Couponing….

One of my goals for this year is to get really good at couponing.  With the adoption going on, we certainly want to do what we can to be the best stewards of our money.  We have always tried to do that, really, but especially now that we need to save all of the money that we can!  I have couponed here and there, but I really want to be good at it!  My friend Susan has inspired me and helped me a lot!  One of the main ways you can really save using coupons is in the area of toiletries and household items.  What I do is each week when the Kroger ad comes out, the first thing that I look for is what they have 10 for $10.  Then, if it is something we use, I go to ebay or www.mycouponhunter.com or www.thecouponclippers.com and I buy coupons for that item.  If I can find a $.50 coupon, then I will get each item for free because Kroger doubles coupons up to $.60.  (Explanation…. If the item costs $1.00, you will give them your $.50 coupon and they will match that $.50 to equal $1.00 and the item is free!!!)  SO, here are my deals so far for this year…

A couple of weeks ago, Kroger had a Proctor & Gamble special going on.  If you bought 4 P&G items, $4.00 would automatically be taken off of your bill.  I noticed that after the P&G sale, that Dawn would be $1.50 per bottle.  That’s a pretty good price, but I thought, if I can find a $.50 coupon somewhere, I could get them for $.50 a piece!  So, I came home and ordered twenty $.50 coupons on ebay.  I think I paid around $3.00 for 20 coupons.  When my coupons came in, I went back to Kroger and loaded my basket with 20 bottles of Dawn dish soap.  When I checked out, I paid $10.00 for 20 bottles.  Not bad considering that the normal price for 1 bottle is over $3.00.  Susan and I halved this purchase, so we each got 10.  Score!! Now, we won’t have to buy dish soap for months.

Last week Kroger had SoftSoap on sale for $.88.  Susan found some $.35 coupons on ebay and ordered twenty of them for us.  Again, Kroger doubled the $.35 coupon to equal $.70, so we got each SoftSoap for $.18.  Really, why pay full price when you can get ten bottles for a total of $1.80??  You can’t beat that!  And, if you are counting, I know there are only 8 in my picture.  The other 2 are in our bathrooms!

This week Kroger has Colgate toothpaste 10 for $10, and it was the big size too…sometimes the ones on sale are the 4 ounce size, but this was the 6.4 ounce!  Again, we bought twenty $.50 coupons on ebay for $5.00.  So today I went to Kroger and selected twenty tubes of toothpaste.  Before I left, I thought I would check the clearance aisle, and I was so glad I did.  They had a 32 ounce bottle of honey for $1.99 (regular $5.59) because the flip top was broken off.  I buy honey each month to put in my homemade granola, so I knew we would use this.  They also had cans of mixed veggies for $.29, so I knew those would be great for Selah.  When I checked out my total before coupons was over $50.00, but after my Kroger card and coupons were scanned, my total was $3.69!  The lady bagging my items said, “You are going to have some really clean teeth!”  Ha!  Do I NEED twenty things of toothpaste right now?  No, but our church partners with a ministry called More Than a Meal that provides meals and essentials to the homeless and needy in our community, so I will happily donate some of it to them.  Why not “buy” 20??  They were FREE!  Well, actually the coupons cost $5.00, but twenty tubes of toothpaste for $5.00 isn’t bad considering that the price before any sale was $2.39 a tube! 

Okay, I have to tell you a funny story about today’s shopping trip.  After I checked out and went to my car, I thought that I paid more than I should have, so I looked at my receipt and noticed that the cashier only scanned 18 of my 20 coupons.  So, being the nerd that I am, I went back in to the customer service desk and told them the dilemma. I’m sure she was thinking, “Seriously, lady, you just got 20 tubes of toothpaste and other things and your bill was $5.83…give me a break!”  But, she went to the register and retrieved all of my coupons, and sure enough, when she counted them, all 20 were there.  So, she gave me $2.14 in cash since that was the worth of the  coupons that were not scanned.  I felt like such a crazy coupon lady, but that’s free money!

I will keep you updated on my deals, and I hope if you read my blog and you coupon, then you can give me your tips!!  My next buy is going to be Snuggle dryer sheets at WalMart.  There was a coupon in last weeks paper for $2 off of 2 boxes of Snuggle dryer sheets.  WalMart’s price per box is $1.87, so once I use my coupons, I will get them for $.87 per box!  Can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!