Frugality 101

If you have been reading me for a while then you know that my posting will vary from frugality, to personal issues, to random thoughts. Lately I am on my frugal kick again, so that is what you get. My coupons are finally clipped, sorted and filed, so I am feeling armed and ready to "spend money to save money". I have a few more deals in my head and coupons ready for action.

**** Note: some of these things might be a repeat of things I have said before, but I have had some new requests for my best tips, so here we go again****

I want to go over what I have found to be my number one way to consistently save at the grocery or pharmacy (other than staying home)

The number one thing that had drastically reduced our spending is the smart use of coupons!

My old way of using coupons:
Make grocery list, try to pick as many sale items or store brands as possible, then use any coupons I could for that list. Spend $85.00 at the store and then come home and gloat about saving $4.00 with coupons.

My new way of using coupons:

Buy multiple copies of big city papers, beg for additional copies of coupons from your friends and then clip ALL coupons, even ones I do not think I will use. I then make my lists BASED on my coupons! Go to the store, spend $26.00 and come home and gloat (shoot, I gloat in the checkout lane) about saving $45.00 with coupons!

I no longer shop with a long grocery list of things we "need" because of the way I stockpile, I rarely run out of things other than milk. I make my list based on my best coupons matched to the best sale and stock up on whatever that deal is. One week it is pasta, one week cereal, then another it might be toothpaste. Eventually my shelves are stocked with a number of items all bought dirt cheap! (remember I will not pay anything for toothpaste anymore)

If you missed my post about coupon sorting and filing, then click here and check out how I manage my coupons.

I am sure if you looked in my cart at WalMart you would wonder why I shop the way I do. The other night I bought 6 packages of various pasta because I had great coupons. Those go on the stockpile and I will not pay full price for pasta for a very long time.

If you missed my stockpile post, then click here and here. I can tell you that since that was posted in July the items have changed somewhat because of things we have consumed or donated, and other items have replaced them, but I am just about as stocked now as I was then. Just the actual inventory has changed. I may have slowed down a bit through all of my health issues, but the shelves are far from bare.

Since that post we have been able to donate many many items and before shopping this way we never had extra to give and could not afford to go out and buy things for others. Plus, as I have said before, I LOVE shopping in my basement when we want toothpaste, shampoo, cereal, or various other items.

I do not want to bore you with my shopping frenzy, but I just cannot tell you what a blessing this change has been for my family. I never ever thought that by buying brand names and using coupons we would be able to save so much. I never thought that our over all budget would improve and that we would finally be actually saving more in the bank than before.

Want more frugality posts? Any specific topics ? If I don't have the answer I probably know of a blog to point you to.