Couponing

(These freebies were given to the local food pantry) The week before they were given to the homeless shelter in San Antonio. This coming basket will be given to the military.

I have been couponing for over 22yrs ever since I got married & went overseas. I went to the commissary for the first time with my lil budget of getting grocery's & discovered a barrel full of coupons they had for the spouses. I spent over 30min going thru the barrel desperately trying to get enough to be able to buy more grocery's.

Through the yrs I slowed down on couponing till it was time to try to get out of debt, then I went hog wild on collecting coupons again. After getting out of debt I slowed down again on collecting coupons. Recently 9 weeks ago frustrated that my grocery allowance hadn't gone up in yrs & we were trying to eat better I again went back to couponing. Yes It feel like a yo yo life w/coupons.

This time I had found a wonderful book called "The coupon mom" lil did I know this was a classic and in high demand this book. She took me to her site a long with other sites where I looked up deals. It was so much simplier then it was in my old days of trying to look up deals. They did it for you. The facebook local forums told me any deals they might have found while shopping in San Antonio. It was a another world opening up for me.

A lot of people asked me after I told them how much I saved that payday, "Well how much did you spend? Well I would say, "all of it!" All my allowance which is $125 a week for a family of 4 sometimes my dad too including non food & food goods. Last payday for instance I saved $99 with coupons, to me that's $99 extra stuff I bought that week & stayed within my budget.

Ive been keeping track of all the money I have been saving with coupons including the freebies and Husband gently reminded me not to forget to add in the cost of paper & ebay coupons I bought those two weeks. Darn! Rats! I almost forgot, it seemed fair cause why would I be doing this if I am breaking even or losing? So I had to recalculate it still came out pretty good. In 9 weeks I have saved w/coupons over $604.74 or $67 each week :)

I know I can do better the first of my ebay buys were bad I didn't know how to bid correctly so I spent to much. I have gotten better since then :) Hanging out with my coupon group has really helped too, learning new techniques and trading coupons.
I've been able to buy extra to donate to the homeless shelter, the local food pantry & now I am getting 4 boxes to go overseas.

The couponing world is good.