Couponing is a lifestyle I understand Now!
Hello and welcome to Day Hiker Grammie! In today's blog, I'm going to talk about our adventures into couponing. This is one area where my blog space and my YouTube channel are becoming more about a lifestyle than a given set of topics. I'd like to share our adventures with you as we go along.
In the past, one of the things that really fascinated me was watching those shows on TV where the ladies got hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for a fraction of the cost. I honestly didn't think that it was possible for the average shopper to take advantage of this opportunity but it turns out that I was very wrong.
I'll add this disclaimer ahead of time. I do work for Albertson's. I am a barista in our store's Starbucks. Unfortunately, it is quite a pain to add our discount to our shopper's app so I do not get my employee discount at this time. The savings I've experienced are the same that anyone else can get by using their Just for You shopping app.
I explained in my last blog about the changes in my financial circumstances that made getting very frugal with what I spend a must! I'm excited to say that my trips to the grocery store nowadays are not nearly so depressing as they were. This is why I'm excited.
We have a Walmart, Albertson's, CVS, Walgreens, Brookshires, Dollar General and a Dollar Tree all within a five minute drive of each other and less than a ten minute drive from my house. This is pretty key when you are planning shopping trips. If you have to drive across town for the savings, it's not going to be saving you money at all. So when you plan your own trips, plan for the stores that are closest to you.
Once a week or so, we get those annoying clumps of sale papers in our mailbox. I previously considered them trash bin fodder. Not anymore! Those guys are full of savings that I should have been paying attention to long before now. I now use them to plan our shopping trips each week.
Here are the yardsticks in which I measure the savings and what makes a store worth visiting each week. First, if the store is offering a buy one get one free type of sale. Second, our local Walmart has consistently the lowest prices in town. If one of the other stores in my town is putting something on sale that makes the price of the product below what I can get at Walmart, then I put that store on the list for the week. When it comes to price, there are two ways I know which is the lower price. First, I'm a frequent shopper at Walmart and pretty familiar with their pricing. Second, I double check the price on their grocery app.
Speaking of apps brings me to the next point of how I started this journey. In the old days before smart phones, everyone had a little card that you scanned at the register. Post smart phone era, means everyone has an app tied to your phone number. I highly recommend downloading their apps to your phone. This is the fastest way to get your savings at the register and the more points you accumulate, the more freebies you get on the apps.
My first shopping trip utilizing my Albertson's app netted me almost $80 worth of groceries for half price. I walked out of the store with a total bill of $40. This was a combination of the coupons offered on the app and their weekly buy one get one free sales. This was extremely encouraging so the next week, I got my Mom on board with this process. Together, we keep our home supplied with food and necessities by splitting the cost. We managed to get almost $400 worth of groceries for just $220. We did that by matching up what we eat with what was on sale at our list of local stores. That week our Brookshires was having a buy one get one for a penny sale! This week, we took advantage of sales on toilet paper and a buy one get one free on spaghetti sauce and pasta. We ended up with eight jars of spaghetti sauce and about the same amount in boxes of pasta.
We honestly really didn't need the pasta or spagetti sauce. We bought them while they were buy one get one free and it allowed us to stock up on them when they were at a lower price versus paying full price at a later date. This is how folks who are couponers and trying to be frugal get those great big stock piles of food in their home. They buy it on the cheap even if they don't necessarily need that product. For instance, I adore spaghetti so we eat it frequently. Each jar of sauce costs about $1.84 at Walmart. Two would be $3.68. I paid $2.69 for two of them at Walgreens with the buy one get one free app. That's almost a dollar savings. I paid $3.00 for two 38 oz jars of sauce at Dollar General. I couldn't find that size on my Walmart app but the 45 oz is $3.30 so we're still looking at a savings of at least $1 or more. The price comparison is pretty much the same with the pasta. It makes sense to go ahead and purchase when your price point is the lowest if it's something you're actually going to consume.
It has really made me stop and take a closer look at how I shop. The typical shopper makes a list and goes into the store to purchase what they are out of for the week. I still do that but now, I've added more to the process. I take a look at the sale papers for the week and I match them to the coupons I've clipped. Next, I price comparison to see which offer gives me the lowest price on the products both on my list that I'm out of and on the foods we eat on a regular basis. If something we eat but don't necessarily need is on sale, I will go ahead and add that to my shopping list. It will go into my stockpile and be rotating on a first in first out basis so nothing gets wasted or expired.
With the chaos that is happening all around us, that stock pile of food is starting to make perfect sense and now I'm understanding how they are doing it without spending a fortune! You have to shop smarter and look for the savings. If you don't buy a Sunday paper and you throw away that stack that comes in the mail, you are seriously missing out on some awesome savings. Below are scans of our trips to the store so you can see what I'm talking about!
