Coupons, coupons, coupons

My friend Cheryl and I have discovered the joy of couponing again.

I used to use coupons quite often when my 9 yr old was a baby. Then life got busy with the addition of two other kids and I gave it up for a while.

Even before the show Extreme Couponing on TLC came out, Cheryl and I have been scouring the coupon matching blogs , making our lists, cutting our coupons and meeting weekly to find some awesome deals.

Now, we really don't eat a ton of processed foods here. We try and cook from scratch as much as we can and eat lots of whole grains, fruits and veggies and less sugar.( We don't cut chips and stuff completely. Everything in moderation I say. But we typically do not buy pre made meals and things like that)

Plus we have a child who is lactose intolorant so we have to buy lactose free milk for her. ( which is not cheap and rarely has coupons. Aldi typically carries 1/2 gallons for about $2.79)

You might ask, well what can you buy with coupons then?

LOTS!

We get a lot of health and beauty items( dental floss, toothpaste, body wash, deodorant, lotion) either free or really cheap.

This week instead of spreading out my trips over multiple days. I tried to get to most of my stops in one day and stay around $50 total. This trip was a mix of grocery , cleaning and health and beauty items. A couple items I am planning on donating to the kids school but most is for our household.

All in all I got the following:

12 Fruit Natural cups

3 Bags of Rice Cakes

2 Boxes of Mom's Best Naturals Cereal

4 Boxes Of Clif Z bars for Kids

1 2 liter of Pepsi Max- FREE with coupon when you buy tostitos and salsa

1 Bag of Tostitos

1 Jar of salsa

2 Pkgs of Magic Erasers

1 Lysol Disinfectant Wipes

3 Mother's Day cards

1 Coffee Mate creamer- FREE with House Party coupon

10 Dannon yogurts

1 Secret Clinical Deodorant- FREE with coupon + 93 cent overage

1 BBQ sauce

2 Colgate MaxFresh Toothpaste

1 Bic Soliel Refillable Razor- FREE using Extra Care Bucks

1 box of Puffs

3 half gallons of Smart Ones Lactose Free Milk

4 Mentos Gum

4- 50oz bottles of Purex Laundry Soap

10 Lbs of Chicken thighs

4 pkgs of Jimmy Dean Sausage Crumbles- FREE with sale and coupons

I had to stop at 4 different stores and had a list with all my coupons ready to go. I spent $57.36 OOP( out of pocket) for everything plus I have a CVS Extra Care Buck worth $5.54 to spend on my next trip.

The cashier at Kroger goofed up my coupons on the Clif bars. Said two of them woulndn't scan. So i really should have saved an additional $2. I didn't have time to hash it out as I was running late to pick up my daughter. But I still got two boxes for 99 cents each and the other two for $1.99 each which still isn't too bad.

But had I got all my coupons and if you factor in my Extra Care bucks my total would be $49.82. When I shop though I like to use my out of pocket price as my guide though since that is what I end up paying when I shop.;-)

Now I still have to go pick up my weekly produce. I usually stop at Aldi for the basics as they are almost always the cheapest. If there is a special produce item I need, I try to hit Meijer first because they often give catalina/ mperks coupons for produce.

I have a few more smaller hauls to share with you later too.

A couple of my favorite coupons blogs to check out are BargainstoBounty.com and Totallytarget.com

Check them out and maybe you might find a love for couponing too once you find out much you can get for very little money!