Coupon Clipping is Back In Style Article

If you are visiting my blog after reading the article from The Houston Chronicle and Ultimate Woodlands

Welcome!

I'll give you a quick tour of my blog so you can go straight to the post you came here to read.

If you are looking for ABC's of Couponing go click here.



If you are looking for the recipe for homemade laundry detergent click here.



If you are looking for the post on how to save money on your electric bill click here.



Other money saving ideas can be found at each of those links.



Feel free to take a look around.



If you come here often and wonder what is going on. Well, go read this article about my couponing efforts.



If you have a money-saving idea. Write it in the comments.

ABC's of Coupons

This is a picture of the zipper binder that I keep my coupons in. I'm a coupon clipper, but I am by no means the Queen of Coupons. You know those you see on TV who buy a cartload of groceries and only pay $4.62. That just never happens to me, but I try my best to match up coupons to sales. I take my binder with me to the store if I come across a good deal on an item and I can quickly check for a coupon. I have a Kroger near my house and usually shop there. They double coupons up to .50. So a .50 coupon will become a $1.00 off and I like that.



Now for a peek inside the binder. I have an alphabetical listing of general products in the store and the aisle they are on if I get stumped and can't find something. Next I have an alphabet index that I use. I have tried various ways of organizing coupons over the years and found that by filing them by the first letter of the product name made it much easier to find when I'm in the store.



I use baseball card holders to put my coupons in. I try and make sure the product name and the expiration date is easily visible. It requires some creative folding sometimes. Wal-mart carries the baseball card holders.


In the back of my binder I do have a few tabs that I use frequently and place a variety of different products in them. ie. Pillsbury, Kraft, and paper products and soap/detergent. I'm usually not brand loyal with paper products and soaps/detergents. I buy what is on sale and what I have a coupon for.

I will admit that it takes some time to keep this organized and occasionally I'll fall behind with the "stuffing" part. But over all this binder system has saved us quite a bit of money over the years at the grocery store and drug store.

Also, another tip: If you have a coupon organizer put your name and phone # on it or in it.
I've had the store call me and tell me my binder was there. I had left it in the cart I used and at checkout they had bagged my groceries in the cart in front of me.

A Blurb from the Burbs - II

I came across this great way to save on lunch meat and just had to share. While watching Good Morning America (Paige's favorite) one morning, they had a segment on saving money at the grocery store. Those segments always intrigue me so I made sure I paid attention. They had this family on...you know the family of six who only spends $300 per month on groceries blah blah blah.... The husband of the family suggested that you purchase a cooked ham and have them slice it at the deli counter. Yes, shopping is a family affair at their house....not ours....trust me. When Buster goes to the grocery store we have to get Mapquest involved.

Sooo, I decided to try this. I went to my Kroger and back in the meat section like where the bacon and pre-packaged lunch meats are I found a cooked Jennie-O Turkey Ham. It weighed two whole pounds. It was $4.99. I thought that was really good $2.50 a pound. I went back to the deli with my 2 pound turkey ham and asked the nice young man behind the counter to slice it thin for me and he kindly obliged. So if your kiddos like ham sandwiches in their lunch...try this for some $$$$ savings. Remember go to the deli to get it sliced not the meat counter.

P.S. If I can get this family of four down to a $300.00 grocery bill, you can bet I'll be blogging on that ;)

E-bates

Since I'm blogging about being green in the suburbs, one of my favorite "green" things is cold hard cash. I'm a stay-at-home mom so I don't generate much income for our household. If an item has a rebate attached to it, I always send in the rebate if I get back more than the price of the stamp :)

Recently I learned about the Ebates website. I have the link over in the right column just scroll down until you see "My Favorite Websites". I do a lot of online shopping. My husband seems to think I spend most of my days at the mall shopping. Not True! I can shop sitting in my study at my own computer. No need to drive down there in our gas-guzzling SUV. Anyway, back to ebates. You simply link over to the website and the registration is free. They give you $5.00 for signing up. There are over 900 stores on the ebates site and you simply find the store you want to shop from and link to it. Ebates tracks your purchases and gives you a rebate based on what you spent at that store. The rebates are mailed quarterly. They actually send you a check. I'm so excited. I have $15.00 and something cents already in my account and trust me that total will grow. ;)

Link over from my site and check it out and don't forget to go to your ebate account everytime you shop online. Happy Shopping!!