Frugal Coupon Mom et al: Anyone else feel like this isn't really shopping?

[TheLittleRoo]

Thank you all for taking the time to post your tips, especially Imzadi - - you are obviously VERY good at it and must be highly organized to make it work. How much do you think the $$ value of your efforts is per year? When you said it's a job, I bet you are saving your family an astronomical amount in all kinds of things you buy across the board.

About catalinas: did I read it wrong, or did a PP imply that she knew what catalina was going to print, in advance? I'm always surprised by what prints, no clue what coupons will pop out. Is there some logic to it that's discussed somewhere online? My stores don't have alerts pasted to the price on the shelf that you get a coupon at check out. I think some might. Maybe that's how you know in advance a catalina is coming?

Any more tips, please share. Imzadi - I'm going to have to sit down when the kids are in school and study your links. There is so much there. Thanks!

 

[WeRblam]

About catalinas: did I read it wrong, or did a PP imply that she knew what catalina was going to print, in advance? I'm always surprised by what prints, no clue what coupons will pop out. Is there some logic to it that's discussed somewhere online? My stores don't have alerts pasted to the price on the shelf that you get a coupon at check out. I think some might. Maybe that's how you know in advance a catalina is coming?

Yes, the hotcouponworld.com site community posts the flyers (with Pics when avail) of all upcoming sales. They also post where to get the coupons for the sale and have all kinds of threads regarding the catalinas etc. The are categories for grocery stores, drug stores, etc so you can choose which stores you shop from and read all the deals. Lots of work, but well worth it!

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

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About catalinas: did I read it wrong, or did a PP imply that she knew what catalina was going to print, in advance? I'm always surprised by what prints, no clue what coupons will pop out. Is there some logic to it that's discussed somewhere online? My stores don't have alerts pasted to the price on the shelf that you get a coupon at check out. I think some might. Maybe that's how you know in advance a catalina is coming?
QUOTE]

I shop at three different grocery chains regularly and at two additional stores for super-good deals.

The catalinas that are "good on your next order" are the ones that print out as $1.00 off, $5.00 off, etc. These can usually be used on ANYTHING unlike the other catalina coupons that print out as "save $1.00 on one package of XYZ." (Proctor & Gamble lately has been limiting their "on your next order (oyno in coupon-speak)" coupons to be NOT good on P&G products.)

Sometimes in the weeks before a major promotion, shoppers will receive a catalina "coupon" advertising the upcoming promotion. As soon as that happens, someone will post the details on the message boards of Hot Coupon World or A Full Cup. Other times, the promotion will be advertised in the weekly circular. Some of us get the circulars in advance and then post the promotion details on HCW,AFC, etc.

I make a point of reading ALL the threads for the stores in my area. Knowing in advance a good promotion allows me to trade for coupons or plan to purchase more than my usual 4 newspapers (based on the coupon previews, available online on various websites, btw). Others like my dsis get their coupons through ebay or one of the many clipping sites.

For those of you wanting to start, choose ONE store to start with. Read all that you can on one of the free sites like HCW or AFC. If you have a non-national chain, the smaller sites or the paid sites may not cover your chain. I know that HCW has forums dedicated to gazillions of grocery store chains. I'm sure AFC is the same.

Disclaimer: I'm a mod at HCW

 

[madge]

someone touched on it in an earlier post .. one thing I see over and over on coupon sites is stockpiling. It's hard to sit down with the weekly paper and plan meals, and then expect to save a lot using coupons. I suppose it can be done, but I've never been able to make it work. Some weeks, there will a meat sale and that's all I'll buy, planning on using things I've stockpiled in my pantry. Other weeks, I'll only get things I have coupons for an pay very little out of pocket. I look at it as more of a lifestyle. LOL.

Of course, all that stockpiling will bite you in the behind when you lose power for a week, and everything in the fridge & freezer goes bad.

unfortunately, I don't shop anywhere that pops out Catalina coupons (moneymaker) like I see mentioned. I wish I were.

 

[MEM]

Thanks for the tutorial Imzadi! It is particularly helpful for shoppers like me whose grocery stores will not accept coupons printed on-line. The managers all claim that there were too many bogus on-line coupons being used and they stopped accepting them. Even our Target won't accept their own on-line coupons.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

I have been able to get the free items from Walgreens and such, and it is a great deal, but my complaint is the nearest Walgreens and CVS to my house is a 30 minute drive. I only go when there are several items I can benefit from, but then I need to go back to spend my register reward coupons within 2 weeks even if the trip isn't that productive.

