I'll tell you what, I used to laugh at people who "couponed". I thought that they MUST be breaking some kind of rules to actually be saving any money by buying name brand items and using a coupon. "Ha!" I thought, I can save way more than them by shopping at Walmart and buying store brand. Thank goodness I was brought to my senses. 

Back in the summer a friend of mine who is also on Facebook started posting her weekly sales receipt from Publix. At first I didn't pay much attention, still thought, "She has to be breaking rules of some sort and Publix with their excellent customer service is just letting her slide by so as to not cause a scene." After seeing pictures of her stocked pantry, fridge and freezer I asked her about it. She told me to check out www.southersavers.com. Wow. Who knew. I lived with one of the most coupon friendly stores right in my own town. The very store I so longed to shop at. Publix. 

I have been "couponing" since early October. I haven't spent less, I've just bought more. I wish I had before pictures of my pantry and fridge, but any of my family can vouch for me. I bought what we ate and by the end of the week there was NOTHING left. There were times I fed the kids a can of beans mashed up in a tortilla a called it a burrito. They loved it, but it isn't ideal to not have anything to feed your kids a day of so before shopping day. I would spend an average of $120 a week at Walmart and would hardly have any food. Then I would spend money at Sweetbay for meats for dinner(because they always had the best sales for meat) Last month we spent every last cent of our food budget(it's set by Uncle Sam thanks to this cruddy economy, but we stocked up on some meat and splurged on Publix subs at the end of the month. This month our budget has been reduced by a little over $100. I would have been terrified had this happened a couple months ago. But now I laugh it off because I don't need that extra hundred anymore. If properly rationed we probably have at least a couple months worth of food stored up. 

So is couponing for you? Ask yourself these questions: Do you like to have lots in your pantry? Do you like to save more than you spend? Are you willing to spend a couple hours a week preparing for your shopping day? 

Today I left my house around 11 and didn't get home until 4. But it wasn't a normal shopping day for me. I went to Walgreens, Publix, CVS, WIC(I realized I missed my day to pick up checks last week. oops), stopped at Beth's to drop off my cold stuff, went to a different Publix to use 3 WIC checks and my Purell rain check, a different Walgreens, back to Beth's, the gas station and finally home. Tuesdays are my shopping day  because Chad has school and I don't cook, so it's the perfect day to keep busy outside of the house to help the time pass. Had I had all of my children with me I would have only gone to Publix and home. :o) But Mom and Dad kept the 3 smaller ones today, which was a HUGE help. 

I don't usually "do" Walgreens. Even with all the websites I use it's much more complicated to coupon there. But, I have finally found "the" Walgreens to go to. Third times a charm, right? They were SO friendly, the store was clean and stocked, which is huge, because the other stores I've tried were horrible. 

There were some great deals at Walgreens today, so I really wanted to give it another shot. I started planning a few days ago, checked all my sites to see what the deals were, got my coupons together and started working on my transactions. You see to get the most out of Walgreens(and CVS) you can't just purchase everything in one transaction. You will be paying too much oop(out of pocket).  The thing about Walgreens is their rewards system, called register rewards, isn’t as simple to understand as CVS. If you get a RR(register reward) for buying an Olay product you can’t use it towards another Olay purchase. This is where your resource websites are really important. My favorite for CVS and Walgreens is www.addictedtosavings.com each Monday she comes out with a transaction scenario to get the most out of your weekly deals and to properly roll your RR. I am proud to say that today I used some of hers and all of my own! My total spent oop at Walgreens today:  $29.15. $16.38 of that was food, so actually our Food Stamps paid for it. Which is GREAT for us(or any of your who have them also) because from the food items I bought I received $10 in RR that I can use to pay for non-food items which has to come out of our own budget.  So I only had to spend $12.77 for all of the non-food items pictured and I think I have now made it to the $50 minimum for the Olay $20 rebate. After everything I walked out of there with $5 in RR that I have until December 28^th to spend, but they can’t be spent on a Mars brand product.  ;o)  Oh and I went to two Walgreens. My final transaction at the first Walgreens got my $3 RR for the diapers. The Walgreens I went to first didn’t have Pretzal M&Ms and I had $4 in coupons for them. So I went to a different one and was able to purchase them for only $4.26 oop and I got back another $5 RR.

I did REALLY good at Publix today. I spent $10.20 for my non-food items and $87.51 for my food items. That might sound like a lot, especially if your aren’t used to buying for a large family. But that price included 8 packages of boneless skinless chicken breasts. I also had to purchase creamer, which is over $5 for the large one pictured and I didn’t have a coupon. I would have spent another $63.45 between the two transactions if I didn’t use coupons.  Well, actually I wouldn’t have because I would have shopped at Walmart and starved my family.

My CVS trip this week was a quick run in for toothpaste. Not that I needed more, but it was a way to roll over my ECB(extra care bucks, CVS reward system) into a longer expiring ECB. I paid $1.85(used 2 $.75 off coupons and $2.99 in ECB) and left with $4 in ECB that don’t expire until into January.

So is it worth the time and effort? I guess if money isn’t an issue it’s not. But I still think I would do it because I really enjoy it.