I haven’t had a chance to blog lately. Couponing takes up a lot of time! Not to mention I have a family and went back to school, online, for my Bachelors degree. So my experience in couponing so far has definitely been trial and error. Our local news paper does not provide a lot of coupons on Sunday if there are any at all. It is hard to coupon if there aren’t any! CVS and Wal-mart have the best deals on non-foods, razors, soap, etc. The first time I went to CVS I saved $27.56 without coupons; they had several buy one get one free items. CVS also gives Extra bucks which are like free coupons to use on anything! And they come in really handy!! My next trip to CVS was a little late in the week so they were out of everything that I wanted, but they offer rain checks so I didn’t leave completely empty handed.
Armed with rain checks, new coupons and ads I went back to CVS. I got two Oral-B toothbrushes for free, saved $9.98 after my rain check bringing the tooth brushes down to $3.00, then two $2.00 coupons and a $2.00 extra buck and I earned a $1.00 extra buck! Then my next purchase wasn’t so great, I brought the wrong coupon…ugg. I had a rain check for Tampax Pearls 18ct at $3.99. I used my $1.00 EB and got them for $2.99, I had a Tampax coupon for a dollar, but I brought the Always coupon instead, because that is what I was going to get the first time I went when I received the rain check, but at the register I changed my mind at the last minute and forgot to swap out my coupon. If I had I would have gotten them for $1.99 instead. I earned $2.00 EB on that purchase which I used on my third purchase because those items were on sale in the store and I didn’t have extra coupons for the items. I saved $6.66 there.
When I was leaving the store I saw a woman carrying a binder, Couponers are so easy to spot! Right away I asked if she had coupons in her notebook. The lady looked a little uneasy at first, but all I wanted to know what where she got her baseball card holders from for her coupons. Then we got to talking about how aggravating couponing really is. LOL! Yes, I said it really is aggravating. It is time consuming, you spend a lot of time cutting and searching and putting lists together. I have gone through a lot of ink printing them off and a lot of time searching for items that I need and can’t find the coupons. I noticed that the women on TV have stockpiles of coupons and spend as many hours searching for coupons as they would if they had a full-time job. I was up at 8:30 the other morning and after 1pm I realized that I was still searching the net for coupons and deals! I’m not willing to put that much time into it, I have to many other obligations. I have done well for myself so far. Before I went to CVS I went to Wal-mart where I saved $16.29 with coupons. I had a couple of buy this item get this item free. Not too shabby for a beginner!
