I'll Show You the Money using Coupons

Most families will begin to run a little short on money right before pay day week so their budgets become very limited. It is really hard to come up with a budget at times especially when your local stores are running good sales.

Since I consider myself a devoted "Coupon Clipper" but not an extreme coupon-er, I have still found a way to save a little more money using coupons and matching up with store sales. The more I am using coupons the more I am learning so I wanted to share my experience with you that I just had this morning.

I know how odd that sounds-how in the world can couponing be compared to recipes? Really the answer is simple, you look through the sale papers, you match up your coupons, you match your coupons to in store coupons and offers and you create a beautiful little nest-egg.

One of the most important things I am learning is that you should visit more than just one store when you are doing your shopping. You should consider purchasing your grooming aides and drug related items at a drug-store. This is where you take a little more time going through your newspaper and matching up the sales with what is on your list. Once you get use to doing this, actually it does save a lot of money.

One of the things I hate is worst is missing out on a sale item that is on my grocery list. And since it is the week before pay day, unfortunately I do not have a lot of money left in my budget to spend on things wastefully. So, I thought about this for a little while and this is what I done. I looked at my budget so I knew how much I was able to spend. I looked through the Walgreens sale flyer and came up with a list of items I needed. Walgreens not only shows you sales, but provide in store coupons in their flyer, which can be matched up to the manufacture coupons from the newspaper and online coupons.

I am going to share my exact list with you and I had a budget of $40.00 to spend.

My store total was: $69.41 (this includes taxes)

My savings:

-$8.63 Walgreens Savings

-$18.95 Walgreens Advertised Savings

-$5.35 Manufacture Coupons

That is a savings of: $32.93

My total cost ended up being: $36.48 (including taxes)

I did not plan on purchasing the bogo Walgreen Tylenol but they were buy one get one free. Since I was running really low on both and they were on my grocery list for next week, I could not resist paying $14.48 for 6 bottles of Walgreens Tylenol. What made it more tempting was the fact two boxes of the tylenol had a bonus bottle inside the box. So I ended up with 6 bottles which allows me to stockpile.

I am not sure about how people feel about having an extra $32.93 but in my household there have been many times I wish I had it!

So for this shopping trip I am showing you the money- Total Savings today: $32.93

As I was leaving Walgreens, the cashier told me several things to help me save even more money.

-She told me about this book of inside coupons they offer right in front of the store where the regular sale flyers are. These books are good for the whole month and the coupons can be used more than once.

-You can couple the inside coupons in the booklet with manufacture coupons, which offers you even more savings.

-Walgreens has this $5.00 deal. You are basically paying for a membership that offers all kinds of other benefits. If you purchase Walgreen brands of products you automatically get 10% off of each item. There is a photo special, and so much more. I try to use store brands as much as possible. I just do the math with the cost of a product on sale, the discount amount from the coupons and if that price is still higher than store brands, I purchase store name brands. PLUS Walgreens offers a lot of BOGO's with their name brand products.