For us it has become a necessity. Luckily I my inner dweeb enjoys the challenge of figuring out which store has the best deals every 2 weeks on grocery day and finding coupons around the internet and in store ads that I can use to help lower the cost even more.
Two weeks ago began my official start of couponing and comparison shopping. I was desperate to save money somewhere and have seen and heard about all these people that save TONS of money with extreme couponing. While I know I don't have the time or the resources to go the extreme route I figured surely I could at least save a little! The first thing I did was call all the grocery stores in the area asking several questions: Did they take manufacturer coupons (all did), if they price matched (only Walmart does that), if they double coupons (no one does that anymore I guess), and if they had a store discount card (only Smith's and Alco have it).
Next I compared normal every day prices between all the stores in the area. Walmart has gone up on everything lately and isn't the cheapest anymore on many things, at least in this area. But that varies from item to item and week to week. So now what I've started doing is to gather up the store newspaper ads every other week on pay day and go through them comparing prices.
I make a lit of things we HAVE to have first...toilet paper, milk, etc. Then I go through all the store ads and find if any of them are on sale and where I can get them cheapest. Then I look at other things on sale and write down what is cheapest and where so I know where to buy all the other food to stock us up as much as possible for the next two weeks.
After that I start browsing internet coupon sites. A few of my favorites:
- http://forthemommas.com/
- http://www.shopathome.com/
- http://www.wantacode.com/grocery
- http://www.coupons.com/
- https://savingstar.com/coupons
4 Responses to "Couponing & Comparison Shopping - Realistic or Absurd?"
Found that if you make a menu & use it around the sales...it works great too. You can do something like: spagetti for Mon, take the leftover sauce & make a pizza for Wed & the left over noodles you can mix w/ meat/veggies & make a delicious salad! So ya think what ya can use for several meals....then buy that way. I have found that I don't waste as much food & know exactly what we're having too!
Yesss, that's a great idea too. I do try to buy things I can use more than once. I found 5 lbs of ground beef 80/20...so not the best but not the worse either, for only $11 yesterday. I was excited about that! Took it home and cut it up into 1 lb sections and packaged it up before freezing.
Don't know if you have a Target anywhere nearby, but they take 1 Target coupon and 1 manufacturer's coupon per item. Print Target coupons from their website, and go shop! :)
Oh nice!! I don't have a target anywhere close unfortunately but if I ever make a trip upstate to Target I'll remember that! Thank you!
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