Many blessings,
Lisa
In the past, one of the things that really fascinated me was watching those shows on TV where the ladies got hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for a fraction of the cost. I honestly didn't think that it was possible for the average shopper to take advantage of this opportunity but it turns out that I was very wrong.
I'll add this disclaimer ahead of time. I do work for Albertson's. I am a barista in our store's Starbucks. Unfortunately, it is quite a pain to add our discount to our shopper's app so I do not get my employee discount at this time. The savings I've experienced are the same that anyone else can get by using their Just for You shopping app.
I explained in my last blog about the changes in my financial circumstances that made getting very frugal with what I spend a must! I'm excited to say that my trips to the grocery store nowadays are not nearly so depressing as they were. This is why I'm excited.
We have a Walmart, Albertson's, CVS, Walgreens, Brookshires, Dollar General and a Dollar Tree all within a five minute drive of each other and less than a ten minute drive from my house. This is pretty key when you are planning shopping trips. If you have to drive across town for the savings, it's not going to be saving you money at all. So when you plan your own trips, plan for the stores that are closest to you.
Once a week or so, we get those annoying clumps of sale papers in our mailbox. I previously considered them trash bin fodder. Not anymore! Those guys are full of savings that I should have been paying attention to long before now. I now use them to plan our shopping trips each week.
Here are the yardsticks in which I measure the savings and what makes a store worth visiting each week. First, if the store is offering a buy one get one free type of sale. Second, our local Walmart has consistently the lowest prices in town. If one of the other stores in my town is putting something on sale that makes the price of the product below what I can get at Walmart, then I put that store on the list for the week. When it comes to price, there are two ways I know which is the lower price. First, I'm a frequent shopper at Walmart and pretty familiar with their pricing. Second, I double check the price on their grocery app.
Speaking of apps brings me to the next point of how I started this journey. In the old days before smart phones, everyone had a little card that you scanned at the register. Post smart phone era, means everyone has an app tied to your phone number. I highly recommend downloading their apps to your phone. This is the fastest way to get your savings at the register and the more points you accumulate, the more freebies you get on the apps.
My first shopping trip utilizing my Albertson's app netted me almost $80 worth of groceries for half price. I walked out of the store with a total bill of $40. This was a combination of the coupons offered on the app and their weekly buy one get one free sales. This was extremely encouraging so the next week, I got my Mom on board with this process. Together, we keep our home supplied with food and necessities by splitting the cost. We managed to get almost $400 worth of groceries for just $220. We did that by matching up what we eat with what was on sale at our list of local stores. That week our Brookshires was having a buy one get one for a penny sale! This week, we took advantage of sales on toilet paper and a buy one get one free on spaghetti sauce and pasta. We ended up with eight jars of spaghetti sauce and about the same amount in boxes of pasta.
We honestly really didn't need the pasta or spagetti sauce. We bought them while they were buy one get one free and it allowed us to stock up on them when they were at a lower price versus paying full price at a later date. This is how folks who are couponers and trying to be frugal get those great big stock piles of food in their home. They buy it on the cheap even if they don't necessarily need that product. For instance, I adore spaghetti so we eat it frequently. Each jar of sauce costs about $1.84 at Walmart. Two would be $3.68. I paid $2.69 for two of them at Walgreens with the buy one get one free app. That's almost a dollar savings. I paid $3.00 for two 38 oz jars of sauce at Dollar General. I couldn't find that size on my Walmart app but the 45 oz is $3.30 so we're still looking at a savings of at least $1 or more. The price comparison is pretty much the same with the pasta. It makes sense to go ahead and purchase when your price point is the lowest if it's something you're actually going to consume.
It has really made me stop and take a closer look at how I shop. The typical shopper makes a list and goes into the store to purchase what they are out of for the week. I still do that but now, I've added more to the process. I take a look at the sale papers for the week and I match them to the coupons I've clipped. Next, I price comparison to see which offer gives me the lowest price on the products both on my list that I'm out of and on the foods we eat on a regular basis. If something we eat but don't necessarily need is on sale, I will go ahead and add that to my shopping list. It will go into my stockpile and be rotating on a first in first out basis so nothing gets wasted or expired.
With the chaos that is happening all around us, that stock pile of food is starting to make perfect sense and now I'm understanding how they are doing it without spending a fortune! You have to shop smarter and look for the savings. If you don't buy a Sunday paper and you throw away that stack that comes in the mail, you are seriously missing out on some awesome savings. Below are scans of our trips to the store so you can see what I'm talking about!
Many blessings,
Lisa
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