I did a good job this month of making sure to add my receipts to my Savings Tracker. I just entered the last of them in and here’s how the month turned out:

Basically, I’m $23 under budget! Now that does account for about $20 of rebates I’m owed, but even if you look at my out of pocket, I’m under budget for the month. What a great feeling.

If my overall savings rate looks low to you (45%), there is a rather simple explanation for that. I didn’t do much stockpiling this month. I have a VERY full pantry at the moment (in fact, I need to clean it!), so I only cherry picked a few deals here and there and pretty much bought what we needed for the week. The $58 Winco trip last week was to buy a bunch of items for my mom’s birthday BBQ bash. (And yes, I’m STILL under budget!!) If I wouldn’t have had to make that trip, I’d be under budget even more.

I also want to point out something I’ve said before: shopping sales makes the biggest dent in my budget. Check it out: coupons saved me $98, but store sales and promotions saved me $128.53. This is why I always state you should try to use your coupons on store sales. They combine to give you real money-saving power! All told, I saved $226 this month, which works out to saving about $56 per week.

Tracking my savings in this manner helps me see EXACTLY how much my couponing is saving me. It also gives me a good snapshot of my shopping in general. For instance, I see I had quite a few shopping trips this month. Maybe next month I could try to work on reducing that. Or work on lowering my budget since I did so well this month, etc.

Was this exercise helpful? I hope so. Would you like me to continue sharing what and how I’m saving and spending? I would love to know if this has been of value to you.

Don’t forget; you can download your own Savings Tracker (for Excel) to follow along. It’s free. A quick update on Google Docs: it appears many of my crazy formulas are not compatible for Google Docs and would need to be rewritten. I do plan on creating a Google Docs version at some point in the near future, but unfortunately, it’s not as simple as doing a “Save As” as I’d hoped and I imagine it will take some serious work to get up and running. Stay tuned!

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My pantry is pretty well stocked at the moment, and I realized I had quite a few freezer meals hanging out, so all I needed to do today was a quick trip to Fred Meyer for a few grocery basics.

Here’s what I got for $37 total today:

You might have noticed I buy a lot of cereal. True. I do. We often eat it as a snack or even dessert around here! The grapes were a splurge – about $6 total. I was also excited about the tomato soup at $0.33 a can. This is a stock-up price in my book and seeing how we just finished the last can, the sale came well timed!

We’re also enjoying fresh, home-grown greens from the garden, so I’m going to start to realize an additional savings in our grocery budget!

Otherwise, this was a pretty straight-forward, quick shop. This is one benefit of couponing: after awhile, you’ll be so stocked that going out for the weekly groceries will become pretty painless.

I’m working hard to keep my Savings Tracker updated this month to illustrate what my personal spending and savings looks like. I hope this has been as helpful exercise for you as it has been for me.

As you can tell, my savings rate is hovering just under 50%. I’ve not done a ton of stockpiling this month (really not much of a need), but if I had, I would expect this savings rate to be much higher than it is. (Please tune in LIVE later tonight when I’ll be sharing more about stockpiling.)

Because my pantry is pretty well stocked, this month I’m more concerned about coming in under my monthly grocery budget of $300. With about a week to go and $90 left, I’d say I’m on track. I will be preparing some dishes for a birthday party later this week, so I’ll have to be creative to make sure I don’t go over.

Want to follow along? You can download a FREE version of my Savings Tracker (for Excel).

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PHEW. I can’t believe I just hit up Albertsons, Winco, Walgreens, and Rite Aid all in the same shopping trip. And with both of my kids in tow. Someone, give me a pat on the back!

Here’s what I ended up with (click the picture for a bigger image):

After coupons and sales, and after you factor in the Register Rewards and rebates I’ve earned, I essentially got everything pictured above for $53.48 $45.49!! Not too shabby considering today’s haul included diapers, 3 razors, shampoo & conditioner, Greek yogurt, produce, 7 boxes of cereal and more. Retail value of all this was $166.19 a savings of 68% 72%.

EDITED: OOPS! I forgot about the Schick rebate I posted early! Looks like my savings is even better than I thought!

See the 40 oz Heinz ketchup? Found those at Winco today for $0.98 each (limit 2). I also did the cheese rebate deal I posted awhile ago.

So here’s how my month is shaping up, budget wise:

As you can see, I’m right on track here…about half spent halfway through the month. I’ve also saved 54% total.

