Coupon Excitements and Woes

With the upcoming arrival of a new little baby in our family, with me not working much over the past 9 months, and with remodeling costs that went over budget.... we are recognizing our need to cut costs!  So over the past week I have been collecting coupons, looking at flyers, going online and printing off more coupons.  I even signed up for several emails that give you couponing tips.

Let me set this up by saying, my goal is not to be an extreme couponer.... my goal is to be a good steward of my time and our finances and save some money.  With that being said - after a long morning of organizing all my coupons - I headed out to the stores to get my bargains.

I have mixed feelings about my experience today.... but I know that I am just learning and it will take time to collect coupons, to come up with a system, and to master the tricks of the trade.  Anyway - with that being said - here are a few things that I learned today and in the past about couponing!

1.  Couponing takes time!  It takes several hours to collect and organize, but it took all afternoon to go to all the places that I needed to to get my deals.  I had to plan out my route so that I wouldn't have cold items sitting in the hot car.  I may be a little over sensitive to being on my feet since I am great with child, but I was exhausted when I got home, so much so that some of my groceries are still sitting on the table.

2.  Sometimes you need to spend money to save money....today I saved a lot of money - in fact it was in the hundreds!  I saved 1/3 of my costs today - to that I am very excited, but I spent a ton of money!  And when you spend a moderate amount at five different stores it doesn't seem like as much - until you come home and add up your receipts - then you kinda get sick to your stomach.

3.  Shopping more than once a month can possibly relieve some of that overspending.  We haven't been home much so we haven't shopped for food - let's just say we were low!  So not only did we have to go out and get the staples, we needed to stock our pantry!

4.  Diapers are expensive!  Even with coupons!  We didn't get many diapers for our shower - in fact I only had one small bag of size one - so we needed to stock up - we spend 100.00 on diapers alone.  I did find out that if we sign up for Amazon mom we can get discounted diapers with free shipping but we had some coupons and needed to stock up so we spent the money today - and we did get a lot of diapers - the cost was only 19 cents a diaper when we figured it out.

5.  Don't cut coupons for things you don't normally use..... coupons make you feel like you are saving, however many coupons you have to buy three of the product just to get 50 cents off - it is not worth it - especially if you don't have the storage space, or you aren't sure you will like the product.

6.  CVS - I saved a ton there today but since we are just starting the couponing journey I realized that I was going to have to spend a little to start collecting my extra care bucks - but now that I have a stash of that - it should be much less expensive.

Well - there you have it!  Will I continue to coupon shop?  Yes!  I will just continue to work towards spending less and saving more.   I do feel better now that we are stocked up a bit so I can be making some food and such to freeze for when the little one arrives.