Better Than I Thought

To be quite honest I thought Sunday was going to be a dull and uneventful day. It wasn’t!

My grandma and I drove across town to the 7-11 to get some Sunday papers and then we stopped by my favorite store, Fresh & Easy, to pick up some breakfast claws (so delicious!) Unfortunately the papers were missing some coupons (coupon thieves at 7/11 probably) so my mom and I stopped by the Village Market to get new copies. While we were there we stopped by the brand new Farmer’s Market; it was the inaugural weekend of the new program. There wasn’t a lot there but we did buy some hummus (which was delicious) and walk around to every booth. There wasn’t a lot there but there were a lot of people and since it’s going to be going on every Sunday it should only grow. I’m rather looking forward to it!

We also made trips to Walgreens, CVS and Wal Mart that morning. We ended up going back to CVS and Walgreens due to some really amazing coupons that allowed me to get some new shampoo and conditioner (a very lovely experience this morning, and they are organic) and some new lipstick. The rest of the afternoon was spent having a video chat with Jeff via Skype and couponing. Overall not a bad day at all!

I attempted to put some some curl in my hair today but it just was not having it. As soon as I put it up in a lovely little ponytail and sprayed hair spray on it it pretty much came undone. Instead of curly it was just vaguely wavy. And thin. I should have put the thickening product in it today but I was so engrossed in the lovely smell from my new shampoo and conditioner that I didn’t want to risk it with more product.

Work was pleasant enough. The couple who brought in their six kids last week came in again today but only brought one kid with them, and she was super quiet. I had some down time and was able to catch up on all the news from the WWDC. I even made a few quick phone calls to Jeff to excitedly tell him about some of the new features coming out in Lion and iOS5. I know, I know… I’m a nerd.

This week I’m going to try to convince my boss to let me make a website for him. He’s really stuck in the past and really is not a tech-savvy person, but I’m hoping I can convince him to give it a shot. We’ll see!

Virgin Couponers

A short while ago I heard about a show on TLC called Extreme Couponers. This happened while I was at my favorite gossip site, ONTD. Reading the entire thread there lead me to doing a little searching on the Internet. Instantly I was introduced to this online community where people are positively obsessed with coupons! It was love at first clip sight!

The next time I went home to my parent’s apartment I found the show on repeat and watched in pure enrapture. I can’t remember if it was Jeff or me or even both of us who made fun of these people for their massive coupon binders, but there was something rather enigmatic about them. And I’ve been a sucker for office supplies since I was a kid (I know, weird). An obsession began.

Jeff wasn’t all that into it at first but at his next grocery shopping trip, when he saw how much money I saved him (I think it was around $40 saved) he just got it. We started searching for coupons together. Then came the most logical next step:

Okay, so this isn’t our actual binder (credit below!) but it’s pretty similar. We’re using a 1” lime green binder with a various assortment of plastic pockets (which are really difficult to find, let me tell ya!) that we searched for at 5 different stores. I also made section dividers in Photoshop, which I’m actually going to post as a download, in case anyone is interested (though only two people know about my blog, so…. yeah).

Now, in a perfect world (dare to dream) we would eventually have a stockpile that resembles this:

But we’re not quite to the point yet where we’re getting stuff for free, so stockpiling is out of the question. At least for now. We are, however, making a great savings!

I’ve always helped Jeff with his weekly grocery shopping and he always tends to spend a lot. We’ve always taken advantage of using our Ralphs card and using the rewards check we get every quarter; this usually is between $8 and $14. However, we weren’t taking advantage of the coupons that came with the rewards check, nor were we going through the coupons that came in the mail, in the papers, or online (though, to be fair, we only just found out about the ones online).

The couponing is fun and we definitely like watching the final purchase amount go down, down, down! It’s almost like a game. We have everything scanned and look at the final price. Then we swipe the club card followed by the coupons. During a recent shopping trip, Jeffrey saved a total of $70. Now we’re getting into the habit of only buying what we need for a day or two (rather than a week at a time) and making sure most of our purchases have accompanying coupons. It’s changing the way we’re eating a bit, but I have to be honest – there were more vegetables in the last meal we made than we’ve had in a while. And the food was delicious!

Once I get our coupon binder looking as pretty as possible I will definitely be posting some pictures. I was kind of surprised at how shy I was about bringing it to the store with me, but I just reminded myself that if anyone thought I was being silly I could just laugh right back at them because we’re saving so much money!

And I promise, I will never become like this lady:

Photo Credits:

http://kiddiescornerdeals.com/2010/12/tlc-premiere-extreme-couponers/

http://katycouponers.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-be-couponer-lesson-3-how-do-i.html

http://www.tightwadinutah.com/2010/12/extreme-couponing-new-tv-show-on-tlc.html