Back to Couponing!

When I kept a personal finance blog several years ago, I taught myself how to coupon. I am not an extreme couponer by any means. I can't see spending hours developing shopping lists and matching coupons, then spending a few more hours shopping, bringing items home, and finding space for all the items. (However, kudos to those extreme couponers who donate goodies!) I fell off the couponing bandwagon about a year ago because my source for coupons ran dry. We live in a pretty rural area that stopped receiving a major metropolitan newspaper - we can still get it, but the Sunday edition costs around $5. I'm not paying that, so I just stopped couponing.

I noticed that when I stopped couponing and being more aware of prices, our grocery bills each few weeks were getting higher and higher. Our steady income has increased since I stopped couponing, but now that it's summer, we're looking at two months of living on just one income. I figured it was time to get back into deal-seeking and coupon-cutting. I mentioned back in April how we saved gift cards from the holidays to make up for this slow period. We used one gift card last weekend on our anniversary for dinner and a movie. I've also signed up for various reward programs to area restaurants I hadn't signed up at before to offset our Sunday-lunch-after-church expenses.

And then I discovered something awesome: The Dollar Tree store near our church sells Sunday newspapers from another metropolitan area. Sunday newspapers for $1? Yes, please!

So after church this morning, we stopped by Dollar Tree and snagged two newspapers. Each newspaper had 3 coupon inserts. I was SO excited! Richie likes to huff at me while I make sure each paper has the correct amount of inserts, but I think he secretly likes tagging along with me to find deals.

Once we got home, I spent one hour perusing my favorite deal site (SouthernSavers.com), gathering the coupons I wanted to use, and headed back out. In our little town, the three big drug stores are located at the same intersection - convenient, right? It took me 40 minutes to visit all three stores. My favorite find? Turkey bacon at Walgreens for 29 cents! I stocked up on hair products, mouthwash, eggs, sports drinks for Richie, and makeup (for me, of course).

At CVS, I saved $9.79.
(I also took home $10 in ECBs for a future purchase!)

At Rite Aid, I saved $20.94.

At Walgreens, I saved $9.80.

I spent around $30 for everything I purchased and saved over $80. It's not the greatest savings, but I'm pretty darn pleased with the savings after being out of touch with coupons for a year. And the most important part? I only purchased things we will use.

Thank you, Dollar Tree, for doing what you do.