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I’ve always been a coupon clipper, doing my best to keep our grocery bills at a reasonable level. 
But lately I’ve wanted to do more. We’re building a house (yes, still!) and our mortgage is going up and well, I want to do what I can to save some money. Plus living on a budget makes good plain sense. So I contacted my sister-in-law because I knew she’d really gotten into what I call extreme couponing sometime last year. She was a font of information and now I’m on my way.
She shared some blogs out there that do their part to explain this couponing philosophy. 
For the last few weeks I’ve been studying. Reading up on said philosophy and making my plan. The good thing was I was already doing some of the things they recommend, like making a menu plan and then building your grocery list off of that. But I’ve learned so much.
And then today I tried it out. I didn’t set a goal (like they told me I should, but I’m still feeling lost on that part right now), but I did put the plan into action. 
I pulled out my grocery store’s current sale flyer and I built my menu plan from what was on sale – as it happens stew meat was on sale, so we’ll be having crock pot beef stew this week, and pork chops were on sale, so that’s right pork chops goes on the menu. Then I found other items on sale that I also had coupons for, those items went on my shopping list too. Then I filled in the list with non-sale/non-coupon items. Guess what? I saved $43 today off my grocery total. Can you imagine? I think the most I’d ever saved before with coupons was like $10. Now I know other women who have been doing this longer save a lot more than that, but for my first shot, I was pretty proud of myself.
Talk about a high. I feel so empowered and frankly like a bit of a domestic goddess. I can’t wait to start applying the extreme couponing to our toiletries at Walgreens and CVS. Oh yes, there’s a plan for that stuff too and it’s even better than the groceries.
So how about you? Do you coupon? Do you put together menus or do you just go to the grocery store and buy what looks good?
Filed in: Jaunty Post
Jan 19th
2010
8:13 am
Tonya Kappes Said:
I recently became a coupon cutter. It became sort of a game to beat my sister~HAHA!! We are big DAVE RAMSEY fans and we do plan grocery trips.
We just refinanced for 15 years and with a family of six-coupons are a welcome savings.
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Jan 19th
2010
9:33 am
Shana Said:
Wow! I’m so impressed. I wish I could be that organized about meal planning. USF and I make a menu for the week and buy what we need to amke those items. Unfortunately, about halfway through the week we’re usually exhausted and lose the energy to cook, so we end up getting Subway or pizza.
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Jan 19th
2010
11:37 am
Nancy Robards Thompson Said:
Wow, Robyn, you are a Goddess! I’m so impressed! I love the philosophy of couponing – more so, the idea of being that organized – but I’m sort of hit or miss at it. My husband, on the other hand, is a pro. It’s almost a sport for him. He mostly shops sales and two-for-one deals (clips the occasional coupon). He takes such pride in cooking a delicious meal and saying, “This only cost $2.00 per person. In a restaurant you’d pay $12-15 per plate.”
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Jan 19th
2010
11:54 am
Rebekah E. Said:
I have been clipping coupons for about a year and have just started making a menu. I love it. It is amazing how much money you can save.
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Jan 19th
2010
12:20 pm
catslady Said:
I use to be a huge coupon clipper. I started 40 years ago!! Coupons did not have such short expirations back then and rebates although not large (they were if you take in inflation) weren’t so complicated. I had boxes and bags full of upc’s that needed to be sent in. I spent my weekends working on it and when I quit working I spent time every day. I can honestly say I saved about 40% more or less of my food bill. It was really fun to go in with all the totally free coupons once in a while. But then they started needing register receipts. Well that only works if you buy one thing on the receipt because then they wanted original receipts for each rebate. I still clip coupons but I don’t make the huge savings that I use to.
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Jan 19th
2010
2:35 pm
RobynDeHart Said:
Tonya, I think thinking of it as a game is a great mentality. Keeps you motivated!
Shana, I so know that feeling. Cooking isn’t easy and it’s hard to keep up creativity and health and whatnot. I found that if I have a couple of meals a week that are always there – like I do whole wheat spaghetti with homemade meat sauce on Tuesdays and Sunday nights we always have breakfast – it helps keep me going b/c those nights are no-brainers.
Nancy, that’s so great! The Professor is not much of a cook, but he keeps saying he wants to learn to do more.
Rebekah, it is amazing and fun too (at least so far!)
Catslady, wow, clipping coupons for 40 years, I hope I can say that someday. And 40%, that’s a good goal for me to aim to. Yesterday I hit 25% which I think was a pretty good start.
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Jan 19th
2010
3:00 pm
Emily McKay Said:
I do meal planning (but not with the flyer, since we don’t get the newspaper), but I don’t clip coupons. In my experience, I don’t buy the things I see coupons for. Sure, once a year or so, I need catsup or whatever, but really I buy a lot of fresh veggies and eggs and tofu and things like that. You just don’t see coupons for those things.
But meal planning with the flyer probably would save money. And I want to start doing that thing were you keep track of how much things normally cost, so you can stock up when it’s on sale.
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Jan 19th
2010
4:31 pm
Stacy Said:
I love meal planning. It not only saves money, it makes dinner time less stressful, and we lose less to spoilage. You can sign up for email promotions and rebates from some manufacturers’ Web sites. Oil of Olay offers good rebates on its more expensive products. I think other companies do similar things.
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Jan 19th
2010
4:38 pm
Margo Maguire Said:
I’m a “pantser” when I go to the grocery store. (For any non-writer out there: it means I fly by the seat of my pants!)
I’ve always been a frugal shopper, although I haven’t clipped coupons in years. It got to where it seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. As I go up and down every aisle, I pick up the groceries that are the usual weekly staples in our household. And when I go to the meat counter, I choose whatever’s on sale and put it in the freezer. The meals revolve around whatever deals I’ve found …
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