It’s Wednesday! I like Wednesdays. My youngest is in preschool, so I get 2.5 hours to do whatever I want. Today, I wanted to pick up my new Safeway ad and flip through it checking out the deals. Is that pathetic? I just enjoy saving!!

To sweeten the morning, I picked up my favorite coffee drink, the Annihilator, from my favorite coffee place, Dutch Bros, courtesy of a gift card sent in the mail by my dear friend Sarah for helping her out on a little project! YOU ROCK, and you KNOW it! (Name that movie.)

So, after dropping off my cutie, with Annihilator in hand, I ran into Safeway to pick up the ad. Then, I went back to sit in the car to see what I could see! I’m such a nerd that I keep my coupon binder with me at all times. Seriously. I always grab it as I’m leaving the house. SUCH a dork.

Anyway, it didn’t take me long to figure out what I was going to purchase and then grab my coupons to match. 10 minutes, tops.

Here’s a tip for you: If you plan on sitting in your car to do this, go ahead and slip the keys OUT of the ignition and put them in your pocket right away so that you don’t accidentally lock yourself out when you get out of the car. Just sayin’. Thankfully, my handsome knight was but a block away and came to my rescue as I was still shopping!

ANYWHO! Since I knew exactly what I was getting, I grabbed it, and attempted to separate the groceries out into two piles since I planned to do two transactions to take FULL advantage of the doublers. Safeway only lets you double up to 4 coupons with their doubler, and only up to 50¢ per coupon at that. But, I’ll take it. There are extra ads near the door, so I grabbed 2 doublers. In the end, I had to do four transactions because a couple of my coupons were being freakish, but whatever. No biggie!

This is what I got:

I’m sorry. Did you see that? I just wanted to make sure that you saw that I spent $5.04. HELLO?!

I took some close-ups of the receipts, but I decided to spare you.

TO BE FAIR, I did have a free milk and $8 in catalinas to spend. PLUS, when you buy 2 Oscar Meyer bacons, another $2 cat prints out (and they are on sale with a Safeway coupon + coupons that came in the Sunday paper). I did 2 bacons in the first transaction, and 2 bacons in the second. I used the first cat for the second transaction, and then the second cat to pay for the 3rd transaction.

Another thing to note is that I used a lot of the Safeway “super coupons” which are just the coupons that come in the ad. Your transaction total has to come to $20 after club card savings, but before coupons to be able to use the super coupons. But, hey, milk makes a good filler item! LOL!

AND, the cookies and frosting were free with overage with sale price + ecoupons loaded onto my card + manufacturer coupons. If I’d had a manufacturer’s coupon, the Bisquick would have been a better deal, but it ended up being .70¢ with ecoupons, so I won’t complain.

T1 = $3.04

T2 = $-.05 (Yes! They owed me 5¢! I donated it. Hee, hee!)

T3 = $0

T4 = $2.00

On a slightly related note, I have discovered something about myself. If there is money in the envelope, I will spend it. See, we use the cash envelope system for gas, groceries, haircuts and “fun money” (and it’s “fun” to buy school pictures and socks and MOPS meetings, etc - anything we didn’t budget for). I had been budgeting $100 a week for groceries (so $400 a month), but I discovered that when there is money in the envelope, I WILL spend it. Yes, we do buy EVERYTHING with that envelope: personal care, dinners out, Christmas presents, etc. (We do have a separate Christmas budget, but we haven’t had to dip into it yet, since we’ve been using leftover grocery money so far.) But, really, I should be SAVING the leftover rather than spending it, don’t you think?

So, I decided that I can feed our family on less than $400 a month. How about cutting that in half? Does $200 a month sound good?

It will be interesting to see how I do with this new challenge. Our “month” goes from the 15th to the 15th, so I filled my envelopes with $50 a week on Monday. I only have $1 and change left for this week. I did a HUGE Albertsons run yesterday for produce and meat, and have been buying up cheap turkeys like a mad woman. I cooked my second one last night, and I have one more thawing in the refrigerator and our freezer is overflowing with meat and veggies. (I could use another refrigerator or perhaps a big freezer. I suppose it’s time to check out Craigs List!) Not to mention the buy 1 pie, get another pie and 2 ice creams deal that ended yesterday! Don’t worry. I put a pie and ice cream in the Thanksgiving basket that we donated through the church.

AND, that’s another thing. Our church does a Thanksgiving basket community outreach project where people who need food for Thanksgiving can call and request a basket. We enjoy this opportunity to teach our children about giving. Yesterday’s Albertsons trip was a lot of Thanksgiving Basket shopping (although I shopped my pantry for some things), so our $50 this week has actually bought food for 2 families, and purchased 3 turkeys. This whole coupon thing is so awesome!

My children are learning so much about spending, saving and giving. They draw me coupons and scope out ads for me. They find coupons when we are in the store, and on the backs of cracker boxes. It’s really funny! When I’m flipping through my coupon binder, they are always asking if they can have some coupons. It wouldn’t surprise me if they played “store” at school and used coupons! LOL! AND, when people come to the door collecting food for the food bank, we have plenty to offer. It feels good to be able to give away some of what we have been blessed with.

I’m almost done, I promise.

I thought I should point out that the Krazy Coupon Ladies came out with a brand new ebook. I haven’t purchased it, yet, but it looks like it is filled with valuable information. The KCLs are the gals who taught me all about couponing with their 10 Days to Become a Krazy Coupon Lady blog series. Their blog is a wealth of information, and the book is sure to be a hit! (If anyone wants to buy me a “Pick another checkout lane, honey” t-shirt, I’d be SO excited!!)

ALSO, if you live in the little D, you can attend a coupon class that Frugal Living NW is putting on at Faith Church (where most of my krazy coupon friends attend!). Frugal Living NW is my favorite coupon blog, since it is geared toward my area and people who comment are shopping at the same stores (on the same street!) that I shop! Love local!

Tuesday, Jan. 26 — 6 pm
Faith EV Free Church in Dallas, OR
Donations to Dallas Food Bank
Register here (required)

And, I’m done. If you read through that whole post, you should be congratulated!

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