You can download your own free Excel Savings Tracker and follow along with me if you like!

Don’t forget to send me pics of your awesome finds this week! Email them to thecouponproject at hotmail dot com for consideration.

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It has been a good 2-3 weeks since I’d done a decent-sized grocery shop, so I decided to head to Fred Meyer last night while the kiddos slept.

When I headed to checkout, I realized that this might have been one of the most “diverse coupon” trips I’d done in awhile. I used store coupons from the weekly ad, store coupons from the Extra Savings booklet, insert coupons, tearpad coupons, printable coupons, a Catalina coupon, a free coupon from Kraft First Taste, a free coupon from Facebook, and even an ecoupon I’d loaded to my Fred Meyer Rewards card! Thanks to the very nice cashier who rang me up. He looked like he was headed off shift, but he was so polite! THANK YOU!

Here are my finds (you might want to click the image so you can even decipher what I bought):

All told I spent $62 out of pocket, and then I earned a $3 Catalina coupon for the Sure Jell. (By the way, I DID find tearpad coupons for this item at Fred Meyer. At my store they were on the end of the paper goods aisle near dairy…so do look around a bit. $5 is NOT BAD for 4 boxes of Sure Jell and 15 pounds of sugar!!) While my overall savings rate was on the low side (31%), it was nice to restock my fridge with cheese, milk, and bread. I truly don’t mind having a $70 or even $80 shopping trip once or twice a month for need based items.

See my Fred Meyer deals post for more ideas.

The important part is sticking to your budget. I promised I’d do a better job of illustrating this with my tracker. So here’s how June is shaping up so far:

After rebates, I’ve spent $84 for the first week of June. In order to meet my budget of $300, this means I should target to spend no more than $71 for each of the three remaining weeks. You’ll notice I spent about $20 at Fred Meyer (on 6/2 and 6/4). These were random splurge purchases and not such a hot way to kick off the month. They definitely impacted my overall savings rate. I’m hoping the trip I did last night will keep us stocked well throughout the week  so no further trips will be necessary. (However, I might just have to do a Walgreens run this week.)

I’ll report back next week and share how I’m doing.

Want to track your budget with me this month? Get your own Savings Tracker for Excel (Google Docs is still in the works).

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I did a quick shop today to pick up some the cheap and free items.

Here’s Walgreens:

The Gillette and Old Spice men’s body wash are on sale this week for $4.49, plus get a $4.50 Register Reward at checkout – essentially making it free. I had “buy one, get one free” coupons from the 5/2 P&G. I asked my cashier if she’d do two transactions for me so I’d get both Register Rewards. She was happy to do so! She then proceeded to ask where I got my coupons. I love when that happens! If you have more than one Walgreens in your general vicinity, I highly recommend you try them all out. In my area, a couple stores are more coupon friendly than others.

Bottom line: all were free after coupons and Register Rewards! That’s a $17.96 value, but seriously, if you use coupons, that’d be a crazy amount to spend on body wash, wouldn’t it? Inconceivable!

Albertsons:

I did two transactions. I did ask my cashier first on their interpretation of the “3 doubler per shopping trip.” She told me the store treated that as “3 per transaction.” Good news for me since my nearest Albertsons is a good 15 minutes away!

First transaction – the cereal, and one of the Lysol cleaners. I paid $3.83 out of pocket, and saved $18.61.
Second transaction – the yogurt, and the second Lysol cleaners. I paid $0.87 out of pocket, and saved $9.43.

Total Albertsons haul – $4.70 spent, $28.04 saved (83% saved!).

Tomorrow is the last day to take advantage of the doublers at Albertsons. The body wash deal runs through Saturday at Walgreens.

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One of the ways I’m learning to save both money and time is by limiting myself to one grocery/drugstore trip per week. This forces me to make sure I’m organized enough to do ALL my deals on one outing. (I am not 100% perfect at this, but I have DEFINITELY improved since I started couponing!)

I thought I’d share my trips with you today. First Walgreens:

The Bic Razors were $3.99 and I used (2) $3/1 off coupons, making them $0.99 a pack. I needed a thank-you card, and easily found one for $0.99. I had a $3 Register Reward from last week that I wanted to use. Since my order at this point was only $2.97, I bought one pudding for $0.25 to balance out the transaction. I paid $1.07 for everything pictured (eek, sales tax!). Go HERE to get in on these deals, too!

