Now that I’ve dipped my toes in couponing, I’m a little addicted. Since my first trip I’ve been collecting more papers and inserts and clipping my little heart away in anticipation of another couponing trip. When one of my local grocery stores sent me an email about their Super Double Coupon Day (where they double coupons up to $1.99 in value), I knew that today was the day to put my clipping to use.
I woke up at 7:00am this morning just to get to the store….and if you know me then you know that is an UNGODLY hour for me to be awake. You’re looking at the girl who chooses her classes based on whichever ones are after 11:30 in the morning. But I knew the potential for savings this morning were huge, and I also knew from my last trip that the other crazy couponers tend to get to the store early and clean out all of the good stuff. So bright and early it was! It was hilarious because the store was completely empty aside from other couponers scouring the aisles with their huge coupon binders. I felt a bit like I was in some kind of strange cult. You could feel the joy emanating from each lady who went up to pay with her stack of coupons–definitely NOT a normal type of checkout experience. My receipt is so beautiful.
It’s definitely a challenge to have healthy preferences while couponing. I could save SO MUCH MORE money if I was willing to buy us things like Lucky Charms, biscuits in a can, and the latest Gatorade beverage…but I’m not. To me it’s not worth any amount of savings if at the end I’m just loading my cart with junk. So it sucks to see hundreds of coupons that I don’t want to clip, but if you keep at it and look in different papers you really can find deals on healthy products. I was so excited about my haul today!
I got 3 cartons of low sodium chicken broth, an herbal tea sampler box, a package of chicken sausage, 2 containers of bread crumbs, beef stock, a bag of sweet potato fries, 2 cartons of Silk almond milk, 2 cans of mandarin oranges, baking powder, and a couple unpictured personal items–a retail value of $50.01 that I got for $20.21! That’s a 60% savings–up 4% from my last trip! 😀
Okay, now I have to tell you about my favorite deals. My first favorite is the almond milk. I go through a carton of this every week like clockwork (Jason doesn’t drink it), and the cheapest I can usually get it is around $3.00 a pop. But today with my coupon for $1.00 off any two cartons, which doubled to $2.00, and the Dark Chocolate flavor being on closeout at $2.49…I was able to get a carton of Original and a carton of Dark Chocolate for $3.88 total!
These sweet potato fries were just $1.00!
And the bags of cheese, after a 2/$4 sale and a $1.00 coupon that doubled, were only $1.00 each!
I also got 2 containers of breadcrumbs completely FREE! The free deals are more rare, but they’re definitely there. My goal for my next couponing trip (which probably won’t be until after the holidays) will be to up my savings to 70% off the whole purchase. I think I can do it! It’s way too much fun.
In several years I’m probably going to look back on this as one of those crazy things that I did to get by in law school…and that’s okay with me!
Thanks for reading!
-Lauren
9 Responses
Jess
“I could save SO MUCH MORE money if I was willing to buy us things like Lucky Charms, biscuits in a can, and the latest Gatorade beverage…but I’m not. To me it’s not worth any amount of savings if at the end I’m just loading my cart with junk.”
It’s funny because I feel exactly the same way when I am looking to clip coupons. I find it very discouraging, but I can understand why it’s that way. It’s much easier for companies to print coupons for those sorts of things because there’s a much larger profit margin on those foods to begin with. Haha.
What I’ve heard works really well to maximize clipping is to hit as many stores as possible, are you going to start going to more places?
Lauren
I’ve heard that too, which makes sense because different stores have different sales! I haven’t started hitting multiple places yet but I definitely have plans to!
Emily
So funny. I was just watching that show and told Becca how you were getting in to couponing. I think you should turn your spare bedroom into a couponing storage room. buy decades worth of paper towels and mustard and toothpaste. I went to the grocery store today and bought $90 worth of food. NOTHING frozen and probably 70% of it was fresh veggies. I only saved $5. lame. Hence, I am extremely impressed with your savings. Well done madame.
Lauren
Yeah coupons on produce pretty much don’t exist…very sad! I could totally turn the extra bedroom into a stockpile room. But then where would you guys stay when you visit?? 😛
Monique Koch
Great deal on the almond milk!
I totally agree with Jess about couponing being discouraging because they’re usually for so much junk.
I try to cut in other areas in our budget (cable, eating out) to allow some wiggle room for groceries.
Lauren
Thanks! Yeah I’m optimistic that as healthy foods become more mainstream there will be more coupons for those products…I hope so anyways.
Helen
Oh great job couponing. Don’t worry about looking back, you will be proud that you did this. Oh and by the way…..I still use coupons. No matter what your income/status in life you will always want to save money 🙂
Justina
Is the Silk kind of almond milk better than the vanilla one at Trader Joes? o_o I’ve never tried it before. I love dark chocolate so I have to know! 🙂
Lauren
I think that the Silk brand and Blue Diamond brand are BOTH better than the one at Trader Joe’s! For some reason I just really don’t like the TJ’s almond milk, it has a weird flavor to me. The Silk one is delicious, you should give it a try!