http://www.doomdiva.com/camping.html - yup, three more promotions for the book done this weekend, including two more radio interviews. Very cool! It was a busy weekend for sure and total blast! I really appreciate that folks are really digging me book. :) Funniest take-away from the event: Next to all the tea choices, someone set down a Kool-Aid packet. ROFL! How completely random!
I also got to play with my Mother's Day gift, which was the vacuum sealer. I can see that $100 investment is definitely going to pay off in no time flat. Ron and I both got a giddy thrill out of watching it suck all the air out hehe. (hehe, mom's new toy.) Our grocery savings have already been cut down to about $50 a week, even with the current high prices for food, and we don't eat a bunch of processed crap. Once the summer foods start to become readily available at
Stanley's (the fruit market I like), I'm going to go crazy on stocking up and sucking out!
So far, I can say without a doubt building the coupon book has made couponing A LOT easier, along with shopping by sales only. I'm trying to go by the weekly circulars as guidelines as to what to buy at which stores, and which stores to skip altogether. I'm getting a lot better and going in and out, zipping through the stores! We also tacked a dry erase board on the fridge, writing down what I want to (eventually) buy based on what we normally eat, marking a © next to anything I have a coupon for in order to compare that particular item with a sale. I'm getting better at it, but I'm no expert by any stretch. And since I've gotten a Sunday paper subscription (for only 50¢ a copy
with a coupon code LOL), my book has been filling out well with far-out expiration dates. I figure in a couple months, I'll have a nice little collection going.
One other thing I've learned is the baseball card sleeves for the book is best bought at Target (by the check-out section where the trading cards are located). The big packs they sell are about as much as the small packs sold at Staples/Office Depot. Also, I'm really glad I have the zip-up binder, because I've already come close to loosing stuff. I figured out another thing: If I put my purse in the kid seat of the cart, pushing down my bags, my book fits well over it all, propping it up perfectly for flipping through at the store. (And, with the book over the purse over the bags, it hides my purse a bit better, which is always a worry for me when I go to reach for an item.)
Remembering to grab the book hasn't been hard at all, and in fact, it's helped to remind me to bring the canvas bags, especially to
Target and
Strack and Van Til (as they pay me 5¢ a bag for using them). I now feel naked without the two. Remembering to bring the bags has always been an issue with me, and even to bring an actual list, so I'm guessing Gaia is cool with it LOL. Speaking of which, I know a lot of people have the belief couponing is for people following the SAD diet - but it's really not! If you go to
http://www.coupons.com (and other sites), you'll see a bunch of printable coupons for Kashi, Seventh Generation, Method, Glen Meir, Amy's, Boca, Horizon, Cascadian Farm, Stonyfield Farm and lots more!
Whole Foods and
Trader Joe's both accept coupons (if you want to avoid supermarkets), so you're all good there. And of course, coupons aren't just for food - they're for things like cleaning products, liquor, health and beauty needs and whatnot. So yes, even a devout, tree-hugging vegan can find some big savings outside of just relying on sales and stockpiling! :D (Just save your trigger finger for printing the coupons until you're completely finished going through the list, and set your printer preferences to "Mono" or "Black and White" to save on excess ink and paper usage.)
And for the record, no, we don't stockpile, nor do we plan on doing so anytime in the near future. We especially do not believe in "
shelf clearing", as I find it as equally rude as people who believe in Pagan Standard Time. (This of course does not apply to someone who got a couple salad dressings which just so happened to be the last ones available.) I will get a
rain check if I have to, but it sucks to have to do that, especially if I had a need for that item at that particular moment. A couple weeks' worth of food and supplies, sure, and whatever my little freezer can handle. But as far as dedicating a bedroom, garage or additional closets for stockpiling 100 bottles of laundry soap - nope. We're practical minimalists; we take what we need, and we use what we have, but we are always prepared for emergencies as well.
So yeah, I think we're doing pretty good with this couponing thing. I now look forward to our Sunday routine, waking up at 6:30/7ish to grab my paper and start going clip-crazy, flipping through the book and kicking out the expired coupons I didn't get a chance to leave behind for someone else. (Most of them I do catch, and I leave them in random places in the stores, usually on large displays.) That takes me about an hour, which I do while watching the news. I also spend an additional hour sometime during the week on the coupon sites looking for a few printables. And, it takes me a whopping 2 seconds of my time
to load a batch of ecoupons to my Preferred Card, just in case I hit Da Jewelz next door to the post office we frequent. Getting our weekly grocery run to $50 a week is pretty good, if I do say so myself!