Weekly Savings: $83.59

I've decided to get serious about the colorful sheets of paper that so many people discard upon opening their Sunday paper. I see one color when I look at those inserts - green. I'm talking about the coupons found in the Red Plum and Smart Source Sunday paper inserts. I've heard of people buying as many as 10 Sunday papers in one week, but I'm sticking to 2 for now. 10 papers is a little too intense for me, considering the fact that I'm only buying for myself and not a family of 5 or 6. I found out this past weekend that you can buy newspapers in packs of 2, lowering the cost from $3.00 to $2.50/each. My envelope system I mentioned in an earlier post, here, was not efficient with the number of coupons I had and I found myself getting frustrated/overwhelmed because I couldn't easily see what I was working with. I took my friend Courtney's advice and bought baseball trading card sheets at Wal-Mart. One of the best ideas, ever! It was about $5.00 for 35 sheets, each with 9 slots. If you're having a hard time picturing these, see a picture here. I found an old 1" binder with some dividers and started to categorize my coupons by the insert they came from (Red Plum, Smart Source, printed online, etc.) and by the date the insert came out (3/7, 3/14, 3/21, etc.). Within those categories, I categorized them again by type (frozen foods, cleaning, health/beauty, etc.) I know it seems borderline OCD (maybe it is...) and like a lot of work, but it's not that bad. I just flip through the inserts, cut out the coupons I want and place them in piles as I go along. When I finish cutting my coupons, I pick up the stack of frozen food coupons and put one in each a slot on my baseball card trading pages. Then I pick up the cleaning coupons and continue to do the same thing until all of my coupons have been filed. One of the things I quickly learned from the blogs I follow is that the couponers of the world have their own lingo. For example, when they tell you about a deal, they'll write "Use $1/1 Q - 3/7 SS" which translates to "Use the $1 off 1 _____ (whatever the product is) coupon from the March 7th Smart Source. It is for this reason that I categorize my coupons by the insert and then the date.

I kept my binder in the car this week and took it with me whenever I went to the store. Here are my savings for the week:

Kroger: I received the Kroger ad in the mail on Wednesday and did some prep work before heading to the grocery store. Kroger was having a March Madness promotion, where you would receive $4 off your bill if you bought 8 participating items. I looked at the participating items and compared them to the coupons I had. To save time, I took out the coupons I would need and placed them in an envelope. To avoid a run in with my ADD and to stay on track, I wrote down the items I would buy and the quantity I would need of each in order to qualify for the March Madness promotion. I got to the store and went through my list, item by item. I went to check out, gave the cashier my coupons at the end of the transaction and watched the total drop. I ended up buying everything shown below for $9.40, and saved myself $22.59 when everything was said and done.

Regular Price: $31.99. My Price: $9.40. Total Savings: $22.59.

Walgreens: I went to Walgreens to return a DVD I rented from RedBox and decided to go inside to see if there were any good deals to be had. I have a tendency to leave my make-up bag in the car, which isn't good news for my mascara when it's 32 degrees outside. For that reason, I can't ever have enough mascara. Revlon products were 40% off and Rimmel products were 50% off. I had coupons for both lines. I bypassed the Rimmel mascara packages at the front of the row and grabbed the mascara package with the bonus eye liner. I also wanted some Spring colored nail polish and snagged one from Revlon. Walgreens had a store coupon for $0.49 Reese's peanut butter cups and I had a manufacturer coupon for $0.55 off, (most stores allow you to stack store coupons and manufacturer coupons, and will also reduce the value of the manufacturer coupon if it is higher than the value of the product), making my Reese's FREE! Overall, I spent $4.98 and saved $9.78.

Regular Price: $14.76. My Price: $4.98. Total Savings: $9.78.

Target: Target has some really great deals this week and after looking at my coupons, I decided to participate in two of them. They are advertising a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal on their Ore-Ida Potatoes. I had 2 - $1/1 coupons, get yours here, for the new Ore-Ida Steam n' Mash potatoes and Target had them 2 for $5, regularly priced at $3.49. With my two coupons, I would end up paying $1/bag. I grabbed 3 bags and headed over to their health/beauty section. Target also has their tampons advertised for $6.99 (regularly $8.99) this week, and you'll receive a $5 gift card if you buy two. That's a pretty good deal, but I also had some coupons, making the deal even sweeter! I had 2 - $2/1 coupons (remember, you can use one manufacturer coupon per purchase) to use, turning the $6.99/box into $4.99/box. This combined with my $5 gift card that I would receive, made it $4.99 for 2 boxes of tampons.

Regular Price: $28.45. My Price: $7.99. Total Savings: $20.46.

Staples: I've been wanting a flash drive for a while, but have been putting it off because they are kind of pricey. I saw that Staples was advertising a 4 GB flash drive, regularly priced at $29.99 for $14.99. Not only would you get $15 off the retail price of the flash drive, but you would also get a $10 gift card to use towards your next purchase. It was like paying $4.99. I also found a 15% off coupon (expires 3/23) and printed it off before I left. After everything was said and done, I paid $3.79 (tax included) for an item that would have normally set me back $32.46 (tax still included).

Regular Price: $32.46. My Price: $3.79. Total Savings: $28.67.

I also went to Rita's with the McCurdys for our FREE regular Italian Ice in honor of the first day of Spring. It was ironic that it was snowing on the first day of Spring and was 33 degrees when we were eating our Italian Ice, but hey, it was fun and FREE, two things I love!

Regular Price: $2.09. My Price: FREE. Total Savings: $2.09

WEEKLY TOTALS:

Total Regular Price: $109.75. Total My Price: $26.16. Total Weekly Savings: $83.59.