs the company and help from time to time. We actually get paid by the state to take care of her. That is our main income, $1,000 a month to do what I was brought up to do- take care of my family. My husband has been out of a job since October, 2009. So he is my stay at home dad and takes care of the kids. I was working at a call center for almost 3 years, waking up at 4 am every day to drive into Eugene.

Then things got complicated. To sum up the situation without going into too much detail, I now have a 6 month old step son.  No, I did not separate from my husband and am really close to my step son's mom. I just choose to handle it differently then other women would have. I did, however, decide that I needed to do something different. The stress from my complicated family situation and my job persuaded me to look else where in life to find myself. I was suffering from anxiety attacks and became more introverted then I had ever been. My sister in law suggested that we go back to school. So we enrolled in a small college and decided to take night classes. The thought about going back to school scared me so much. To work on top of going to school scared me too (I do know that a lot of people can handle going to school and working a full time job and I applaud you) so I decided to quit my job so I could focus on school. In hindsight I sometimes wonder if that was the right decision to make, I was the main bread winner in the family and I just walked away from it. But I know that in the end I am bettering myself for my family and am studying for something that will eventually benefit my family more then my call center job.

My family means the world to me and anything I can do to better their lives, sign me up. I started printing and cutting coupons. I started scoping out stores and reading blogs. I have a small little cardboard coupon organizer I bought at the dollar store and I have been doing OK so far but there were things I also started to notice.
1. You can save more when combining store coupons with manufactures coupons.
2. The more coupons you have the more you save.
3. There are a lot of coupons for healthy foods and pet supplies.

The wheels in my head started turning again...what if???
What if I really made a go at this, full on couponing. How much money can I save?
What if I get a lot of coupons, so that I can actually have food in the house all month long?
What if I also try to help out others, friends who need diapers, food, toiletries?
What if I even was able to donate some of these items to local charities...I could even donate pet supplies to the local animal shelter!

Then the full realization of this blog came about. I am going to record everything here on this blog and show others that they could change with pocket change too! At least that is my goal. Let me be your Guinea pig. Stay tuned and watch how couponing can change your life.

Thanks, Jo