Next, we hit up Albertsons. There were still plenty of tortillas, and I had (3) $1.50/2 tearpad coupons I’d found at a store a few days earlier. So all 6 tortillas were only $0.24 out of pocket TOTAL. I used my $1/1 Trop50 coupons and the doubler coupons and got those for only $0.50 apiece! Finally, I’ve decided to turn some of my tortillas into breakfast burritos (more on that in an upcoming post), so I decided to look for some meat to add. I found a package of turkey sausage priced at $4.39, but with a $2/1 Manager’s Special on it. All this food? $4.13, baby! Go HERE for Albertsons deals.

With some stockpile deals out of the way, it was time to tackle my grocery needs for the week. Since I had a freezer meal swap last week, most of my meals are prepped. I needed some produce and other basics to top of my week. I also needed eggs and potatoes to finish off the 20 breakfast burritos I’ll be making. I decided to hit up Fred Meyer since they had a couple deals I wanted to take advantage of. Here is my final haul:

I know this is a rather small picture, but you should see how much produce and healthy stuff I got! I stocked up on more organic soup (this time, there was an entire ENDCAP full of it!), the B1G1 Amy’s Burritos, Horizon Organic Milk ($2.44 after blinkie coupon), tomato soup, and a big thing o’ strawberries. I spent $37.66 at Fred Meyer today. See Fred Meyer deals HERE.

Finally tally: I paid $42.86 for everything pictured, and saved $54.41 – that’s roughly 56% saved. AND that includes some splurges, such as a 3 lb bag of organic red potatoes for $3.46! I also imagine I saved money just by shopping at Fred Meyer. I’m very happy with my trips today!

Incidentally, you might have also noticed I bought a couple papers. One is a Seattle, the other is a Tacoma. I understand many of you were frustrated last week that some coupons were only in certain papers. I am hoping to try to decide which paper had which coupons last week. I’d also suggest to buy BOTH papers if you can to ensure you got everything.

I also picked up the Fred Meyer Extra Savings booklet. I’ll make sure to do those matchups in the next day or so.

Did anyone else get out to do any shopping today?

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As you may recall, yesterday I challenged myself to see if I keep our grocery and household items to $20 or under. Did I succeed? Not entirely. But I don't think I did too shabbily, either!

First, I came up with a list of meals for the week. Some will yield leftovers, so chose 5:

Homemade pizza (for the kids and I tomorrow since my hubby starts a 48-hour shift)
BBQ beef sandwiches
Sesame sirloin
Chicken fajitas
Sweet Asian Chicken

The bottom FOUR meals are already in my freezer – nice huh! I just needed some accompaniments. Here's what I ended up with:

I did one transaction at Walgreens where I got the dish soap and instant coffee for $0.42. I then headed to Winco where I found $1.98 gallons of milk, $0.98 dozen eggs, and avocados for $0.68 each! The Land o' Frost ham was $2.10, and it had a $0.60 off peelie coupon making it just $1.50! While everything I got was individually a great deal…I still ended up spending just under $29 for everything pictured.

What was my downfall? Probably the grapes – they were about $4, and I thought I could weasel them in there and stay under budget. My husband also asked me to pick up some items I hadn't planned on which sort of threw a wrench in the plan too – those items came to over $4 as well. But his items will save him time and money for the next two days – he won't have to eat out at work!

So while I didn't rise fully to the $20 challenge, overall I think I did well. I also was WAY more vigilant about how much everything was costing and had the calculator at the ready. I would do this challenge again.  

Here's one thing that put a smile on my face. When I got home, look what some kind reader had left on my door. (I think  I know who did this…regardless, THANK YOU secret stockpile fairy!). If you don't get why these random items appeared on my doorstep, read my post from yesterday.

Anyone do a better job than me of meeting their challenge? (I hope so!)

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I've decided to challenge myself this week.

I have a $20 bill in my wallet, and I am going to see if I can stretch it to do our grocery shopping for the week. Granted, we have a nice stockpile and freezer items…but this will still take some planning! Since I spent nearly $70 last week, this would help keep us on target to meet our budget for the month. (Oh, and I do have a $3 Walgreens Register Reward…so that's fair game for me to use, too!)

Later today, I'll assess what we have on hand and come up with a weekly menu. I also noticed I ran out of coffee filters this week and am nearly out of dish soap, so I'll need to also think about those type of items. 

