I have been really bad about blogging. Seems like the time just gets clear away from me. The deals were pouring in today. I went to Albertsons and used my mfr coupons with the doubler to pick up free hotdogs (6 total) and philadelphia cream cheese at $0.50/box. They had a mfr coupon tag hanging on the shelf and I used a doubler. Later on, I went to RiteAid and picked up 15 cans of Lays Stax potato chips FREE, and 3 tubes of Colgate Total toothpaste for free. I used my up rewards and gained back 1 extra. Altogether, my total at RiteAid (because Uncle Sam wants his portion) was $0.13. I also stopped by my local Safeway and picked up thin cut t-bone steak for $0.48. There are 5 steaks total. YIPPEE! I know what we are eating on Valentine's day!
I get alot of questions about how I get these good buys. Alot are from other websites, texts from friends that are couponing too, some from watching the ads, and saving all my coupons until that item is actually on sale. So much of the coupon game is the wait. Much like fishing. Just because you have a hook with bait on it; does not mean that you are going to catch a fish. Some coupons come up empty, just like baited hook that is reeled in with no bait and no fish. Sometimes you happen to snag an amazing deal which brings me back to the time that I was fishing and had my hook in the water forever. When I finally brought it in there was a gigantic carp on the other end. I mean huge!!! This is how I feel about coupons. I don't use a coupon just because I have it. I use it when I'm getting something I'd normally buy for our family or when something is dirt cheap. The trickiest part is learning when a deal is an amazing deal and when a deal is just a deal. It can also be tricky to learn the coupon policies of the different stores.
It seems to me that most of you would like to know how you can save money for your family. Since alot of my cooking is based off of my couponing - our meals are very cheap. For instance, we had hot dogs (free) on a bun ($0.49 package of 8) with chips (free) for dinner with chocolate milk ($0.10 half of a half gallon)to drink. This fed 6 of us and I only spent $0.59.
I know that my budget for food spending will likely go over this month. There was a sale on raspberries at Summit Trading Post on Wednesday. I picked up raspberries at less than $1.00 per pound. I will be making that into homemade preserves. That will save us money on jelly over time. Nothing is better than homemade jelly/jam in my opinion.
I am looking forward to tomorrow. I get to have coffee with a friend in the morning and my Dad is coming over to spend some time with us. Our kids have no clue. They will be so shocked.
I'm thinking about changing the overall tone of my blog. I mean....do you really want to know what we eat for dinner? Or do you just want to know how I get the deals that I'm getting. Let me know. It will have a lot of pull on my decision of where to go from here on this blog.
Here is my favorite site of the day: http://www.thecouponproject.com/
