My latest hobby

Buying as much stuff as I can with as little money as possible. Otherwise known as couponing :)

As of now, Walgreens is my favorite store. Does everyone know that they give away products free after rebate (known as FAR in the couponing world) every month? In that alone, I have enough make-up and shampoo to last me for a long while. Even with just these products, if you add in coupons, you can actually make money off of this. How great is that? A store is PAYING me to take their products! Above and beyond FAR items, many items go on sale for equal or less than coupon value. For example, take a look at this picture of stuff I just bought last night:


Exedrin PM, 6 (yummy) candy bars, a bouncy ball, and 2 decorative flowers (for Ellie's room). I "purchased" all of this for a measely $.92. Almost all of that was tax. The excedrin and candy bars were free with coupons, buying the excedrin gave me a coupon for $1 off your next order, and I used that to buy the decorative flowers (which were on clearance for $.50 each). The bouncy ball was also on clearance for $.25, and I threw that into the first purchase so my total wouldn't be negative, because Walgreens doesn't allow negative balances before tax (this is called a "filler item" in the coupon world). Catch all that? Isn't it fun? I'm not even going to share the bundles of stuff I "bought" from Walgreens last weekend when they had a $10 off your purchase of $40 coupon.

Here is last night's grocery run. I had gone "real" grocery shopping earlier in the day and saved over 50% on my bill, but this was a late-night run with some coupons that I didn't bring earlier. My grocery store doubles coupons with up to $1 value (so $2 doubled) on Wednesdays (with some rules and stipulations). This is what I bought last night:


6 boxes of Cleanteam flushable wipes
10 refills of Cleanteam flushable wipes
3 loaves of Sara Lee 100% whole wheat bread
1 gallon of Deans skim milk
3 Reach dental floss
1 Aquafresh toothbrush
1 Pillsbury crescent rolls

My total before coupons? Over $60. After coupons, $6.78. Amazing, right? Do you see why I am so into couponing? (Did I just make a noun into a verb?) Usually I'm not able to acquire mass amounts of something, like the wipes, but someone gave me a bunch of coupons for them.

I have a lot of help from various websites where people gather to share deals. If anyone is interested in me helping them get started, let me know! I won't bore everyone with my methods. As long as no one lives near me and takes all my deals, I will be happy to share ;) It's just a great way for me to productively use my free time after the kids go to bed, and save our family some needed money!