A few months ago, I got rehooked on coupons. We used to use them a lot more right before Jaden was born, hoping to save some money with the cost of a baby coming, but then with the madness of baby and other things, the coupons went to the wayside. Now with rising costs with everything, it is so important to use them! My husband likes to say its like someone just coming uop and giving you money when you shop. Why NOT use them?
And if you knew how much of that "junk mail" you get really isnt junk mail at all! I started going through the mail a lot more closely and its like a gold mine! We are able to eat out every once in awhile very cheaply, do activities as a family, get cool stuff, free samples, all because of the internet and the mail. I dont actively search them out as much but I do grab 'em when I see them.
We have gotten into the mindset that if we dont have a coupon or a good deal on it, we really dont buy it unless we absolutely have to (which is something Micah has always done, not so much me)
Every week we buy each of the papers and clip the coupons. I started out with a small coupon organizer. That lasted about a month. Then I graduated to a bigger coupon organizer. That lasted a coupe of months. This week after talking to my extremely bargain smart coupon savy deal seaker sister in law who has used this system for awhile now, my husband made me change to a binder system. I will have to say I was a bit reluctant at first, but now I dont know how I lived without it.
Melissa has a pretty sweet blog that I highly recommend you checking out. She's the pro on this!
On to the binder.
We bought everything you see for 11 dollars. The binder was 10, the store/restaurant page dividers were 1 and Micah already had the baseball card sheets. I still need to buy tabs and a small calculator though.
In the front I keep lots of stuff. Store cards, scissors, sticky notes, pad of paper, pens, etc.
Inside are the store coupons. Each store has its own spot in the 3 part page dividers.
The restaurants are later and do too.
Then I have sections of the baseball card sheets. The first is household, and everything has its own pocket or two, depending on how many coupons I have of that type of item. Then it goes on from there in each section. Off the top of my head I have household, baby, produce, refridgerated, freezer, meats and meals, "grabage" cereal, chips etc., toiletries, meds and vitamins, I cant remember what else.
I have to say, not shuffling through stacks of coupons really helped last night when we used this for the first time. We bought a cart full of groceries and saved 60 dollars and only spent 53. For the week! And this week I didnt really plan for anything, we just went and did it (bad Rebecca). The cashier looked at me like he was impressed and the guy behind Micah kept commenting on it.
So there ya have it! Thanks again to Melissa for showing me this way cool system to help save money for our family!
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