Clippity, clippity, clop!

I attended a class this week on saving money. Lo and behold the class was actually about clipping coupons and saving money.

The presenter had a table filled with products, cereal, toothpaste, cat treats, tooth brushes, brownie mix, corn muffin mix, to only name a few. She challenged us to calculate what she had spent on the table full of goods.

"$15, $20, $25 etc" were amounts shouted out by the audience.

"No" she said "$.38"! Yes she said 38 cents. Then she showed us the register receipt to prove it.

I was amazed. I always fondle the flyers that come in the Sunday paper. Sometimes I clip, then those coupons sit on the table for a few days, then I move them to another spot, then I can't find them, then I forget about them and then months later, I come across them and they are all expired! Duh! Why bother?

Well, I did a little experiment. For starters, she advised us to shop where the coupons are doubled up to 99 cents. i.e. Giant Eagle. Now I don't like the "bird" store, for many reasons that are unimportant, but their prices are higher than everyone else's prices. They have to pay for what they lose on gas prices somehow.

She advised us to only take the coupons for products that we actually like and use, to stockpile, not to buy produce at the "Bird" store, but to buy produce at Aldi's or Marc's, take an envelope with those specific coupons in it, write on the outside of the envelope what the sales are etc.

More info than I could retain at once, but I thought, "what the heck". So off I went to Giant Eagle. I purchased the items that were on sale that I knew were good prices, and the Buy One, Get One Free. I spent $43.34 and saved an additional $24.73. Hey, maybe she has something here. I then came home and clipped coupons. From flyers that were from two Sunday papers ago. I got a whole stash. I did not sort them however, oh and I clipped the Walgreen ones per her instructions. I went to Walgreens and spent $62 and change, I totalled up and saved over $25.00. Next I went to Walmart with the coupons that were over 99 cents, like $1.00, $1.25, $1.50 and $2.00. Again, I spent $60 some dollars, but came home and tallied and saved another $30 some dollars.

I love to shop, so the shopping part satisfied my inner "shopper's anonymous" addiction but I spent a lot of time searching for stuff in the store, and was disappointed at not finding some things.

Perhaps if I were more organized, had stuff in a holder by category instead of spread out through my purse it would be easier. But the lady standing in line behind me at the Bird store said to me, "How much did you save"? She was amazed and so was I.

In all I saved almost $80.00 and only bought what we would actually use.

Hmmmmm!

Maybe I'll continue this clipping.

Wait now, I think I hear the paper man delivering the Sunday paper, "Hey Tim, don't drop the coupon flyers out of the paper when you bring it up the driveway"!