Mail Time

Today was the best mail score ever. Check out what I got all for FREE!!!

A pair of Madden Girl boots
An issue of Martha Stewart Living
An issue of Family Circle
A box from CoupSmart which included:
   All natural pop chips
   Annies Mac & Cheese
   Coupon for free FIT fruit and veggie cleaner
   Endangered Species Chocolate
   Earl Grey black tea


How did I do it?  Well I got those boots from Swagbucks (taking 5 mins out of my day paid off!) and the box full of goodness was from a giveaway I won (I entered and I was one of the 15 winners who got a surprise box). The two magazines.... I have no idea how I got them. I might have signed up for a freebie, or someone signed me up... either way I don't mind getting them in the mail. :)

Yea for mail on Monday! Did you get anything good in today's mail??

xox m.

Homegoods

I received a gift card to Homegoods a few months ago and I've been holding on to it and waiting for something good. I don't live that close to a Homegoods, so it was easy for me to not spend it. However since it is conveniently located right next door to Michael's (where I've been taking my cake classes) I decided to take a peek and see what's in store. Boy o boy I wish I had $500 (the total of all items pictures below) to buy all this stuff for our home.

............................................................

An awesome chair for our reading nook up stairs. The colors are PERFECT. It's the perfect transition going form the white/tan living room to the green and grey kitchen....up the stairs to the reading nook which leads into the yellow and grey nursery and my orange and brown office/craft room! And that table lamp could go perfect in my office, the color is spot on. However, I am a little reluctant to make my purchase of the lamp because I feel like I could find something like it at a thrift store and spray paint it this color. Hmmm.... BUT my gift card does cover the lamp, but not the chair. Sigh...

This floor lamp and table lamp are the perfect dual for the reading nook as well. Just picture the floor lamp a little behind the chair above. Then maybe a side table with the table light on it? Hmmm.... gift card would cover either or, but not both.

Or I could use the gift card to purchase this beauty. It is kinda hard to tell in this picture (sorry all photos were taken from my phone). The base of this lamp is all wood, and the shade is the perfect color that would go wonderful in our living room. Also I think the lamp is more modern but since it had the wood it would tie in well with the modern country theme we have going on. Decisions decisions....


 
 
xox m.

What's A Coupon? (Part 2 of 2)

Alright I am going to talk about part 2. If you missed my part one on my couponing look here: What’s A Coupon?

So moving right along. The real question is HOW. The real trick is to get the items that you want to purchase when they are at their lowest price point. So each store item has a 12 week cycle where the product will hit its highest price and its lowest price. The key is to buy the items at their lowest point with coupons, and not to just buy one item… purchase MANY at one time. That way when you run out of something you can go ‘shopping’ at your own home. Makes sense right? Because who wants to run out of something and head to store to buy that ONE item when it’s at its highest price point? Not me! Also if an item goes on sale and I have a coupon I will buy it if I don’t really need the item at the moment, but I know I will in the next few weeks. Still making sense?

So how do I figure out what items are going to be great deals?

Well I take the ads I get from Tuesday and Wednesday’s mail and figure out what coupons match with what items. And I only get what I need, unless it’s free then I’ll take it home and put it in my bin for the food pantry.

Example: So lets just say Boxed Cake Mix is usually $3.99, but this week it’s on sale for $1.99.

So you find your coupon that is $1.00 off a cake box and now the cake is only $.99. Ok so you paid $.99 vs. the usual $3.99, wow 3 dollars saved! Well it can get better my friends.

(This is the confusing part but I promise once you do this a few times it will be easy breezy).

Lets say Jewel is running a Catalina deal at the same time (Catalina’s are the coupons you get after your recipe prints out at checkout) and this deal is: purchase 4 boxes of Cake Mix and get a custom coupon for $3.00 off your next order.
Oh how awesome this deal just got.

So…. you purchase 4 mixes at the sale price of $1.99 because that meets the CAT requirement = $7.96




BUT you have a $1.00 off coupon for EACH box =$3.96. (yes you got a coupon from your paper and printed out 2 coupons from coupons.com, and your mom gave you her paper 2). :)

So now you check out and you get a coupon for $3.00 back which makes the total deal $0.96 for ALL 4 boxes, that makes it $.24 for each box.

Breakdown:
1.99 x 4 = 7.96
(-1.00) (-1.00)(-1.00)(-1.00) = 3.96
PAY 3.96 and get $3.00 back = .96 for FOUR boxes of Cake Mix

Now think about it…. If you were to only buy that ONE box because it went on sale you would pay .99. BUT since you use coupons and ‘stocked up’ on this low price, you get FOUR boxes for $.96! Now when you go to bake a cake, you don’t need to run to the store because you already have a supply at home. Brilliant? I think so.

Now who wants cake?!

______________


Alright so you don’t want to figure out the deals on your own. No problem! There are sites out there that TELL you the upcoming deals. Remember when I mentioned Jill Cataldo? She posts all the deals on Monday morning on her blog. However, the deals she posts are only good for Monday-Wednesday. Well I shop at Meijer/Jewel and those deals run from Thursday to Wednesday. So I followed Jill’s deals I would only have 3 days to shop. So what I’ve been trying to do is figure out the deals on Wednesday night and shop on Thursday when the deals start (so that the items are in stock and ready to be purchased!). Jill has a HUGE following and if you see a ‘free’ deal on her blog, forget about getting that deal unless you go to the store on Monday morning when the doors open. (Or at least around McHenry County that’s what I have noticed). So for ME trying to do the deals on my own is better, and then on Monday I can check and see if I missed any deals.

Confused yet?

