Most people hate them. I hated them. Hell, I used to throw them away because nothing is more frustrating than taking a coupon to the store, realizing that the store brand is cheaper than name brand + coupon, and you end up buying store brand anyway. Am I right?
Then I read on younghouselove.com about how Sherry watched a show on TLC called Extreme Couponing. Apparently they got picked up for an entire series. The special is on a sporadic rerun schedule, I haven't been able to catch it yet. I was able to catch some clips on Hulu, and what I saw intrigued me deeply. So I decided to give it a try. I made my usual every 2 week shopping list, found as many coupons as I could and went to the store. I saved $65 after sales and coupons. It's a good amount, but I was sort of frustrated. How did these chicks get this stuff for free?
One of the girls featured was Joanie Demer. I started searching for her on youtube and saw that she's been on TV tons of times. She runs a website called thekrazycouponlady.com with her friend Heather Wheeler.
And this is where the lightbulbs started going off. On their site I started learning about manufacturer vs store coupons, how to coupon stack, how to learn coupon policies and use them. So I researched all last week and decided to try my first deal. I went to eBay and bought 10 coupons for Finish dishwasher tabs. I got 10 boxes at Target for $0.25 each. I was excited. This was the sort of stuff they did, this was getting stuff for almost free.
I subscribed to the Sunday paper and waited for it to come. When it did I started using their website to anticipate the deals for that week and estimate how many newspapers I was going to buy. I bought 10. This is where I realized not all papers are created equally.
The Chicago paper had all the coupons they had talked about online. The Northwest Indiana papers had nothing. Awful coupons. The coupons in the inserts change regionally. I ended up with 6/10 having the coupons I needed.
My first big haul was at CVS this past Sunday. I walked out saving over $100 and spending only $18 on things like soda, 12 containers of laundry detergent, candy, printer paper, etc. I also got a free glucose meter at Walgreens and made $5 in register rewards. After hitting up all the stores for as much free stuff as I could manage, I came home feeling pretty good. Then I discovered totallytarget.com, where they outlined how you can make out like a bandit with their frozen food sale this week. Of course I felt like I wanted to fill my freezer for free too, so I printed as many coupons as I could and ended up taking home $130 worth of frozen food for $19.
I caught on a lot quicker than most people do, but I know for a fact that anyone can do this. I used to dread the checkout lane. Beep by beep, my fate was decided for me and I knew I couldn't walk out of Target without paying at least $100 on stuff I knew we needed/wanted.
Now I decide how much I'll pay for something. This includes clothing, office supplies, candy, etc. Anything you can think of, you can get for cheap or free. I got free jeans last night as well as all my frozen food by taking advantage of a clearance sale and combining it with a coupon.
I'm still learning and I'm still in my stockpiling phase. At first you will be going to the store quite often and spending about what you used to every month, but bringing home 6x the stuff. After you build your stockpile (in my case 1 year of what my family needs to survive) you can walk into the grocery store every week, pick up some produce and be done. And that is my goal.
After last night I think I have enough frozen food to last 3 months, but I'm thinking about going back today for more. 1 year is my goal, and we can't eat dishwasher or laundry detergent.
