Confessions of a frugal mom

okay in response to many questions about how I do it? Where do I get coupons?Money saving recipes? What sotre? etc...I am going to post some information about the recent shopping adventures I have shared on facebook & myspace. For those of you who have no idea what i'm talking about. I'm a coupon clipper! It's true *gasp* and yes it does take a minute or two to clip and sort and organize, and it's also true that I run from store to store for a deal but mabye you won't think i'm so crazy once you see my "steals" or deals.
First of all...Where do I get my coupons? From the Sunday paper. I actually have 2 delivered to my house every Sunday. They are only .99 here and always have coupons far past that in savings so really it's kinda silly in my opioin not to get it if you want to save $. I also get coupons from many online sites
http://www.coupons.com/
http://www.smartsource.com/
there are so many of these type of sites and you can always try the brand's site too. Like Kraft.com or Tide.com etc.
one of my favorites and I really hate to share it but it's only right that I do is
http://www.thecouponclippers.com/ now this site you do have to pay for your coupons but it's so awesome when you find a great deal to be able to log on here and order 5,10, or even 20 more of these coupons for a few pennies. I opened the Sunday paper 2 weeks ago and saw $1.50 off Kraft dressings and knew that was an awesome coupon because Wal*mart sales them for $1.58 so that's .08 cents for dressing now I only get 2 papers and 2 dressings at .08 cents each is a pretty good deal but I logged on to the clippers and got 10 more for .15cent each. so 10 more bottles at .23 cent each is not to shabby but wait! Harris Teeter (a local grocery store) has them this week for $1.41 a bottle! WOO HOO free dressing! I got 12!!! Who want's salad? This particular coupon took the entire $1.50 off my total so I did even regain most of the .15 cents for the coupons I bought back. How do you know when stores have good sales or are doubling even tripling coupons? Well part of being frugal is doing a little research, again with the Sunday paper always a good starting point to see what is on sale and where. Know your store's coupon policy... Harris Teeter doubles up to .99 everyday, Farm Fresh doubles up to $1 on Wednesdays, Kroger doubles up to .50 everyday. When I say up to I mean if the face value is .99 cents your getting 1.98 off! Another extremely valuable resourse is the internet and sites like this one. http://www.frugalcouponliving.com/ or http://www.slickdeal.net/ there are a ton of these out there. just google something like {frugal mom or walgreens ad 5/17} and see what pops up helpful to you. Sondra I found this one for you hope it helps as i'm not familar with any of your local stores. http://athriftymom.com/2009/05/my-albertsons-post-is-back/
What Stores? I have found my best deals at Walgreens, Rite-aid, Harris Teeter, Kroger, Farm Fresh & Super Kmart. But I hear CVS is awesome and sometimes Food Lion is worth a visit.
Here are some examples of awesome shopping trips I have made. I know the items are a bit random but when you pay next to nothing for them STOCK UP and don't worry about buying them later. If it's free but not something you would use get it anyways and donate to foodbanks, pet shelters, nursing homes or sell them in yard sales. I have got diabetes meters in the past that were only $15 dollars on sale but had $45 dollar off coupons for them. Would you believe I bought the meter and $36 dollars worth of "other stuff" and only paid $6!!! the other $30 dillars from those $45 coupons came off my total purchase and the coupons were FREE in the store that was selling the Meters!!! Thanks again rite-aid *wink* I did that a few times that week it was too fun not too and completely legal!

Today I saved $75.14 at Harris Teeter the total before was $82.15 and I saved 46.62 using coupons (most of them doubled) and $28.52 with the VIC card (it's their store card). I must say that I think it's insane these items would have cost over $80 if I had not had coupons. Are there people who pay these prices? I do typically buy NON-sale items at the commisary and this would have been more like $40 I bet but still I only paid $7.01 out of pocket and recieved a coupon for $2.50 off my next purshcase at Harris Teeter. Anyways here's the breakdown of this purchase. The cheese products were buy 2 get 3 free up to 10. Same with the BBQ sauce. Now crazy thing about this is even though it's buy 2 get 3 free you can still use a coupon for each item and when I walked into the cheese fridge today they had peelie coupons for .50 off 1 cheese. WHAT! that doubles to $1 here so I'm about to pay $6.60 for 5 things of cheese and get $5 off!

I got 10 couldn't help myself and cheese freezes just fine (I do it all the time) the BBQ sauce had .35 coupons on the bottles which doubled to .70 and again you can use all 5 so the 2 $1.71 bottles of bbq sauce = $3.52 and 5 coupons at .70 each = .02 for 5 bottles. The dressing was the last of my $1.50 coupons they were B1G1 free (if you only get one most of the time you only pay half) so 1 bottle was 1.41 and my coupon was for $1.50 off FREE! wekk actually a money maker :) The bagelfuls are yummy and I had a .75 cent off making it 1.50 off and paid 1.50 for them and the Tide is on sale for 5.99 and if that wasn't a good deal already I had a $1 off coupon for that too. The Banana was not on sale and there were actually 2 of them but Chloe ate one on the way home. I can't leave a grocery store with her and not have a banana she's crazy about them and how can I say no? Add taxes and minus the $2.50 coupon from a previous purchase and wala $7.01! I can't even get the bottle of tide for that most of the time. I love the Cold water Tide it's good for our planet and my gas bill. Hope this helps and don't hesitate to ask questions I don't mind sharing what I can.