Also none of my local grocery stores double coupons. There is one 30 minutes away, but it is such a small store they are almost always out of the sale items I want, and they only double up to 50 cents. Those of you who live where larger coupon amounts are doubled are lucky.

I love living in a rural area, but the shopping choices are limited. Also around here if you don't get to Walgreens etc. the first day of the sale there won't be any free after rebate items left on the shelves.

 

[mskayjay]

I am on a coupon train here on the DisBoards and also a very active user of afullcup.com. You *can* shop with coupons and still be very healthy if you are smart in how you shop. As far as not using processed foods, that is a personal decision but from the folks I know who trade coupons, I would bet that you could easily go onto the for sale or trade (fsot) section of afullcup.com and post what you have and get back in return exactly what you're looking for in terms of coupons. For example, offer to trade your Chex Mix Qs for someone else's string cheese Qs.

As far as multiples of Qs, that can be accomplished by using a train or by purchasing someone's time for cutting coupons. Keep in mind that *it is illegal to sell coupons*! What you are paying for is someone's time to cut and send them to you. Again, AFC has people in the FSOT section who do this and thecouponclippers.com is a fabulous resource for getting exactly what you want. They post their new coupons every week and will tell you up front what the service cost will be. You can then stock up on the things you prefer to feed your family.

Oh and I had to come back to answer the question about what this is worth in time, etc. A good sized group of us tracked our time and savings and came up with an average hourly wage of $35/hour for our time and effort. That means the amount of time spent divided into our savings over a one month period equaled that amount. Pretty good huh? And if you really dont' want to do any of this couponing stuff and have coupon inserts you won't use, do a *random act of kindness* (RAOK), bring those coupon inserts with you when you go to the store and give them to someone you see using coupons. It will totally make their day, believe me!

In terms of the health and beauty aid items, I get everything and anything that I can get free of cheap with coupons and keep two boxes going....one is for the Rescue Mission and the other is for the Battered Women's Shelter. Anything I get that isn't for us goes in there and when the box is full, off it goes. You could do this with processed foods that you dont' want to use and take your box to the food pantry. They will love you for it.

Just some thoughts and hope it helps a bit!

 

[hsmamato2]

I've tried these methods in the past,but honestly we now have 2 cut price groceries within 15 minutes- they don't take coupons,and they're still cheaper than scouring ads,and pulling coupons to match sales....between Aldi,Pricerite,and my 1x month run to Trader Joes for some of the health items I can't get at my 2 locals,I'm set,and it costs less b/c I get what's on my list,without 50 shelves full of 'sale' items I probably wouldn't use much anyway....
instead of 'saving' a bunch at the regular grocery,I just buy what we need and it is cheap to begin with.
But we also don't use paper towels and suchlike things anymore,the only paper product I now buy is toilet paper- changing what we use makes a big difference-
Even if we did buy poptart-like items(we don't) Aldi or Pricerite brands would still be so much cheaper.....

 

[mskayjay]

I've tried these methods in the past,but honestly we now have 2 cut price groceries within 15 minutes- they don't take coupons,and they're still cheaper than scouring ads,and pulling coupons to match sales....between Aldi,Pricerite,and my 1x month run to Trader Joes for some of the health items I can't get at my 2 locals,I'm set,and it costs less b/c I get what's on my list,without 50 shelves full of 'sale' items I probably wouldn't use much anyway....
instead of 'saving' a bunch at the regular grocery,I just buy what we need and it is cheap to begin with.
But we also don't use paper towels and suchlike things anymore,the only paper product I now buy is toilet paper- changing what we use makes a big difference-
Even if we did buy poptart-like items(we don't) Aldi or Pricerite brands would still be so much cheaper.....

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with the very last part of your post. I don't use those items either as it is just DH and myself, but I do grab those items for my neighbor's kids as a treat. The last time I got them PopTarts I paid $.25/box. When I got Kellogg's cereals, I paid $.50 per box. My last purchase of Cottonelle was for $1.50 for a 6 roll double pack.

Bottom line is I think that this is a decision based on personal preferences and lifestyle as you've indicated. I *love* that it sounds like you use no paper towels and paper napkins. That is fantastic! I again only buy them when super cheap and keep the stock of them up for when I do need them. If I run out, then we use cloth but with work its too much to never use paper.....personal choice for us.

We have an Aldi's here and honestly I can't stand it. There is just something about the setup, the products, etc. I'm not familiar with the other discount store you mention. Trader Joe's.....I would love to see one of these! I get the impression it is like a Publix Greenwise market, yes? Lots of fresh and organics? I'm growing a lot of stuff this year and can't wait to have fresh again personally. The tomatoes and stuff in the markets here right now are embarassingly unripe and I won't touch them. I'm dreaming of wallking into the back yard, pulling a tomato off the vine, biting into that juiciness.....yummmmmm.......

