Couponing

So today I made my bimonthly grocery trip.  And lately I had become a little lax in the department of coupons.  So I decided to step it up.  I had clipped all my coupons Monday morning, but hadn't put them in my coupon binder.  I looked through my two all you magazines (they usually have some pretty good coupons) and one of them had pretty much expired coupons.  Then  I was going to attempt to put them all away, but I haven't been feeling tip top shape lately.  Blame it on over exercising, lack of sleep, lifting things that are too heavy, whatever.  But my neck and back hurt so bad I couldn't hardly sit up, at one point in time I was laying on the floor attempting to sort my unfiled coupons (mind you, Ethan was napping because there is no way I would have precious coupons laying out with his rambonksious self).  I ended up giving up trying to file them, and just went through them for stuff I knew we needed.  I always do menu planning for dinners for two weeks at a time, and only buy off what is needed to make those, with few exceptions of stuff I know Ethan likes for lunch, snacks, and the basics (bread, butter, milk, eggs, etc), so I matched up coupons with what I was getting, plus some coupons reminded me of a few things I needed to get.  I have been trying a new app on my phone called grocery list.  I am not decided yet if I like it or not.  It force closes a lot, and won't allow me to update if I am on the phone and happened to mention something I remembered I needed, and is kind of touchy.  Plus, I don't like that there isn't a coupon section to it or even a bar code scanner section to help me decide which place is cheaper to buy it.  Lucky for me, I did enough price comparisons in the beginning to know what is significantly cheaper at walmart and what is cheaper at HEB.  Just so everyone knows, I am not a huge walmart fan, not because of walmart, but because of my lack of self control to get out of there without buying something that is not on my list.  And I don't think I have ever in the last two years gotten out of there for under $50.  And honestly, walmart supports a bit too much outsourcing etc, so I would rather give my extra penny an item to HEB. Seriously, if it is under 5 cents more expensive at HEB, I will buy it there.  But that's my limit usually.  Sometimes I kick myself because when I make that second trip to Walmart, I realize it was cheaper there, but honestly I am so done with shopping I just want to go home and unload my loot.  And I always feel jipped.  Usually it is like 10 bags for $200-$300 worth of stuff, talk about feeling cheated out of your money.

So back to couponing.  At HEB I saved $14.96 in coupons, but HEB has a recap of what you saved buying their brand and items that are on sale, so total I saved $23.34 at HEB.  At walmart, I saved $11.65.  I wish walmart did like HEB and gave you a recap of what you saved by buying generic.  I am sure I would have saved a whole lot more.  Also, a lesson I learned today: if you accidentally cut off your expiration date, go ahead and throw the coupon away.  They won't accept the coupon if they don't know if it is expired yet.  And another thing, if you KNOW you got something that your coupon should work for, because honestly you have to be SUPER careful when picking out the stuff (size limits, quantity requirements, etc), then FIGHT it, go to your cart, pull out the item and show it to them.  What can they do?  Call over a manager?  Seriously, most of them don't really want to deal with having to wait for a manager when you can prove you got the right item.  (This happened today with a Johnson & Johnson baby wash, I got a 9 oz, the coupon was for $1 off, it said EXCLUDES 1 to 4 oz sizes, well the machine didn't want to take it, she tried to tell me it was only good FOR the 1-4 oz size, I reread the coupon, and argued my point, as nicely as possible, she ended up manually putting it in.  Then she wouldn't take the $1 off some yogurts because of the expiration date, understandable, but sucky because I LITERALLY just clipped that stinking coupon today and its expiration date was mid Feb).

So yes, today I save a total of $38.30, and then some for buying walmarts generic while I was there.  To me, if I can replicate that again next pay period, I will have save up enough to pay for our Internet plus some.  My goal is to save enough to cover Internet, and gas for the month.  That means I need to save roughly $150.  whew, I got a long way to go.