Month 2 finished, and i've saved $444.

I might raise my goal from 1000 to 1500.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-BsjPjm2....

230$ down to just over 6$....

Looks like a bunch of processed crap. I may have missed the veg cause I didn't see any.

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Looks like a bunch of processed crap. I may have missed the veg cause I didn't see any.

Yep, that's right, everything purchased with coupons is processed crap and poison. Don't ever use coupons. They're just awful. Please don't use them. I'm having enough trouble with stock issues as it is; the more people who cling to your mistaken beliefs, the more shampoo, toilet paper, rice, coffee, pasta, tuna, and veggies will be left on the shelf for me.

Oh, also, please continue to base your knowledge on staged reality shows.

This ^^^^

Something tells me it's not wise to cross Chellie on a subject she knows well.

If you are looking for books....including out-of-print books....textbooks, etc....This website...which is a search engine of 130 bookstores & 80,000 booksellers....will definately save you money....
http://www.BookFinder4u.com/

In addition....for more possible savings you can run the lowest priced websites that come up for your particular book thru http://www.RetailMeNot.com to see if there is an available coupon code....Sometimes the second lowest (or thrid lowest) on BookFinder4U will end up at a better price that way for you....For example....typing in "BN.Com" for Barnes & Noble on RetailMeNot today has a 10% coupon code showing....Borders.com has a 33% off one item coupon code showing....

I used that website every semester while my boys were in college....I saved a TON of money doing so....Then I turned around and sold the textbooks on Amazon at the end of each semester....oftentimes making money because I purchased so well....

One warning on textbooks though....stay away from International Editions unless you know for sure that it is IDENTICAL to the US Edition....I tried it three times (all in one semester) and only one book was actually exactly the same....I didn't do that again because there was no way of being sure without receiving the book(s) and looking at them....

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Something tells me it's not wise to cross Chellie on a subject she knows well.

Fixed it for ya!

@ Mari!!


BTW, if anyone caught the couponing show on TLC last night - no, I won't be on that show; no, I don't shop like that; and no, my house doesn't look like that.

Yea, I watched it. Interesting. I wish my house looked like that. :P

I don't much have the patience to clip tons of coupons.
If I see one or two half off of something I use I will pursue the deal.

For now I have returned to the world of Dumpster diving early Monday mornings before the scoops come to take it all away and bury it.
I may make it a weekly outing instead of Bi-Monthly.

After I give my best friend $500 to hold on to,...purpose: bail me out of jail
if I get caught violating ordinances.

Anecdote:
now they do like during the depression and dump milk in the streets or set piles of vegetables on fire with kerosene under armed guard/secure compactor.

Grocery stores now would rather throw away than mark down for immediate sale prior to expiration 20 cases of 1 pound prepackaged Oscar Mayer lunchmeat (each case of 12 is a $60-$80 value after ringing them up +sales taxes to customers at register).

I smell a tax write off somehow that WE ALL PAY FOR behind that.

Rotisserie chicken breast sandwich anyone?

I was pointed to this thread by Timbo after a post in The Bar. I was watching this show called "Extreme Couponing" and it blew my mind watching these people work coupons like they do. I also didn't see the sense in some of the things they purchased but after checking Chellie's blog and noticing the post about the show and reading, it's a little more clear as I thought some of what I saw on the show bordered on hoarding or just buying something "just because".

Chellie, what got you started?

Colk, my Gram clipped coupons when I was a wee tot. She's 80 and still does today. I grew up with it. I also grew up with the mindset to buy extras when something is cheap and to have nonperishable food and paper products on hand at all times "just in case."

So coupons are just how I was raised, though no one in my family did the "extreme/hardcore" couponing. It was just - you get the coupons out of the Sunday paper, cut out anything that looks good, and use one coupon at a time. Normal couponing, y'know?
I was reading something somewhere online and it included a Youtube video of a lady checking out at the grocery store. She had bags of food, and after she handed over her coupons her total went down by like 75%. That was my first exposure to "extreme" couponing. I wanted to save that kind of money too, so I read countless couponing websites until I understood the math and strategy behind it all.

The grocery trips aired on "Extreme Couponing" were completely atypical. That's not how things really work.
The one lady with a bunch of kids - she was playing by the rules and hers was accurate, though they didn't account for some total purchase coupons she was using. She really did pay very little in cash for the items and did so legitimately, but she was also using rewards from Walgreens (allowed at her store) and other "$X off your next purchase" coupons from earlier trips to bring her cash owed down as low as possible.
The coupon fraudster and the lady who had to call her friends to rush down to the store, though - those aren't legitimate trips and your average shopper won't get totals like that. Not with groceries.

