Couponing

I have to start this post by acknowledging just how blessed we have been these last five and half years.  Admittedly, we have had times where we worried about how expensive something may be and that it might make things a bit "tight", but I can honestly say that we've never been in a scary place.  The first two years of our marriage we both worked full-time jobs (and honestly we worked more than full-time) that paid pretty well.  I was blessed to receive 4 promotions in 2 years as well as numerous performance awards, something that was unprecedented in my office.  Reid has also done well at his job and has received a couple of promotions and awards.  And then, of course, we transitioned to one income.  The first few months were scary more because of the unknown, but it worked out ok.  We sold our house and moved to Colorado and that turned out pretty well, too.  Now we have two kids, two cars, one income, and unfortunately the reality is that expenses are climbing.  Finn's medical expenses are getting, well, expensive.  And then we will be adding in the cost of preschool for Kai this fall.  Also, not cheap.  The economy has made Reid's job situation a bit precarious these past two years or so, and the value of our home has fallen.  All of this added together made it necessary for me to really start thinking about our expenses and where we could cut back.

In July last year, we began using mint.com to track our expenses.  It's a fabulous program!!  It has been absolutely easy to use and a great way to really see where our money is going.  Within just months of watching our expenses I quickly realized that our grocery expenses could easily be reduced.  I had been following a local bargain shopping blog for about a year but had never really done anything about it.  There was no better time to try I thought, and so in September I began my preparations.  I signed up for Grocery University and learned a bit about the best way to coupon and then I set a few ground rules and goals for myself.  I began by saying that I was not going to shop more than our two local grocery stories.  There would be no trips to the city to shop other stores where "the deals were better".  I still had my two kids that needed to come with me, and so I couldn't be driving all over the place.  I also knew that I didn't want to be a crazy couponer.  If there was something that was not on sale that we wanted, we would buy it, but at Wal-Mart where it's generally priced lower.  I definitely did not want to become one of those people who only eats what's on sale.  My goal with all of this was to reduce our grocery expenses by a certain dollar amount.  And so I started my couponing journey in October.

I can honestly say that I quickly began to see that this would be a bit of work, but not something that was unmanageable.  I cut and organize coupons, sort through ads and blog recommendations, and then make a shopping list all while watching TV with Reid in the evenings.  Sometimes it takes two or three evenings a week, but it's definitely been worth it.  I began seeing results pretty quickly.  There has been a learning curve to this and I have made some rookie mistakes but with the results I was seeing, I was quickly hooked.

What I really wanted to share today, though, was my excitement over my biggest couponing conquest to date.  It happened in early January.  We had just made a trip to CostCo (something that's becoming less common as I have learned that their prices really aren't that good) and had forgotten to pick up fruit snacks.  I told Reid not to worry about it and that I would take care of it.  In my mind I figured I would find them on sale, or use a coupon, or something.  I had no idea that just a week later I would find the sale of the year.  (As a side note, this not normal for me.  I have been averaging 33-50% savings, but occasionally something like this will come along that you just can't pass up!)

Here's what happened:

Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks are priced at $3.49/ box at Safeway, $2.99/box at King Soopers, and $2/box at Wal-Mart.  In early January, Safeway ran a sale on the fruit snacks.  You could get them for $.99/box as long as you bought four boxes.  At the same time, there were several coupons out for the same product AND there was a catalina deal running on them as well.  I ended up making three trips to Safeway in one week just to take advantage of the sale.  Here's how it worked out:

Trip 1:

Bought 6 boxes @ $.99/box  = $5.94 (another wonderful thing about CO is that there is no sales tax on unprepared food aka. groceries!)
Used 3 coupons for $.50 off of 2 boxes.  Safeway will double coupons up to $1, so these coupons became $1/2.  Total = $2.94.

After paying my $2.94 I received a catalina for $3.00 off of my next shopping trip.  So basically, they handed me a penny for every box I wanted!!

Trip 2:

Bought 7 boxes @ $.99/box = $6.93
Used 2 $.50/2 coupons and 1 $1/3 = $3 off or $3.93
Used my $3 catalina
Total = $.93 for 7 boxes!!
This receipt said that I saved 98% off of my order!  I was ecstatic!

And I received another $3 catalina!

Trip 3:

Bought 4 boxes @ $.99/box = $3.94
Used 1 $1/3 coupon = $1 off or $2.94
Used my $3 catalina
Total = -$.06  (I bought other things on this trip so they just took $.06 off of the total)

And then I received another catalina, this time for $2 (since I only bought 4.)

Total out of pocket was $3.81, but I still had a $2 catalina left.  So really, it was just $1.81 for 17 boxes of fruit snacks!!  This is definitely the cheapest food storage I've ever had.

So, if you've reached the bottom of this post, I'm impressed.  Seriously, I don't expect anyone else to get as excited about my conquest as I have.  I just wanted to write some of this down so that I can look back in 50 years at some of the things that I was doing.  And of course, it'll be humorous to see just how "cheap" food was in 2011.  Remember the stories your grandparents tell of penny candy?  Yeah, it'll be like that!