Saturday Savings Smorgasbord – The Coupon Edition #3
By now you know that I'm a big fan of using coupons. I think it is a frugal no-brainer.
Yes, it takes a bit more time and effort. Yes, it takes creativity. But when you start to look at it as a game - seeing how much you can get for how little - you'll often find rebating, bargain shopping, and coupon clipping can be extremely exhilarating.
Best of all, contrary to popular opinion, using coupons doesn't mean you feed your family primarily junk food. Instead it can be just the opposite. The money that you save by using coupons and rebates can substantially lower your grocery budget in certain areas (like household products) so that you have extra to spend on higher quality things in other areas (like meat, produce, and dairy).
For instance, take a look at what Catherine bought for under $35 this week. Yes, she did visit four stores and yes, she did put some extra time and effort into it, but I'd say her end result was worth the extra effort.
Our family eats very little processed food and tries to buy as much high-quality meat, dairy, and produce as possible. Because we never pay close to full price on many items, thanks to combining coupons and sales and getting things free at CVS, we have extra money in our $35/week budget to buy organic hormone-free milk and eggs from a local dairy.
We also like to eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables so we've learned to be creative and buy what is in season and on sale and scour our stores for reduced produce. When it comes to meat, we often buy it reduced and have found a number of ways to stretch it as far as it can go.
Want more ideas? Here are just a few other great grocery saving posts from the blogosphere this week:
Try gleaning.
If you have some extra money to spend and want to eat only organic, follow Kimi's lead and look for a health food store going out of business.
Want more like this post? Read on!
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One Response to “Saturday Savings Smorgasbord – The Coupon Edition #3”
November 4th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Crystal, I *really* appreciate your point about having more money to spend on organic foods when you can coupon health and beauty products for minimal cost.
Since we have health issues, we coupon almost exclusively for health, beauty, and cleaning products–and it’s a big, big savings to us.
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