Trying My Hand at...Couponing

I know, I know. You're probably thinking, "Ugh! What is wrong with her? Couponing?! Those ladies are not only CRAZY but they spend 20 minutes in the checkout line splitting their cart into four different transactions so they can get better deals on stuff. It makes me want to beat them with my puny little bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles!"

And...I pretty much agree with you. I've been perusing the "Coupon Lady" Blogs and have almost fallen off my chair a few times at not only how much money they saved but how much junk food they bought in order to save that much money. My friend Stephanie pointed this out to me and I whole-heartedly agreed with her. I mean, waffles take what? Flour, eggs, sugar, water and a few other things that I always have in my pantry plus a little bit of extra time. But they taste better, I'm eating healthier and doing it the "old fashioned" way and those things make me happy. A long time ago, my dad pointed out to me that the 3-minute quick oats take five minutes to prepare on the stove while the packets of instant oatmeal take about the same amount of time to heat and eat but at least you know what you're eating by doing it the old fashioned way. Same goes for stuff like popcorn (been doing that in a pot on the stove for a couple of years now and I'll never go back to the microwave variety), bread, pizza dough, salad dressing, taco seasoning...you get my point.

But still, my Mid-Year Resolution is not to learn how to stack coupons in the proper order so that when I buy ten cases of Dr. Pepper and six boxes of Eggo Waffles I can get a "$5 off my next $20 purchase in the meat department" coupon. My goal is to ACTUALLY USE COUPONS. That's pretty impressive, huh? So I've signed up for the coupon emails (we don't get the Sunday Paper), clip the coupons that show up in the free FoodDay newspaper that comes on Tuesdays, I'm checking a few of the blogs and have "liked" a few things on facebook so I can stay in the know on when a good deal arrives for products that we use constantly or will start to use constantly (Diapers, anyone?) My friend and I fill each other in on the things we see on sale at places like Target, Albertson's, Winco, Fred Meyer, Walgreens, etc. so between the two of us we usually catch the good deals without having to do all of the work ourselves.

All of this isn't going to land me a $73 Target trip for only $4 like this lady but it will save a me a few bucks on the things I'm going to be buying anyway.

If any of you guys out there have good shopping tricks or coupon how-tos, I'd love to hear about them. But I don't want to hear about CVS because the best I can do out here is Walgreens and while the savings are good they don't compare to the awesome deals I hear about some of my friends getting. (I'm a little bitter about CVS.)

Here are the sites I've found or have had friends tell me about. Go there if you're interested in saving money or need a good chuckle. (Most of these sites have the same things on them which they in turn get from other blogs so if you're not careful you'll fall down the rabbit hole of internet coupon shopping before you know it.)

The Krazy Coupon Lady (I love her "slogan" at the top of the page)
Common Sense With Money
Money Saving Mom (So far, this one is my favorite. I like the interface and she's not just about coupons)
Cha-Ching on a Shoestring (Nice because she uses a bigger font than some sites and I don't HAVE to use my glasses)