In Part 1 of this series I told you that two years ago I would not have believed you had you told me that I would be able to feed my family and provide all of our household items for $200/ month or less. Here's what happened...
In the summer of 2008 our family moved to Georgia for my husband to attend graduate school. Money was tight and I needed to find some way to stretch our small budget. We were spending about $400 per month on groceries, and it seemed to me that we should be able to do better than that.
As I thought and prayed, I remembered the radio program and the woman who saved thousands each year through couponing (Part 1). I had nothing to lose, so I began to read everything I could find about couponing. I soon learned that there was a very powerful method of couponing that I had been missing. Coupons are most effective when combined with sale prices! No kidding?!
Whereas I previously used coupons if they happened to match an item on my grocery list, I now began making my lists around the sale items for which I had coupons. I learned these principles from The Coupon Mom:
1. Know how your store's savings programs work, such as sales and promotions, and combine them to save the most.
2. Know where to find the best coupons.
3. Know when to use your coupons, combining them with the lowest sale prices on your favorite items. In many cases you will be able to get your favorite items free!
I also learned that you can achieve various levels of savings at the checkout counter. Shopping the sale items is a great place to start. But you can reach the next level of savings by combining sale items with coupons and buying for one week. And you can achieve yet another level of savings by combining sale prices with multiple coupons for the items and buying as many of each at its lowest price possible.
I will insert here that I used to do my meal/ grocery shopping planning in this order:
1. Plan the menu
2. Make my shopping list
3. Go shopping
Shopping this way does change things up a bit, but I've found a way to make it work well, and I will give some more tips on that as we go.
In order for this method to be effective, you need to have access to a lot of coupons. We’ll talk more about this next time.
2 comments:
Andria - I'm really enjoying your blog! I've always wanted to get into "couponing" but didn't know how to start, so this will be really helpful. Thank you! Ryan Lewis
Ditto there! I'd love to do more couponing, but I think here in Australia it's a LOT harder to find coupons - and any kind of deal!! - compared with the US. That culture just doesn't exist here! So sad.
I look forward to your tips anyway! :)
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