So, you probably have all watched that silly TV show "extreme couponing"? If you haven't you should at least once to get the picture. In the show the subjects buy thousands of groceries for pennies on the dollar. My wife being the finance professional got very curious, I mean if we could prep for less, we could prep more and faster. We have been doing it for a full month and have put away 6 months of preps for minimal expenditure. We are not to the show level of getting everything free, but much cheaper. Just yesterday we purchased $543 worth of goods for only $201. We are still learning this thing but if any of you are interested just post or PM a question and we will gladly try to help/answer. Thanks a good preps to you all
Like I promised before I got my wife to type a little tutorial for those interested in starting to use couponing to help prepping. This morning I picked up 120 bars of soap, that paid ME 2cents each, and month supply boxes of ibuprofen for 36 cents each, not too bad in my opinion Ok here it goes.... Couponing Tutorial-(From MRS Traumahawk) My husband asked me to write up a little tutorial about getting started with couponing. First of all I am just getting started and so I know that there is much more for me to learn. I am certainly not a subject matter expert, but I will share a few tips. First of all don’t expect to go into this and walk out with thousands of dollars’ worth of groceries for just a few dollars like the people on the show Extreme Couponing do. However there are some good deals to be had and even if you save only 50% on your normal grocery bill that is all money saved. Whether you use your savings to put toward another purchase or you simply buy more groceries for your stockpile I think it is worthwhile. It also is kind of time consuming. My husband and I both work full time and we have 3 little kids, so I don’t have too much time to devote to it. Therefore I rely on several websites to find the deals for me. Instead of recreating the wheel, I would advise you to check out a couple of websites that can do a much better job than I can of explaining the details of store coupon policies and how to find the best deals! http://thekrazycouponlady.com/ http://www.thriftynorthwestmom.com/ There are many other great websites out there, but I like these two because I get updates right on my phone through Facebook. They post all sorts of deals and freebies. So where can you get coupons? I signed up for the Sunday paper because it has all of the coupon inserts. You will get P&G Brandsaver inserts, Smart Source inserts. I recommend hitting up your friends/family/co-workers and neighbors to see if they will give you any unused coupons. Even if you can get 4 or 5 extra inserts each week it will make the planning all the more worthwhile. You can also print coupons from websites such as www.coupons.com. Several stores also allow you to load your loyalty card with online coupons. This is great because it will take off that coupon as well as a paper coupon….double the savings! We buy most of our groceries at Safeway and by doubling up coupons, using paper coupons and Catalina coupons (the kind that print at the register) you can easily save 40-50% on your normal day to day grocery shopping. So my advice is check out the KrazyCouponLady…go to the Beginners tab and follow along with her tutorial. She has a lot of great advice. Even if you only score a few good deals every week it adds up! Last weekend besides getting deep discounts on items like shampoo, deodorant, OTC medications, etc. I got Extra Strength Bayer aspirin absolutely free (I wished I had more coupons!). This week I plan on going to Rite Aid for several great deals. If you have a rewards card (Wellness Plus Card) it gives you +Up Rewards which is money back on your next purchase (they will let you split up transactions). One example is Crest Toothpaste for $2.99. You get $2 back in +Up rewards plus you can pair it with a $0.50 coupon from this week’s paper, making each tube of toothpaste $0.24. I know toothpaste is something that has a long shelf life and we will definitely need, so why not get a few!? Another example of a great deal is Ivory soap at Walgreens. They have a 3 pack on sale for $0.99 You can use the $1/1 Ivory or Coupon from the 7/1 P&G insert making them absolutely free. There is a limit of 4 per shopping trip. This means I can get 4, 3 packs or 12 bars of soap for absolutely free! I hope this helps inspire you to start using coupons whether to build up a stockpile of supplies or just simply to save some money!
My local stores are now limiting the amount of coupons on a products. Example- if toothpaste is on sale and I have coupons, I can buy 5 tubes and use only 5 coupons. Do you keep going in & out of the store? I use coupons and do really good. I need to sign up for the Sunday paper again because it has great coupons. I will check out the krazy coupon lady.
