It's Mama D again! I hope you are having a wonderful Saturday afternoon. I am thankful for the extra few minutes of sleep I got this morning, but still had to get up early. My little darlings work Saturdays at a farm not far from here. They mostly help two elderly (70+y/o who believe they are 30y/o) plant thousands of flowers.
We stopped at the gas station for a few minutes, while paying for gas I noticed the iced Coke box was full of bottle caps. Vicious and Diva told me the other day they needed bottle caps for a project they wanted to try. So, feeling brave, I asked the clerk if I could have them. What a blessing! They gave me all they had and would have given me more but couldn't find the full box they kept behind the counter. (Reminder to self: stop by this store to check on bottle caps, often.)
The burst of adrenaline I received after claiming the bottle caps carried over into my grocery planning. For a few weeks now, Vicious and I have been studying the wonderful world of extreme couponing. My youngest sister and her friend are really inspirational with their couponing stories. My sis stopped by last week to give us a brief tutorial while she was in town for the day. Today, I planned to only focus on one store. Harvey's.
I am currently following www.southernsavers.com (SS) and their step-by-step couponing suggestions. I made my shopping list based on what SS had listed as Harvey's best deals and I sorted out the coupons (also suggested by SS) to match with those deals. My oldest baby girl, Diva, helped me cut and sort and prepare our couponing notebook. Then we planned how we were going to hit the store :) I felt slightly devious planning to get FREE stuff from one of my favorite shopping haunts.
First stop in Harvey's was the store's salespaper rack to make sure we got the right products. (I hate being embarrassed at the checkout.) Then Diva practically raced to the store coupon kiosk to swipe our savings key. Tickled about the savings that printed out, she punched in our phone number and got a second copy of the coupons. (She probably shouldn't have done that, but she was having fun.) Putting Diva in charge of the notebook helped me to stay focused on staying calm and not being overwhelmed. I had hoped we would only take 30 minutes, but considering we double-checked the deals and products AND prices to make sure we had everything right, it took us one hour.
We pulled up to the check out and the manager personally assisted us. He noticed our notebook and asked if we were extreme couponers. I quickly replied with a devilish grin, "Not yet, but we are working on it. Give us a couple of months!" So, that opened the conversation of the Extreme Couponing show on tv, and a variety of other shows on the same channel. Then as he finished closing out our purchases, I asked him for the total. $216 and some change. Then I handed him my savings key, the coupons that needed to be doubled, and then the other coupons. My savings key alone saved us $70+!!! then the other coupons brought our savings total to $82.66!!! This is the most I have ever saved in one shopping trip! I was ecstatic!!
A gentleman behind me was ribbing the manager for taking so long with my large order. (He is a very talkative manager.) The older lady also behind me, whom I recognized from the laundry mat in the same shopping center, asked where I got all of my coupons. I gladly shared with her www.southernsavers.com.
So, although I did not walk away with $216 of merchandise for $10 or less, I did walk out of the store with a lighter step, confidence that I can coupon like a pro, and almost $83 in free groceries!!!
I look forward to my next shopping trip. I hope to be savings-savvy soon! Good luck on your own couponing attempts!!!
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