Weigh In Wednesday & Coupon Extravaganza

Hi all!

Well what a huge wet snowy mess CT is today, woof! It was quite the winter wonderland out there!! I got up early and my mom and I were chatting and enjoying each other's company. I weighed in this morning...REALLY unhappy with myself for letting my weight get back up. The scale said 297.8 today. UGH. I was really upset. And am still really upset. I did splurge a little bit last night. I was running low on healthy food, basically I had no veggies left, etc and the chicken I took out for dinner for me and my mom TWO DAYS AGO...was still freaking frozen SOLID! Ugh. So we ended up ordering chinese. I only ate half my meal and then put it away for lunch today, that was a really good choice on my part! I'm focusing on healthy meals and such this week!!! I'm going to try not and let me beat myself up over gaining weight back...I slipped and now I'm picking myself up, dusting myself off and continuing on my way.

So...WELCOME TO THE FIRST COUPONING EXTRAVAGANZA SEGMENT.

Today, as usual, I went to Target and Stop & Shop for my weekly grocery shopping and couponing extravaganza. I had a lot of great coupons today! I want to start off by giving you some resources that YOU can use for couponing. I know there are a lot of beginners out there who don't know where to start OR they're afraid they're going to get on some phony website and end up with a computer virus. Believe me, I don't want that! So I want to start today's couponing lesson with how to organize yourself to get some deals. I am going to use Target as my example (That's where I always go) but you should use whatever store that YOU like to shop at most often. Walmart, Kroger, Costcos...whatever floats your boat!

Why Target, you might ask? For one thing, they have major deals over grocery stores. Plus, I can get 90% of my food and personal care items...my target is NOT a fresh grocery store but they do have a huge food section with MANY items. But they do not carry fresh produce ( I get all of that at Stop & Shop). I also have a Target Redcard and I get 5% off every time I shop! That's a huge savings on top of what I already save using coupons.

STEP ONE:

First of all, I always start off with my Sunday paper. I know that coupons are regional, some of you don't recieve any OR you don't get a Sunday paper. What I can say is that I only get a paper on Sundays and the amount I save in coupons FAR outweighs what I pay for a paper yearly. 1 year Sunday subscription to the Hartford Courant is approxminate $150 dollars. But you have to understand that last week I saved almost $75 and this week I saved $55...right there is practically the entire subscription cost in just TWO months. If you do this right, you'll more than make back the cost of the paper.

I get a variety of coupons in the paper. I start by grabbing my good old Target circular!! **At this point if you do not have a paper, go online and check out your favorite store's weekly ciruclar. Believe me, I would say 99.9% of stores have these available online now!** This is essential for finding savings! I read the ciruclar to see what is on sale, keeping in mind the things that I need an ALWAYS buy, for example: hummus, 100 Calorie Packs, fruit leather, egg beaters, etc. Then I go through my coupon pages and clip coupons for things I need to buy now AND later. This isn't a difficult exercise. You know what you will need to buy! And if you're not sure, clip it anyway! This really doesn't take my time!

STEP TWO:

After I clip coupons from the paper, THEN I go on Target Coupons.  These are AWESOME because with every item you purchase, Target allows you to use 1 Manufactuer's Coupon AND 1 Target Coupon!! For example, this week I had a Target coupon for $2 Off When you Buy any TWO Skinny Cow Bars. I used this coupon AND I had 2 $1 off One Skinny Cow Bars that I got from taking this silly survey: http://lol.skinnycow.com/. In total, that meant I got $3 off on 2 boxes of bars. The bars started at $3.49/box with 6 snacks in each box. Then you take $3 off, so it's almost like getting a box for FREE.  Total price PER candy is $0.33. WOW! BIG SAVINGS! WOO!

STEP THREE:

Once I have my coupons clipped from the paper and from Target Coupons. Then I go to www.coupons.com. This is a safe site with MANY deals! This is the one I use religiously and it's been great. Go through and pick the coupons you want to print, then send them right to the printer. Easy as pie!

STEP FOUR:

I have two websites that I check on a daily basis: http://hip2save.com/ AND http://www.totallytarget.com/. These people FOR THEIR JOB actually go to stores and find major deals. That takes a lot of time and effort off me. They alert you to deals and specials. I've had a LOT of success with this!

That's it, folks! I organize all of my coupons in a plain envelope. I don't have a binder or anything. I find it easier if everything is in the envelope then I just flick through and get my coupons out. My total today before I had coupons was $215.63. I saved $54.17 with coupons then got an additional $6.44 from using my Redcard. All told, I got weekly groceries PLUS stocked up on 100 Calorie Snack packs, fruit snacks, I got a Real Simple MAgazine (I have a 50 cent off coupon for it), a Paula Dean 12quart Stockpot for myself which was on sale for $25 (and I've been needing one for a long time), 12 Lean Cuisines, tortellini, egg beaters, iced coffee (International Delight), sausage, Tyson Grillers Chicken breast...and many more. I also used the $25 of free gift cards I got from stocking up on items last week...

My total?

Drumroll please...

$126.10

(Now if I could only get my weight there, haha).

 Hope everyone has a great day! If you have ANY QUESTIONS! Leave a message here and I'll be happy to answer them. Also, as I requested before, blogger ate all my blogs I used to follow so if you write a blog, please leave a link so I can add you to my reading list! Thanks!

P.P.S

Look at this sweet stockpot I scored for $25 bucks! I have needed one for a LONG time. And this one matches my pans!! LOVE Paula Dean! THis is still included in my 126.10 too! It's like I got it free with the giftcards I had from last week's trip!!!!!

LOVE!