I swore I would never do this...

If you know me really well then you know that my new big thing in couponing. I have really gotten into it! And I swore to myself that I was never going to dedicate a blog post to the deals I'm getting. But today as I was dancing out of the store (that's right... dancing!) I knew I had to blog about this trip. I have to tell SOMEONE about the awesome deals I'm getting- and Eric just doesn't quite get into it like I do. So I'm going to tell whoever is reading this right now.

It's taken me some time to see results, but I am definitely seeing them. And I'm not like some couponers out there who buy something just because it is a good deal. I don't buy something unless it's something that I will ACTUALLY use. I guess I figure that if you buy something you don't normally use, chances are you're going to end up not using it- and even if it was a really really good deal- it's still a waste of money. But maybe that's just me. Eric always says that his grandpa used to say something along the lines of "If you don't NEED it, it's a waste of money- no matter how good of a deal it was." So I ONLY buy things that we use. And with couponing I buy ALOT of it now, so I guess you could argue that it's a waste to buy 5 boxes of crackers when you only go through 1 box of crackers a month, but this way I buy 5 boxes of crackers for pennies and then when I would normally have to go back to the store to buy another box for regular price- I just skip down to my storage room and pull out another box-- I'm mean, it's not like their going to go bad (unless a mouse gets into them or something)! I get things like pasta sauces, pastas, canned goods, jarred goods, dishwasher and laundry detergents, etc- and none of those things are going to go bad before I can use them. By the way, my food storage is AWESOME for a little family of 4! So this is my justification: if I can buy 4 times as much stuff for the same exact price- I'm going to do it!

So today I was able to get some AWESOME deals. Smith's has some major sales going on. So here's what I got



Total at checkout: $67.35
Total I paid: $17.44

I saved $49.91 on groceries today (which, by the way, is a 75% savings!) So how did I do it? By combining coupons with sales. Let's break it down! (oh my gosh I am so nerdy!)

Here is a list of everything I bought and what I paid for it:
* 4 boxes of saltine crackers: .69 cents a box!
* 4 bags of Quakes rice snacks: FREE- I paid nothing for these!
* 4 tubs of "I can't believe it's not butter"- .49 cents a tub!
* 5 boxes of Krusteaz cookie mixes: .49 cents a box!
* 3 pkgs of Solo plastic cups (which will be great for our baby blessing coming up
this summer): .49 cents a pkg!
* 2 Edge shaving creams: $1.25 each!
* Eggs (18 count): $1.89
* Milk: $2.00
* Bananas (not pictured): $1.50
* Tic-tacs: (which were for Sawyer for being such a "good boy while shopping"): .79
cents. (not exactly a great deal but worth it!)

Throw in some tax and I paid $17.44! An average of .67 cents per item! Isn't that CRAZY!!! I love it. Like I said I was dancing out of the store! They were even out of a few items that I need to go back for on Friday (stocking day) that will bring my average even lower!

Now not every shopping trip is like this. But I have noticed enough of a difference that I am going to keep on doing it. Maybe I'll keep doing little updates like this- just so you can see how great it really is- even though I swore I wouldn't. It makes me happy!