Super Couponing

I've always been a leeetle bit skeptical of the folks who clip coupons, and shop sales, and buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for a buck. Lets face it, who can really do that? Well, I tried it this weekend. Look what I got for $19!*


If you want to know more about how to do this, you need to visit my friend Michelle's Bargains Rock! blog, and follow her links and advice.

One thing that I've learned is that it is worth looking and planning before buying. I know that this sounds elementary, and I usually have a list and a plan. But since I usually eschew regular grocery stores for Aldi, and name brand products for store brand, I don't usually even look to see if there are coupons that would be appropriate for me. Sure this is one more step, but I think it took me a total of 20 minutes or so to look at the sale flier, decide what I needed from it, check for coupons and print them out. Doing so saved me $97. That comes to $291 per hour to do this. Okay, so no one is actually paying me $291 an hour to check coupons, but you still get the idea.

The second thing I learned is to take a calulator to the store. I was busy jotting down numbers, and calculator would have made it so much easier to keep a running total.

*This is $19 after I subtract the $15 coupons I have still in my purse. Actually, the out of pocket was $34, which is still really good, considering that the regular price for all this stuff is about $116 bucks.