OK, so coupons CAN pay for your school supplies too!

Today was a daunting task.....school supply shopping!  Ugh!  I absolutely HATE school supply shopping, HATE IT!  I have been to two Walgreens, and two Walmarts today just to get it all done in one day.  I have three girls and thank the Lord they are not picky about what color they get or what brand it is.  I got 75% of our shopping done at Walgreens - I used my coupons and shopped the sale ads, not too bad, I only spent $38.   I was impressed there.  Then headed to Walmart - they were out of everything we needed.   So, headed to another Walmart.  For Saturday ONLY, Walgreens has Keri body lotion on sale for $.99 after the $5 register rewards.  For any of you that know me, I don't like doing Register Rewards, so I price matched at Walmart.  On my second trip to Walmart, I found three of these lotions on the shelf, well I snagged them.  I bought the remainder of my school supplies (construction paper, glues, and colored pencils), then price matched the Keri Lotion, and then used a $2 off any Keri Lotion coupon.  YES!  The Keri Lotion was a money maker!  I made $1.01 on each one!  The lotion was regular price $5.97, and I price matched it at $.99, then used a $2 off coupon.  My bill should have been $11.48, and I walked out only paying $3.83!  Woohoo!  Score!  See..... coupons can help you pay for your school supplies too!

One two three...recon mode!

So I am traveling this week and bought a paper in BlueRidge, Texas today......they have four inserts in their paper!  WTH!  Why don't we have four inserts in our Tomball papers?  Why is Blueridge different?  I would have bought a bunch of papers, but they charge $3 for the paper in BlueRidge.   No thank you!  I am NOT spending $3 for more than one paper.    I also plan to do some recon work while I am here.  I am going to go by the Dollare General in town and look for the $2.25 Nivea Bodywash, and I will visit the Target and Walmart in McKinney.  Let's see if their stores are better than Tomball's. 

Reorganized my growing stock pile today

You know, I have taught many people to coupon and every time I teach someone they have the same issue.....they can't build a stock pile.  Now I know, stockpiling is not for everyone, but if you don't want to spent all your time hunting deals and browsing the grocery store, then you HAVE to stockpile.  There is no other way to truly benefit from couponing unless you stockpile.  The whole idea is to find the free or insanely cheap items, buy a ton of it, and not have to buy that until it goes on sale again.  If you only buy one or two or even three papers, then that is all the free items you're going to get.  Think about it.  I buy twenty papers every Sunday that there are coupons.  That way, when I do find the free items or insanely cheap items, then I can buy 20 at a time.  For example....I bought 20 Wisk detergents a few weeks ago, I got them for $1.49 each, so I spent $29.80 for all of them, that's less than the $15 I used to spend on 2 Gain detergents.  I have four kids, so we would regularly spend over $30 a month on detergent, which is why I bought 20 Wisk detergents.  That will last for for a LONG time, then I can mark that off my shopping list for months!  That is the idea behind a stockpile.  Find an item free or cheap, then stock up, that way you can mark that OFF your list for months and months!    I will never pay for toothpaste again, ever.  I have over 50 tubes of toothpaste in my closet right now because when I found them for free I bought every one that I could.  That way I won't run out before I can find them for free again. 
       I reorganized my pantry stock pile today.  It was a big task, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  I love seeing the fruits of my labor.  I completely emptied out my pantry, cleaned all the shelves and put everything back all nice and neat.  It was definitely a moments of pleasure for me.  I know that sounds weird, but I love seeing right there in front of me how much money I saved my family.  Everytime I find an item for free it makes me feel like I have accomplished something for my family.  That is one less item that my husband has to worry about paying for.  One less thing.  I love it.  I want to teach everyone to stock pile.  I want to teach people how to have piece of mind and feel at ease.  I am including some pics so everyone can see and enjoy.  Let me teach you to do the same. 

     Once your stockpile starts growing and has all of the essential items, then you don't have to go shopping all the time.  All you have to look out for is free or insanely cheap items.  My grocery list now only includes things like fresh meat and fruit.  Everything else I already have from stockpiling.  I love it.  Here are the pics

We are WAY stocked up now!

Today was an EPIC COUPONING day for me and my girls!   We started the day at Dollar General and as soon as we walked in we found the Degree Men's deodorant on the $1 rack!  I used the $1 off any Degree Deodorant coupon and that made them FREE, I bought 22!  I knew this was going to be a great day!  We shopped and shopped at Dollar General and found some great deals.  Example - Ragu pasta sauce, on sale for $1.50, used the $.50 off one coupon and got them for $1, bought 24.  My total bill should have been $122, after coupons I only paid $53.  I was uber excited. 
Then we headed to Walmart.  I usually only do one-stop shopping and price match everything, but I had heard about $.25 Nivea at Dollar General and it wasn't in the ad so I had to go check it out.  Anyhow, the Nivea was NOT $.25 after coupons.  Not sure where they found that, they were going to be $.75 after coupons at my Dollar General, so I didn't get them.  It's funny how cheap I can get!  Anyhow, headed to Walmart to browse.  Notice I typed "browse".  I ended up getting $322 worth of groceries!  Nice browsing right!  I usually focus on personal care items and don't coupon too much in the food department, but today I decided what the heck, here goes nothing!  I focused in on only things that I had coupons for, which is kinda hard when you have kids with you.  All I heard was "can I have this" the entire time we were in there.  I did end up paying retail for a few things, but oh well.  They weren't ridiculously expensive, thank God my daughters like Ramen noodles.  I bought them three cases of 12, but they were only $.28 each, so that didn't bother me too much.  I ended up only spending $189 out of pocket, so I was still very pleased.  I did lock up the register again!  That happens everytime I go in to Walmart with coupons.  I think I may be on a first name basis with the CSMs.  Oh well, all is well in the pantry tonight, we are stocked up, the kids are happy, hubbie is happy that I saved so much.....all in all, great day shopping!

Wow, that was alot of work!

Ok, I teach couponing, so I should know better than to let my coupons pile up, right!?!?!  I had not filed or cut my coupons for two weeks!  What a dumb idea!  I spent the majority of my day today cutting, seperating, and filing coupons.  This is exibit A of why you should not let your coupons pile up!  I ended up with loads of coupons to send to the troops, which is a good thing, but.....this should all have been done long ago.  I had to ge this all done today, because I have gotten a request to go shopping with one of my students to teach them one on one in the stores.  I surely can't show up with coupons binders that are a hot mess!  Anyhow, long story short...I am now organized and have ALL current coupons, I have marked up all the ads, I am ready for shopping.  Finally.

BTW....I am scheduling more classes very very soon.....I will post all dates as soon as I get them all arranged, so keep an eye open for them!