Day 11: coupons

I'm thankful for coupons. It may seem like a kind of silly thing to be thankful for, but when I can save anywhere from $1 to $10 each time I go to the grocery store, I'll take it! The savings really add up.

I'm not a big "Extreme" couponing person. I rarely if ever get things for totally free. I acknowledge that my time is worth something and I'd rather spend the bulk of my time doing other things rather than couponing. I don't get the Sunday paper, so most of my coupons are store coupons from Kroger, printed off the internet, or are given to me by other people. I do spend about an hour or two each week planning out my menu and shopping list, and searching for coupons. I save a few dollars on every shopping trip by combining coupons with sale items and I manage to keep our weekly grocery budget down to $50-$80 a week (usually closer to $50). It's worth it to me and I enjoy seeing how much I save.

Here is my grocery shopping trip for the week. These 39 items cost $48.

That includes $15 spent on chicken breast and ground beef. Subtract the meat and that's less than $1 each for 37 items.

I'm trying not to make this a *boring* price breakdown post, but I wanted to highlight some of the scored prices that were really awesome:

Cake mix: 24 cents a box

Cream of Chicken soup: 44 cents a can

Cereal: 99 cents a box (and these ones are BIG 20oz boxes)

Pasta: 29 cents a box

On this trip, I saved $12.80 with coupons. A lot of these prices are not typical for me. I just happened to have a few really good coupons that lined up just right with a really good sale. But that's the trick with couponing. You stock up on items when you can get them for really cheap, and use up your stock while you wait for low prices again. 

One critique that many (including myself) have against couponing is that you usually get coupons for a lot of junk/processed food. I've found this to be true, but I also find a good amount of non-junk food coupons. Just use the coupons and food that work for your family. It doesn't save you money if you're not going to eat it or you get sick from eating junk. You may have noticed I purchased a lot of snack food this week. I do not buy these every week and it will take us a long time to consume these. Mckay takes his own lunch and snacks to work and this saves us a lot of money compared to getting fast food every day. We also use the snacks for road trips and 72 hour emergency kits. Plus the holidays are coming up, so you can't blame me for stocking up on hot chocolate (99 cents a box) and Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls (88 cents per can of 8 rolls).

I could go on and on about how I use coupons to save money (and perhaps I already have...). Maybe if there's interest in it, I'll write a more detailed post someday of how I keep our grocery budget low. I'm thankful for coupons and that I'm able to save a little bit of money here and there for my family. When I told Mckay about my planned shopping trip for the day and how much I would save in coupons, he joked, "That's enough for me to buy another book!" My response: "No, this means we get to have a Thanksgiving dinner and do fun things for Christmas." That's partly true; I use coupons and save money all through the year because I'd rather spend my money on fun quality time with my family.