Several things to post about and couponing!

So, I realize again it has been over a month since I have written.
I have several things to post about from the last month or so.

Several things in upcoming post include:
A home improvement
Kate Gosselin
Family wedding
Our trip to Vegas!
My new obsession, couponing!!

I want to also change up my background but that will have to wait until I am at home seeing as how my computer at work is giving me trouble in doing this.

Because this is fresh on my mind today and I am very excited about this, I wanted to blog about my new hobby:

Couponing!

After reading many other blogs about couponing and all of the money that people save, I have started to pay more attentions to the weekly coupons and sale ads.
Not that we haven't used coupons in the past, but there really is a art to getting the most out of your coupons and getting the most savings.

For the last several weeks Matt and I both have been looking over the ads to see what's on sale and also collecting the weekly coupons.

We try to find the things that we use on a normal basis first, and then always check out the BOGO items at Publix.

Typically the two stores we shop at are Publix and Walmart.
Generally we shop at Walmart for most things b/c it is cheaper than Publix for things we typically use.
We go to Publix for the BOGO items b/c this makes items even cheaper than Walmart at times, and when buying produce and meat.
The great bonus to the BOGO items are that you don't have to purchase two items to get the price, you can purchase one item and get the half off price, which is great.
Latley we have started checking out Kroger b/c they run lots of great sale's as well.

So to the couponing..

There are two sites that I really like that are dedicated to coupoining/saving money:
couponmom.com
southernsavers.com

Couponmom.com has many links on the site and updates its coupons weekly. You can print them out and there are usually 6-7 pages of coupons. There are some silly coupons mixed in, but most are very useful.

Southern Savers.com is a website that list the weekly ads for Publix, Kroger, CVS, etc.
For example, with Publix it list all of the BOGO offers for the week and then out beside the item on sale it gives a printable coupon.

Sometimes it will refer back to a coupon from a previous weeks coupon circular from the paper, so to take full advantage you have to keep all of the coupons from previous weeks, of course until they expire. I file mine in our file cabinet and have a separate hanging folder for each week, then just toss the ones I haven't used when they expire and that frees up a folder for the next weeks.

There are many other sites out there these are just two that I like.

So on to my best week ever in couponing:

So we shopped at Publix and Walmart this week.
I wrote down all of the BOGO offers that I wanted to check out and then made my list for Walmart to get all of the other items needed:

My grand total at Walmart before coupons was $77.25, my total after using coupons was $64.56!I saved roughly $13 by using coupons, and these were all items that we use.

Some of the best deals I got were:

Italian Dressing- $.08! , had $1.50 off coupon
V8 Fusion- typically $2.98- $2 coupon made it $.98!
A second V8 coupon for $1 off, making it $3 for 2 bottles of V8 Fusion, and its great for you!
A free pack of gum
Trop50- Tropicana OJ with 50% less sugar- usually $2.98, with coupon $1.98.
2 cans of Pringles- $3, with coupon $2 for both
$1.10 total off of two boxes of Hefty zip bags
Poptarts- 2 boxes for $2.64 with $1 off coupon
Carpi Sun- box of 10 pouches- $.87 with $1 off coupon.

Those are just a few of the items saved on.

At Publix we got some more great deals too. I saved $6.75 in coupons and $11.64 on the BOGO items.
Here are just a few items purchased:

A free bag of Fresh Express Salad with the purchase of a Sargento Salad Finishers. Then if you mail in a rebate you end up getting the bag of finishers for free! So a total of $6.19 in free items.

Yoplait Kids Yogurt- 6 pack- BOGO which puts it at $1.40 for one, then a $1.50 off coupon makes it free with $.10 overage!
So they paid me to buy it! Even though it's kids its normal flavors and just the right amount for what I like.

3 boxes of Mueller's Pasta- BOGO item- with $1 off 3 box coupon it made them $.65 ea.

2 boxes Quaker Granola Bars- BOGO item, usually $2.99 ea, with coupon $2.25 for both, so roughly $1.12 a piece

So I spent $90.56 and saved $31.45. This is at least 2 weeks worth of groceries minus little things we will have to pick up here and there.

So as you can tell I am very excited about the coupon game, and trying to save some money, casue I mean, who can't afford to save money.
I have also realized I am officially an old married lady now. :)