For the most part I'm content to save an average of 50% off our grocery bill. Sometimes it's much more, rarely is it less.

chellie,

post your blog link

I missed the link in prior post

B~

Beignet:

http://angrycheapskate.blogspot.com/

So what are the numbers in the second column?

Part of the UPC - called the family code.

A box of Fiber One cereal has a barcode containing (for example) the numbers 12345. A box of Lucky Charms has the same 12345 in its barcode.
The coupon for Fiber One cereal ($.75 off 1 box, which doubles at that store to $1.50 off) has in its coding 12345. Older registers only match up those digits when coupons are scanned, which (allegedly) enabled that shopper to get $1.50 off each box of Lucky Charms/Kix/Honey Nut Cheerios.
She had an entire shopping list with brand name (i.e. Pillsbury) and the family code in the 2nd column. It's kind of a complicated thing, but basically by knowing how to decode the barcode, she was using $1 off 1lb of lunchmeat on 2oz packages, $.55 off more expensive Pillsbury bread on $.99 Pillsbury biscuits, and so on.

Point 1: If you go shopping and buy a box of Cheerios and hand the cashier a coupon for Fiber One, they'll notice and reject the coupon.
Point 2: There's a new type of coupon barcode that's been put in place this year that stores a lot more detailed information. It indicates specific product, expiration date, sizes, etc. Stores are upgrading their registers/register software to read the new barcodes which will prevent this type of fraud from happening.


Don't get any ideas. ;) From what I understand there's an investigation happening, and what she did is against the law.

Wonderful. I wonder if the TLC people even realize.

I've always done the same thing and my wife is the same way. One of the things we always stock up on are paper products and laundry detergent. One chain around here runs a sale on detergent now and again, buy one, get two free with no limits(Although they haven't had it as often the last year or so). We usually end up with twelve.

So you basically stumbled upon a method and embraced it. I can certainly understand it and while watching the show I tohught it was a great idea until some flags started being raised, which you explained.

I mentioned it in the thread I started but I figured there was a made for TV/good theater aspect to that show. I worked in retail some time ago and the subconscious manager in me(That still compels me to straighten shelves in stores years later) was seeing things that didn't look terribly realistic to me or just sent up flags.

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Wonderful. I wonder if the TLC people even realize.

Yup. They may have received a "few" viewer complaints.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/04/14/tlc-co....

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So you basically stumbled upon a method and embraced it. I can certainly understand it and while watching the show I tohught it was a great idea until some flags started being raised, which you explained.

Oh don't misunderstand - those types of shopping trips are entirely possible and can be done legitimately. The problem is that they only come around a couple-few times a year and only when one can line up double coupons with a great sale with a Catalina (the 'save $X off your next order' coupons that print at the register) - and to do those right you've got to do lots of transactions and it takes some time. At one point I managed to save something like 96% off a huge grocery haul, and it was all legit, but I was at 3 different grocery stores on 4 nights that week so I wasn't wiping stores out of anything, breaking the store rules, or*****ing customers off with 80 gazillion transactions. All that basically free coffee and cheese was sooooo worth the effort, though!
The other 49 weeks of the year that kind of alignment doesn't happen, or if it does it's not very exciting. Yay, I got 20 bottles of free hot sauce and a raincheck for free rice!! You can't make a show out of that....

i just bought 20 coupons for $3 off nivea body wash that my gf and i use thru ebay for $10 bucks.

it's on sale for $3 at the grocery store this week, so it's now essentially 50 cents a bottle.

woot.

^^^ and that's how its done!

That's a screaming hot coupon right now, Matt. I already "bought" some at Rite Aid: 4 for $15.96, less $12 in coupons, less $3 off a $15 purchase = $.96, get back a $5 reward.

Check Walmart as well. If they have the stuff for under $3, you can use the "overage" on other items in your basket. For example, if it's $2.97ea, you buy 20 for $59.40 and grab a bottle of dish soap or something for a buck; you get the full $60 in coupons taken off your total. You just have to be buying something else to eat up the overage. :)

how do you "buy" these coupons and get them in time to use them?? also, if the store does not have enough stock, will they issue a rain check along with the ability to get the reward?

My CVS has the Nivea wash for $3.88 but I only have 2 coupons... I was going to get it anyway because 88¢ is a good deal - but y'all are getting it free and then some!!!! WOW!!!

yeah, there are tons of them on ebay and tons of bids.


chellie- do you know anything about buying gift cards on ebay? i'm seeing people bidding over the face value amount for gift cards like target or walmart.

is there some sort of strategy with this?

some require luck, others you just have to gamble with time to expiration.

in the case of the body wash, $3 off is good every day, and twice on sundays.