Coupon Queen

My mom calls me the Coupon Queen. She has for a long time now. When I was in high school, I realized you could take a little while every week and cut the coupons and it would SAVE you money! I'm all about saving money. Last year, I asked for a coupon organizer for Christmas. My obsession with saving money goes far beyond the grocery store and coupons though. See my post from last week of my recent trip to Brookshires.
Here is what I do. I started looking this year into "frugal" blogs. I found A TON and love them! I got some great ideas from them...like how to really organize my coupons. Here I am with my latest coupon book. It is a binder with baseball card holders in it. I organize the coupons into different categories on each page--baking, beverages, breakfast, canned, cleaning, condiments, dairy, deodorant, feminine, frozen, hair, laundry, make-up, meats, medicine, misc., oral, paper/plastic, pasta/rice, produce, salad dressing, snacks, soaps/body, and vitamin/bars. I am going to have to add baby soon. Some of these take up more than one card sheet.
I know the grocery store's policy on coupons before I go usually--or I call and check before hand sometimes. I know what they double, triple, and how many of each one they will do this with. My coupon book helps my trips in the store go relatively fast. The more organized you are, the faster it will go. Shopping the ads and making a list of sale items and coupons before heading into the store saves a lot of time! Sure it takes a lot of time to cut the coupons and organize them, but I think it is worth it. I don't cut them all, just the ones that I'll use.
Another place that I find great deals is CVS. I read blogs, especially moneysavingmom who always has deal ideas listed (I'm truly excited that she is our Guest Blogger tomorrow!!!). It takes a little while to get into CVS, but once you do, it is worth it. I have gotten TONS of free tubes of toothpaste, razors, etc. from here. You first need a card and then you can start using coupons as well as store coupons for $ off of $$. You will get ECB (Extra Care Bucks) for some items purchased. This is like cash on your next trip. You can use it on anything and if you use it on something that gives you ECBs, then you're not spending any money out of pocket. There are a lot of blogs that describe CVS 101, like the one above that I would recommend if you are a first timer! Walgreens is also a great place to save money, but it does require a little extra work too.
I also love to get freebies (or samples--they make great travel size things) in the mail. I have made a freebie page that I update regularly. I get coupons to other stores, like Bed, Bath and Beyond and use them too--these are stored in my coupon box which stays in the car. Most of the places we eat out we will have a coupon to and most of the time I won't buy something unless it's a deal or I have a coupon. I always try and get a good deal--shopping the clearance, using a coupon and making sure that I'm getting the deal I think I'm getting. I watch when the items are rung up and if I think it's supposed to be a different price or have a different deal, I will let the checker know. It never hurts to make sure!
I hope this has given you some ideas on how to save money at the grocery store! We'll see how it goes when our baby arrives!!!
This post was entered in The Coupon Binder Show & Tell at Keeping the Kingdom First.

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