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!