 

[jcemom]

I just don't do it right, darn it. I've tried and tried. Our local grocery stores will not take coupons printed from the computer, only Target will. Our local Target isn't a SuperTarget, or whatever they're called, just a regular Target, so the grocery section is limited. Our local grocery stores will double coupons with face values of up to .99 each.

However, I never seem to find coupons for things like produce, eggs, milk, meat, etc. All the coupons I see are for shampoo or personal care items, and processed foods. I do use coupons on those things and get some good deals, but it seems that I can never find coupons on the other things that we need. So every now and then I get a few boxes of Hamburger Helper for free, LOL, and try not to think of all the garbage we're consuming as we eat it.

I'd like to do the Catalina things, and Giant Eagle does advertise in their flyer what you need to buy to get them. Maybe I should start there.

It just seems, to someone like me who up to now hasn't been so successful at couponing, that this is a full-time job.

I'm not sure I can organize multiple coupon flyers per week, week after week, then coordinate them with the right stores, then shop at multiple stores per week to use those coupons, if I ever find them out of my stockpile of coupon flyers, LOL.

 

[RadioFanatic]

I have a question - are any of you FT employees out of the home? I work about 50 hours a week and am a FT mom so I'm having difficulty getting the time to do these deals. If you are, can you tell me how you still have time to do them? I do CVS and any groceries I can (and Kmart when they double and target sporadically) but had to give up Rite Aid, don't do walgreen bc it's too far away and I haven't made it to CVS in the past couple of weeks b/c I just run out of time. any suggestions/advice would be appreciate.

 

[npmommie]

I think it all depends on the region of the country that you live in. Here in New England the deals are never as good, I read on hot coupon world and am jealous of the deals I see at some other markets.
also our stores that do double will only double up to $1, if the coupon is $1 off that is all you get, I am envious of the ones that can get $2 off!!!

I don't do nearly as well as some do, I am lazy with it too , the best I ever did was $50 off at BJ's and that was with combining BJ's coups with manufacturer coups

so for the people that get multiple copies, how do you do that? because buying multiple sunday papers at $2.50 a pop kind of defeats the purpose, so how do you get multiple coupons without paying for them?

 

[MEM]

While we're on the subject, has anyone been following this blog:

http://frugalchallenge2009.blogspot.com/

Her goal is to spend $1200 FOR THE YEAR on groceries and HBA for her family of 5. She does very well combining coupons and sales, but when she posted that she will add fruit to the free Boost she received and make her kids smoothies, she kind of lost me.

 

[MEM]

I think it all depends on the region of the country that you live in. Here in New England the deals are never as good, I read on hot coupon world and am jealous of the deals I see at some other markets.
also our stores that do double will only double up to $1, if the coupon is $1 off that is all you get, I am envious of the ones that can get $2 off!!!

I don't do nearly as well as some do, I am lazy with it too , the best I ever did was $50 off at BJ's and that was with combining BJ's coups with manufacturer coups

so for the people that get multiple copies, how do you do that? because buying multiple sunday papers at $2.50 a pop kind of defeats the purpose, so how do you get multiple coupons without paying for them?

I live in the Boston area and I have found that most weeks, the coupons I can use don't even cover the cost of the Sunday Boston Globe ($3). So I started buying the Sunday Herald. Same thing. None of the grocery stores in my area - Shaw's, Stop and Shop, Hannaford - will take coupons printed from the internet. I am considering purchasing coupons for the things I buy regularly.

 

[npmommie]

I live in the Boston area and I have found that most weeks, the coupons I can use don't even cover the cost of the Sunday Boston Globe ($3). So I started buying the Sunday Herald. Same thing. None of the grocery stores in my area - Shaw's, Stop and Shop, Hannaford - will take coupons printed from the internet. I am considering purchasing coupons for the things I buy regularly.

the stop and shop near me takes internet coupons, so does BJ's. each store must have their own policy
is there a market basket near you? they take internet coupons too

 

[MEM]

the stop and shop near me takes internet coupons, so does BJ's. each store must have their own policy
is there a market basket near you? they take internet coupons too

The nearest Market Basket is 12 miles away. I have 2 Shaws and 2 Stop and Shops within a 3 mile radius and none of them take internet coupons. The managers all say that because of bogus coupons in the past they no longer take them. The actions of a few spoil it for the rest of us.

Also, I did join a "coupon train" on these boards and week after week, there was nothing I could use.

