One car, veggies in my front yard, no dryer...crown me Mrs. Simplicity!! I thought I had this whole simplifying life thing wrapped up and tied with a big, fat bow...yeah, right...come back down from that cloud Danielle...I was about to find out I hadn't even dipped my toes in enough to even test the simple waters!!
I had always bucked the idea of using coupons. I'm not sure if it was mostly that I thought it wasn't worth the work or maybe a little bit of the I'm Too Good for That Disease. Either way, I was missing out on something HUGE!!! Really, $.50 here, and a $1.00 there...big deal!!! No really, BIG DEAL...and I mean BIG!!
It all started with an article I read about coupons that referenced couponmom.com. Seriously, I logged onto this website, and felt like I had entered the twilight zone. I was so confused!! I like to think of myself as a pretty smart person, but this mountain of information made me feel like I just fell of the turnip truck. It made my five years in the University of Florida College of Engineering look like a cake walk!! There were links to grocery store ad match ups, coupon databases, printable coupons, drug store deals and on and on...I had no idea where to begin and it wouldn't matter where anyways, because it all sounded like a foreign language.
I finally found a place to start...grocery store deals. This amazing woman had actually matched the weekly ads in my area with available coupons. I found my favorite store and...jackpot!! Who needs the lottery when you have these beautiful little pieces of paper called coupons!! Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I could have danced around the house screaming I WON, but my husband may have finally sent me to the loony bin!!! I think he was beginning to wonder if I had cracked anyways with all my new practices....this would have really sealed my fate.
To put it in a nutshell, the concept is to use coupons with the weekly sales at your stores. Then, stock-up on the good deals. I thought buying BOGO's made me a Money Saving Diva, boy was I naive. Add two coupons in the BOGO mix, and you've got a deal so hot it'll put Mount St. Helens to shame!!
I quickly learned the ins and outs of the couponing world. I remember being so excited about a trip to Publix where I saved $90 and spent $63. I didn't stop bragging about that one for weeks or maybe even until I topped it with my best to date saved $113 and spent $17. As good as that sounds, it's still not even close to what some of these coupon gurus have accomplished!!!
It was time to take it to the next level...drug store deals. I was so oblivious to the drugstore world that I had never even stepped foot into Walgreens, and here's a good one...didn't even know we had a CVS across the street from our neighborhood (I'm not that insane, it's hiding behind the Publix, but still, I didn't know it was there). Whatever you do...don't stop reading now...you can get FREE stuff at drugstores!!!! Yes, I said FREE!!! FREE, FREE, FREE, FREE, FREE.....FREE!!!!! I love that word!! I literally paid $2 for all of my 1st graders school supplies this year because of drugstores. I haven't paid for a bottle of shampoo, a stick of deodorant, a bottle of lotion, a tube of toothpaste or a toothbrush in months.
As if all of that wasn't enough, I have actually gotten coupons for $75 off $100 at Old Navy. I did have to sit up all night waiting on oldnavyweekly.com to reset and torture myself trying to click on a microscopic bird dodging across the background of the screen, but for that kind of coupon, count me in!!!
So, I know what you're thinking...HOW?!?!??!
I'm not even going to try to explain. Here's my three favorite sites...they are AWESOME and will do all the explaining for me!!:
www.swaggrabber.com
www.southernsavers.com
www.hotcouponworld.com
Feel free to post comments with questions...I know you'll have them :)
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