Once I've done my shopping, I'll be sure to report back on how I did and what my plan is for the week.

If anyone else would like to challenge themselves this week, feel free to join me! You don't have to do a $20 challenge…make it whatever you want it to be! Just remember…being frugal should be fun! Let's keep it that way.  
  

Photo credit Alejandro Cantarero 
 

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Ooooo….this was a fun one today, readers. So this morning I had my coupons spread out, calculator in hand. I realized I had no cash and really didn't want annoying debit card transactions of less than $1. So I asked my husband if he had any cash. He said he had $4, and I said perfect! He was a little surprised that that's all I'd need to do my trip today (you think the man should have an idea by now!). Here's what I ended up with at Albertsons and how I did it:

I did two transactions.

Transaction One:

3 boxes Post Raisin Bran
2 boxes Honey Bunches of Oats

Then, I used these coupons:
$1/2 coupon from 2/28 SmartSource
$1/2 coupon from 3/14 SmartSource
$2/1 PostNaturals printable coupon (for the third box of Raisin Bran)
2 doublers for the $1 coupons
Paid: $1.95

Received a $4 Catalina for buying 5 boxes! (Wasn't I clever to add the "free" box of Post Naturals to generate a $4 Catalina vs. a $3 Catalina? Plus, my store allowed overage on that coupon, further driving down my out of pocket. Your results may vary – but my coupon didn't beep. At all.)

Transaction Two:

2 boxes Honey Bunches of Oats
4 boxes Pebbles
1 gallon milk

Then, I used these coupons:
(3) $1/2 coupons from 3/14 SmartSource (Pebbles and Honey Bunches)
3 doubler coupons
$4 Catalina coupon generated from Transaction One above
$2 coupon for doing receipt survey (this happens every so often)
Paid: $0.23

Received a $4 Catalina for buying 5+ boxes!

Bottom line: $1.82 profit for everything pictured above! Best of all, I still have $1 left from the money my husband gave me this morning!

What will I do with my $4 Catalina? I'll likely be back for more cereal! More info on this sale HERE and HERE.

By the way – time to toot my own horn. Remember how I made a list of what goes on sale and when? Read my write-up for March – I specifically mention increased cereal promotions including Kellogg's and Post! This is why it's important to pay attention to trends – they often roll around the same times per year.

Anyone else do this deal today or planning on it before Sunday? Any additional transaction ideas?         

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Today I ended up with a better trip than expected.

First stop: Safeway for some free Quaker Oatmeal Square cereal! I had three coupons for $1/1, so I got three boxes for free. As a reminder, the deal is a Mix & Match where you have to buy 5 boxes to get the $5 discount. To round off my deal, I bought 2 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerioes, and I'd conveniently received a $1/2 in the coupon in the mail. Total bill at Safeway: $2.

Now here's the really fun part: Albertsons! So the Milton/Edgewood (WA) store is undergoing some remodeling, and they were having some crazy cool clearance sales. There are some in front of the store – where they typically carry promotional items. I found Playtex for $2, Seventh Generation Paper Towels for $2, and shelf/cupboard liners for $0.75. I didn't end up buying any of this, but I did notice on the aisle that carries paper goods, there were carts full of cleaning products marked down to $1 and $2.

And I nearly wet myself when I saw a Orange Glo mop set – including the cleaner and everything – for $2! I LOVE this stuff – it works way better than Swiffer IMO, and it's normally about $15.99!

The bad news? The store was out of the Old Orchard juice I'd planned to buy for the Just C.H.I.L.L. promotion. But I could hardly care after all the other great deals I found to use my Catalinas on! So here's my final score:

 
After Catalinas ($13.50), my Albertsons total was just $1.14 – and $0.50 of that was tax! How cool is that? I also used part of my Catalinas to buy two News Tribune papers today. All told, I spent $3.14 on everything pictured and saved $70.11 - a savings rate of 96%! And, to make matters better, I received a $2 off-my-next-order survey on the bottom of my Albertsons receipt.

Note, if you live near the Milton/Edgewood Albertsons, you may well want to RUN and not walk for some of these deals. The Seventh Generation cleaners were just $1. I didn't have any coupons handy for them (I just used my Catalina coupons), but I bet you'd yield some free/cheap cleaners if you had any! 

To learn more about some of the deals I featured, read my Safeway post and Albertsons post.

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