Today at my Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group, we had some round table discussion about menu planning: Do you do it? Do you plan for one week or one month? What works for you? The responses were all over the board. Some gals are proud non-planners, some gals plan and shop for the whole month all at once, some plan for the week and make multiple trips to the store.
Before I tell you what I do, let me tell you what I USED to do before I discovered budgeting …

As I mentioned previously, I don’t reinvent the wheel and pour over grocery store and drug store ads to help me find the best deals to add to my stockpile. Instead, I read several couponing blogs that match up sale prices and manufacturer and store coupons and tell me exactly how a scenario will work, then I just do what they tell me to do.
I have quite a few coupon blogs that I keep up with (along with my digiscrap blogs, friend blogs, cooking blogs, decorating blogs, etc.), and to …

I’m kinda having fun with this little series! Plus, it’s pretty low pressure for me because as I’ve mentioned before, this is NOT a coupon blog. I’m just a regular mom with a super tight budget who started out wanting to be a good steward and ended up obsessed with couponing. Not like a weird obsession, though. A good obsession. Not crazy cheap. I mean, I did buy Tillamook at full price the other day (cringe!), but I have had to bite my tongue when two different friends were telling …

We have already established that you don’t have to be a genius to be an extreme couponer. But, thanks!
We all have the skills to do it.
It just takes commitment. You have to actually DO IT. You can’t just cut a coupon and expect to save money. It doesn’t work that way at all!
The night my friend Kristin revealed how little she spent on groceries (by extreme couponing) I was so intrigued that I immediately went home and started looking up the blogs she mentioned. I remember that she talked …

You don’t have to be a genius to be an extreme couponer. You just have to DECIDE to do it, and then determine that you are going to give it your best shot for at least a month.
Why a month? Well, YES, you can get savings on your very first shopping trip, however in a month’s time you can gather your Sunday inserts, read up on how to maximize savings, print the “hot” coupons for items that your family will definitely use, and then wait …

I hear it almost weekly:

“I wish I could use coupons, but I just don’t understand how you get those savings.”
“All of that math just confuses me.”
“I’m not smart enough to use coupons like that.”

And, my personal favorite:

Stunned look on face - “I don’t know how you figure that stuff out. I’m confused just listening to you.”

No kidding! I hear it all the time from my friends in real life, friends on facebook, and friends posting on my blog. But, I’m here to say that you don’t …