[hotcouponmama]

Twomom's name in real life: Catrina

Age: 26

Home State: California for 25 years, Utah from now on!!

Marital Status: Married

Kids: One daughter (8)

Pets: A Lhasa Apso, Sam (4 years old) a shihtzu, Gue (3 years old,) one cat, Buster (10 months), and a three-year old hamster named Dora.

In Catrina's Own Words:

Little Known Factoid: We try really, really hard to save money! However, being a house of three females and living so close to the outlets in Park City, we love to shop! We do a major shopping trip about every 6-8 months; we will go spend the day and do nothing but shop for ourselves!

Favorite Money Saving Tip: We have a glass jar that sits on the corner of our entertainment center. Every night we put the change in it and we never use it to pay for household things. A week or so before we go on vacation we cash it in and it gives us extra money for our trips. The most it has ever been was about 250.00!

Budget: I have a budget of about $200-$250 a month which includes food, pet food and HABA, although we usually use a lot less than that!

Stores I shop at: Smiths, Albertsons, Walmart

Coupon Organization Method: I have a one-inch binder that holds all the coupons that I know I will use and that goes everywhere with me! Then I have a coupon box that I keep all the other ones in, the ones that I use for trades, trains, and RAOK's.

Best Advice to Newbies: Stay out of the chat - there are scary people in there! (Just Kidding!!!) In the chat, my hang out, you can be inspired by jane4girls and her 800.00 a year budget, revert back to your youth through chelsea, remember the joys of pregnancy with mickee311, and enjoy some laughs with the rest of the regulars! It is also a great place to get your questions answered instantly, so just stop in and say hi and ask question or two .Also join a train! It is a great way to get coupons from other areas.


Catrina’s Story:

If you hang out in the chat room for any length of time, you’ll likely meet Catrina – one of the resident chatters. Although she’s not a Hotcouponworld moderator, she does a good job of helping keep an eye on the chatroom, and at the same time, encouraging others to come out of their shell.

Catrina’s been an HCWer since February of this year, and I don’t believe she’s missed a day online since then. She shares how she came to be as a Hotcouponworld member…

“I was looking for a Quaker printable, about a little over a year ago. I actually started on another board, but then got tired of the drama.” She found HCW through a Google search pretty quickly thereafter, and has been here ever since.

A quick coupon study, Catrina has stockpiled her family a six-month supply of groceries and household goods. “I saw that I could get coupons for pretty much anything, so I started to print them and then I started to look around, and within about a week I was stuck!!” She’s been amazed at how much her coupon savings has equated to in real money. Since June, her receipt from Smith’s, one of the stores she shops, shows a savings of nearly $800 for her family of three. She’s been able to whittle her expenditures to $200-$250 a month. Prior to that however, Catrina and her wife didn’t have a budget to speak of.

“Before we were just "Oh, we need this, let’s get it" type shoppers. Now, we are "We need this?
Well, I think there is a coupon coming out for it" type shoppers. Before we found coupons, we would spend whatever and didn’t have a budget at all. I am going to try to cut our current spending in the next year by at least half!”

Mind you, their budget includes food, HABA, household items, and pet food. “We have a very nice stockpile going on!”

Catrina shared that their savings were going towards other things now that they didn’t have as much money for before coupons; paying off credit cards, and enjoy more family outings together like going to the movies or the Lagoon (a theme-park in their area).

Last month, they bought a Nintendo Wii and put it on a 0-interest credit card which is already close to being paid off. “We aren’t living paycheck to paycheck anymore, and that’s a really big plus in our world.”

Now, I have to add that Catrina’s interview was done in Flashchat. Her family doesn’t have a phone but we wanted to capture her story, so we worked it out to do the interview in the chat room instead. As part of the follow up to her answer about no longer living paycheck to paycheck, Catrina typed in a zinger that had me in stitches…

“It’s kinda weird how a piece of paper that says "Save .50c on Popsicles" can change everything…there’s a lot less stress!” While it was funny to read that sentence blink across the chat screen, there is something indeed to be said for how these little slips of paper can change our worlds. Most people wouldn’t think to pick up a coin on the ground yet what for many is nothing but glossy recycle fodder after the Sunday morning cup of coffee, for others, it becomes a lifestyle choice that changes how we think about money and how we view ourselves as shoppers.

For Catrina, coupons also mean ease and peace of mind. “I don’t spend too much time thinking, ‘Hmmm, what am I going to pull together for dinner?’ because I have about 10 of everything in my garage! That has been so great for us.”

I asked her about how what her stockpile consisted of and how long it would last. She popped off chat just to bounce back in and replay that after speaking with her wife, they felt there was a 6-month supply of food on hand, a year of HABA, and though the dog might have to get by on some people-food, the cat could go about a year without worrying if the Friskies would run out.

Catrina has a lot of support at home for her couponing “hobby”. Her daughter Hailey teases her about how she loses everything but always knows where her coupons are. Her wife listens to all the crazy stories and will drive her to all the sales. “I have a fear of driving…my hands are getting sweaty just thinking about it.” As we talk about her family, I pry just a bit because I want to make sure she’s really comfortable putting herself out there for the story. Her response is as instantaneous as her fingers could type. “Oh no, I am married to a great woman and the more people that know it the better!” The support she gets for her couponing is helping her family meet goals. Long term, they are hoping to continue to save money and get rid of debt. Big Mickey Mouse fans, they are also saving for a vacation. Originally from CA, they moved to Utah in June, 2006, so this has been the longest they’ve gone in several years without seeing “our man Mickey”!

After several months on the board, a good stockpile under her belt, and an ambitious goal to cut even more money out of their budget, I asked Catrina to share how she would direct a new member of the site to get going on coupons and yet not feel overwhelmed. Catrina feels it’s important to start at the top, read the board all the way down to the "grocery store deals", and scan and read only the sales for your area stores. “It will only make you sad when you see what you could get if your store doubled.” Then she advises to continue on down, reading everything, skipping the sections of the site that don’t apply to you i.e., pets, organics, etc. She also thinks a good tip to saving money is to get things for free. “Fill out all the freebies, because they are great!” Lastly, after you’ve done all that and you still need help she wants new members to hop on in the chat room and ask for advice.

Her last piece of advice, and likely one of the more important tips a new member can get is not to expect having a stockpile like Flash (another member) or a budget like jane4girls (the member on an $800 annual budget). Catrina believes that it might be too stressful if you try to do too much too quickly!

Catrina’s had some luck with sales. Her favorite deal was the buy one get one free Loreal Vive at Walgreens, paired up with a buy one get one free coupon! “And I can’t forget the free Electrosal,” came blinking quickly across the computer screen. When asked about what deal she might need, she mentioned being excited about a possible score with some Arrid deodorant from Walgreens, but over all, needs nothing right at the moment. She does get out there to hunt for deals, so she is always at Walmart and sometimes she even goes to Kmart (but she doesn’t want to let Seedlady know about that).

Does she ever get a break from coupons? She tries to scrapbook but coupon chat holds her up from many hobbies – she believes it’s to be the most addictive part of being a Hotcouponworld member. And while she does enjoy her family time, she says they tend to be "homebodies". She’s not sure if that is that counts as a hobby or not, but definitely interested seeing homebody show up in the dictionary with “hobby” listed as a definition.

Catrina was a pleasure to get to know. Aside from our coupon chatting during the interview, we got the chance to solve all the worlds problems and learn we have a lot of political views in common. She has been a valuable member of the site. To get to know her better yourself, she’s only a click away and likely in the chat room as you finish reading her story, so pop on in and say “Hi”!

Thanks Catrina for being a great member and for sharing your story with the rest of us!