Well, recently I watched a show where a woman claimed she had been able to save $100/WEEK off her grocery budget so that in 12 years, she has SAVED over $85.000! OH.MY.WORD!!! She also claimed that she got lots and lots of free food by couponing. I tried The Grocery Game years ago but just failed at it because none of the stores she covered were in my area.
So now I am in experimental mode. I have sought counsel from some of the TOP couponers in the country (my sweet CHFWeb sisters) and I am going to give it another go. I confess that my online time is limited and that all this searching and checking and cross checking is very stressful for me, but I just HAVE to give it one more try.
First of all, if I saved $100/WEEK from my grocery budget, I would only be spending $25!!! That would be lovely, but somehow I don't think that is going to work.
Secondly, I will NOT be buying products I will never use (like coffee or dog food).
Thirdly, I will only be "buying" products I have never used because they are considered luxuries for me IF and ONLY IF I can get them for free.
Fourthly, I realize that building the pantry is the goal rather than buying this week's groceries and then getting my weekly groceries from the pantry.
Fifthly, I will spend the next week building up a coupon supply, trying to familiarize myself with several coupon boards (I'm getting jittery just thinking of it) and checking out the local ads at the stores. Krogers, SuperWalmart and Aldis are the chain stores near me, but there is another local store that has good sales that I will be using in my calculations. Then in December I will spend 1 month experimenting to see if I can, in fact, save money. After that month I will re-evaluate and share my findings.
Sixthly, my goal is to be able to purchase MORE food for my current budgeted amount. For the record, for my family of 10 (more than 1/2 of which are adults or teens) - with the occasional housing of 6 members of a ministry team - I spend $125 a week, that includes household products and toiletries as well as food.
So, the question is "Can she do it?" Well, let's give it the old college try. Let the couponing begin!