 

[npmommie]

The nearest Market Basket is 12 miles away. I have 2 Shaws and 2 Stop and Shops within a 3 mile radius and none of them take internet coupons. The managers all say that because of bogus coupons in the past they no longer take them. The actions of a few spoil it for the rest of us.

Also, I did join a "coupon train" on these boards and week after week, there was nothing I could use.

yeah my nearest market basket is about 15 miles away. the local stop and shop is getting much better as far as sales, they used to be so ridiculously over priced that it was worth it to drive the 15 miles to shop elsewhere,
but lately I have noticed a change.

I went the other day to pick up some things but I went into walmart first ( its right across the street so not out of the way)...to get some things I thought would be cheaper.......english muffins, bread, triscuits, juice boxes, yogurt........anyway , then i finished up at stop and shop and noticed everything I bought at walmart was cheaper at stop and shop!!

SO I am not doing that again, I am going to pay closer attention to the sale flyers!

 

[donac]

I have a question - are any of you FT employees out of the home? I work about 50 hours a week and am a FT mom so I'm having difficulty getting the time to do these deals. If you are, can you tell me how you still have time to do them? I do CVS and any groceries I can (and Kmart when they double and target sporadically) but had to give up Rite Aid, don't do walgreen bc it's too far away and I haven't made it to CVS in the past couple of weeks b/c I just run out of time. any suggestions/advice would be appreciate.

I work full time also. I know what you are saying. I really don't have the time. The only reason I am thinking about going back into coupons is that my youngest just started college in Sept. and it is kind of quiet some times at the house.

 

[It's A Small World]

If you buy your big items when they're on sale and stock-up your freezer, you'll have items to pull from on a weekly basis. I certainly do not buy my chicken and beef once a week. I buy them when they're on sale so that I can freeze them for a later use. I then shop and buy items weekly that are on sale and I have a coupon for them. Yes, one week I may end up with a bunch of rice, but I know that it's something we'll use as a side with dinner.

I haven't checked out her shopping lists, but speaking from experience, I can tell you that I definatly do not shop and buy for one week. It doesn't work that way. You need to buy items you use regularly when they're on sale and rely on your freezer stash to pull the meal together.

My weekly grocery store total before coupons is $75. After coupons, it runs between $40 and $50. That's for a family of 4.

I am one of those people that gets excited when my Sunday paper arrives becuase of the coupons. My hubby used to think I was really bizarre and he now appreciates it.

I treat food shopping like a game. I love to see my final cost after coupons!

 

[estherhead]

When I shop weekly, I sit down first and plan out what I'm making that week for dinners and check my pantry to be sure what I have vs what I need. A lot of times, I plan our meals around what's on sale at the stores to save more money. I only buy the things on my list that I need that aren't in my pantry, plus perishables, and replacing things that were consumed in the past week.

I did read all your replies, but I can't help those who have bummer stores. I live in a tiny town that doesn't have a lot of stores either & because of time constraints I never go to the Rite Aid or Foodland. I just shop at CVS, Kroger, Wal-Mart, & Aldi's.

But I did want to comment on making your plan & then shopping. This is what I used to do: e-mealz. It's a subscribe list. And I loved it and it saved me a lot of money to have a list.

But then I started reading all the coupon blogs because I was still spending way more than I had. And the trick is to check the ads & your pantry 1st and then make your list around that. You can't be loyal to ANYTHING. For example, my family has favorite cereals but that is just too bad, as they have learned.

They get what they get and they don't throw a fit.

As for the processed stuff, we don't mind getting a bit (I just got a deal on toaster strudels today & my girls will be THRILLED!) but mostly we try to get deals on the good stuff. One of my best deals ever was on Morningstar Farms. It went on sale for $2.75, buy 10 get $5.00 off and I had a $1.00 coupon. I ended up buying 20 more coupons off e-bay so I could stock up. $24.00 (+$2.00 for the coupons) for 20 Morningstar Farms. DH & I were in heaven eating black bean burgers left & right.

But when they ran out, too bad. It's been a year & I've gotten a few deals/coupons on them since but mostly no more black bean burgers for us. That's the game. They do the big deal & get you hooked and then no more deals. The only way to win the grocery budget game is to not get hooked.

Also, I have found that "buying" the Betty Crocker cookie pouches when they go on sale for $1.00 & I have a doubled $.50 coupon is a great idea. At first I thought it was dumb because I would never buy that normally. But I went ahead & did it last year as I couldn't see turning down free groceries. I have used every one of those pouches this year making cookies for my girl's school when it is my treat turn. Nothing on the budget like free treats!

But you can't make your menu first. The best way to save money is to let the stores dictate what you eat (and it doesn't have to be unhealthy.)