The world of couponing can be very overwhelming. I remember when I first started out. I had my coupons in hand, my scenarios ready and I was so excited! Then I went to pay and nothing lined up as I planned and that deal cost me more time and money than I had wanted. I've come a long way since then but I still make mistakes. The idea behind these past 2 blog posts is to help make it easier on you! There will be frustrations along the way but if you stick to it, you'll be amazed at the deals that you can get! Pay for floss or toothpaste.....never again! :)

If you have ANY questions please feel free to ask, I am more than willing to try and help out. Or if you need help to get going, like I said, just ask!

Happy Couponing! And if you score a great deal, be sure to let me know!! One of my best friends just jumped on the coupon train and she called me after her first coupon use... she saved over 50%!!!

xox m.

What's A Coupon? (Part 1 of 2)

After a few posts of saving over 90% on groceries, and different photos shown on Facebook of all my savings and free mail goodies, I have had a handful of ladies ask me what is my secret on saving so much. So I have decided to blog about my ‘process’ or how this thing called couponing came about.


(This is the time to exit this blog if not interested in saving money by couponing. lol)
Shall I start from the beginning?

Long story short, I quit my full time job (knowing I would be going full time with another company after our wedding). So I just in case something were to happen with the future job, I saved 3 months worth of needs to cover the “just in case” issues. Well… 3 months flew by and it’s now going on 5 months and I’m not full time at the company… just full time freelance (which does keep me busy, but it’s just not enough right now –trying to redo our home, save for kids… etc.). SO on that note I needed to be creative and figure out how to move our money further and save even more than we were. Say hello to the coupon. Coupon definition: a coupon is a ticket or document that can be exchanged for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product. This made me happy. Score!

So I started to use coupons and was saving maybe 20% of my bill. Then I found out about a lady from Huntley, Jill Cataldo. She offers coupon classes and teaches people how to save a drastic amount of money on their groceries. The classes that were in driving distance for me were not for a few months so I started to do some researching on my own. I looked through her blog and searched for other saving blogs…. And this is what I came to conclusion:

If you stack coupons when the items go on sale at the store you can get items for very cheap and sometimes free. Simple right? WRONG! It takes a lot of work to figure all the logistics, but I promise you…. once you do… you will never go back. When I started to ‘figure’ out the system it took me FOREVER, but now I spend about 15-30 minutes a week to figure out my deals and that’s that!

So here is a little explaining and what works for ME.


Types of coupons:

Manufacturer coupon: coupons from the company itself.
Example: Most coupons that you find in the newspaper, magazines or online are manufacturers coupons.  See the little box at the upper left corner? Yep -

Store coupons: coupons from the direct store you are going to shop at.

Example: Meijer has a program called ‘Meijer Meal box” and you can print the coupons from their website and use only at Meijer.

CAT coupons: CAT=Catalina coupons are the coupons that print out at the register after you pay for your items. These are great!!

Ok show now where do I get my coupons?

I have the paper delivered to my house (of course I used a coupon on this! Use code X277 on the Chicago Trib for Sunday delivery for 26 weeks at .50 each!) and I print coupons from my home. Also some stores are starting to send coupons to your smart phone and there is no need to print coupons, you just show them the bar code from your phone! (That is crazy isn’t it? I’ve received the coupons on my phone but never needed to use them yet.)

*Tip: I use the Chicago Tribune to get the most valuable coupons. They have the most adverting therefore get higher discounts on the coupons. However, I don’t care to read the tribune… I literally take the coupons and recycle the rest. BUT I do get the Northwest Herald so I can stay up to date on my local area. The NWH I liked to read the articles but the coupons are not as abundant and are sometimes half the amount of what you get in the Trib.

Now where do I store my coupons?

4 places. Yikes! Don’t worry… it’s an organized system that I came up for myself and it works GREAT for me. I started to cut coupons and they were everywhere and it drove me nuts, so I finally figured out a system that works ok. To be honest… there is probably a better system out there and something that works more fabulous… but I’ve got the swing on my system down so I’m A-OK with doing it. (And I like to file and organize as it is so it's fun!)

1st place: Mail Organizer

This is where I keep my coupons after I print them out, or if I get one in the mail. So I snip them and they go in the organizer to be transferred to my coupon sheets when I have time.

2nd place: Coupon Sheets

I found these plastic sheets (like the ones that hold baseball cards) at Office Depot. I labeled them accordingly and they hold all my coupons.

Example: When I get the mailers on Sunday I clip out the coupons for the products that I know I for sure will need at some point and put the coupons in my sheets. Then the mailers get saved and stored in my accordion binder.

3rd place: Accordion Binder

All my Sunday inserts get labeled with the date and store in the binder. Blogs like Jill’s and others tell you what deals are going on and they will reference to a certain insert. So it's a good thing not to toss the inserts and to just store them away for a good sale.

Example: Wheat Thins are on sale for $1.99. Use the $1 coupon from 11/7 RP and pay .99!

Breakdown: So I would go into my binder and look for the RP=RED PLUM insert from 11/7 and search for the wheat thins coupon. Or in my case I know Steve and I like wheat thins so I already have this coupon cut and in my coupon sheets. But I keep the inserts just in case there is something I miss… or if I can get a good/free deal I can donate it to my food box that I take to the food pantry.

4th place: Mini Binder

This is where I keep my coupons that I will need when I go to the store, and also my CAT coupons. I keep it in my purse so I can whip it out at the store when I shop. Using this makes it easier than carrying my coupon sheets around. (Don't mind the teeth marks, Tovi was trying to help with the coupons one day.)

And that’s that! Sounds like a ton of work, but now it’s just an organization system that saves me an AMAZING amount of money.

I’m going to end this post on that note, since it's really long. And I’ll write about my process in another post. I'll explain how it all works then, but ya kinda need to know the background... get your feet wet before you just JUMP in! :o)

xox m.