First Blog

So, I'm not a blogger. But when I talk sometimes, people tend to make fun of my long-windedness. =) So I'm gonna start posting a blog to keep track of all the things I'm not talking to everyone else about, or have already worn out on my husband.

I'm basically starting this blog because I read someone else's and it's devoted to posting freebie deals and ways to save. My husband works at home and I am a stay at home mom. I'm trying to figure out any way I can to make things easier on us financially without having to actually go out and get a job. I have two children in school but I still have one at home and plan to have at least one more before I decide to go back to work. I want to make sure the last ones are at least in Kindergarten before I start working outside the home again.

So, in the mean time, I'm devoting all of my leftover energy to finding ways to save a little. This week, I started off with a bang.

A few months ago, a friend of mine referred me to the site www.afullcup.com and I signed up but never returned. She is always getting great deals on stuff and tells me all about how she has 216 bars of free Johnson & Johnson Buddies soap, or 86 tubs of Huggies baby wipes that she got for 14 cents a tub at Target. I think some of this is a little excessive, but it's quite inspiring that someone can get that much for so little, just by using coupons.

So, this past week, a website that I signed up for a while back, www.mypoints.com, sent me a link to print grocery coupons. I printed off a few, then went to afullcup to see if there were anymore deals. There is a Target coupon generator, which I couldn't use because the nearest store is 45 miles from here, and a Coupon Search Database. I looked for printables, found several that I wanted, and started printing.

On Thursday, I went grocery shopping and decided to pick up a few extra things while I was there. I ended up saving, in total, 13.95 at just Walmart and 7.20 at Shop-n-save (Hannaford). I was pretty impressed since I didn't buy anything I normally wouldn't have bought. On Friday, I went back to Walmart and picked up a few things for a BBQ we were having the day after, and I ended up saving another 6.00 in coupons. Again, I bought nothing extra that I normally wouldn't have bought. I've made a couple more trips to pick up papergoods and health and beauty stuff, and after tallying it all up, I saved a total of 60.15 since Thursday. 60.15 seems like a lot to save in coupons, so I must have spent a whole lot to save so much. I actually didn't. I did my normal grocery shopping and instead of waiting until the next paycheck to pick up things a little at a time, I used my coupons for practically free items and bought our deodorant, toilet paper, paper towels, wipes, dog food, and other items all at once.

After saving so much in such a small amount of time, I'm excited to start deal shopping. I'm going to start living for sale flyers and planning all of my shopping trips around the sale papers. Coupons are a new passion, and I will print as many as I can for relevant items that I buy anyway. And if there's something free that I don't necessarily need but would try, I'm gonna go for it!

I don't want an extravagant stock pile, but I'd love to be able to use coupons to get a winter's worth of toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste stocked up so I don't have to waste a bit of our precious winter funds on anything unecessary.

One other trick I'm trying, and it seems to be working, is paying for as much as I can with cash, and always paying up a dollar, instead of using exact change. When I'm done shopping, I bring home the change I got back and throw it in a giant jar. We've been doing this for a couple of months and so far we've saved well over $60.00 at last count. It's a family effort. The kids are saving for a big wooden swingset. We said we would buy them a new one this year, and were going to settle for a metal one, but we asked if they would want to help save for a big one by putting change in a jar and they agreed to help out. They can keep their allowance, and even keep their spare change if they want to, but they usually put all of their extra change into the jar. No bills are allowed in (they might get stuck) and it gives them a chance to save a little for themselves. They still have their own piggy banks for personal savings. But they've been great about throwing any pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters that they find laying around or get back at the store into that big jar. The good thing about the jar is that it's not even up to an inch of change yet and we have that much money already! I can't imagine if it was actually full! And our rule of not cashing the change in when things get tight has really been going well. This is a dedicated Swing Set fund and the kids will have the best swingset they can buy with that money, with us pitching in whatever's necessary to make up the difference (although I doubt we'll have any trouble buying a good one by next spring!!!)

So... those are my goals. Stock up on necessities before winter (so things won't get frantic when it comes down to buying fuel or toilet paper) and keep on saving in the change jar for that swing set! Who knows, maybe we'll have enough to buy that super huge swingset I've been eyeing at Sam's Club for the past year. (It has a deck and a club house on top!!!)