When did you notice your savings, and more money in your pocket?

[babygirl5151999]

I have been at this for a month, and I don't feel like I'm saving much. I have a nice stock pile going right now. I got 30 glade candles for .16 each (Thx Target LOL). But when will I see money sitting in my checking account KWIM? I bought 20 boxes of hamburger helper today on a sale with coupons. Who the heck needs 20 boxes LOL (apparently I do, we only eat it about 1 to 2x a month, so that will last awhile). But I feel like I'm at the store ALL THE TIME! I feel like I'm spending way more money than I'm saving.

Please tell me I'm not crazy and I will start to see savings soon.

Thanks
Julie

[latte]

slowly it happens

amost 2 years into couponing, and i still dont have much $ saved (oh ive SAVED tremendous amounts of $, but there are MANY weeks were we have less then 15$ for groceries) ----and now im replacing the stockpile, it all got used when we were in between jobs--- i dont have $ in the bank simply because its being used to pay bills



With me, it was about 4 months in before i started to notice the savings, BUT like i said, all extra $ is being used for bills, so i dont feel like i have anything to show for my couponing skills ....at least not yet anyways, once the bills are paid, theres not much leftover for anything anyways

[queenofthehivemomof5]

I would say that you need to give it a good 6 months to a year for your stockpile to build up and for that to start paying for itself.

This is not an overnight process and if money is really tight you need to "just say no" to things like the Glade candles unless they are 100% free or you feel like splurging (even at $0.16 each it's a splurge unless you would have already spent $4.80 plus tax on candles)

What a lot of folks get hung up on is that either they can:

Buy their stockpile in the first month and be good to go


Skip the whole stockpile process all together because who needs 20 boxes of Hamburger Helper


Focusing on all the cheap deals without sticking to a budget and/limit...going crazy chasing each and every deal before they know that it truly is a deal, and something they can use.


You can get really excited to get 30 Glade candles for $0.16 each and 40 tubes of toothpaste for $0.50 each and 100 cans of air freshener for $0.75 each and before you know it you have tons of things that you got for free (that you thought were great deals because you were used to paying full price OR going without because you could not afford them) but now you have things you don't really need and that will last forever. And you cannot feed your family these things.

You need to focus...focus your energies on food deals, non food deals that your family uses on a daily basis (toilet paper, toothpaste...don't go crazy on this..it lasts forever, ) And only chase those non food and food items that are not necessary when they are free OR you count it as a little splurge (like you can get Ben & Jerry's ice cream for $1.00...normal price is $4 you might consider once in a while getting a pint as a treat, now you can get 4 for the price of one..so limit yourself to just getting 4...as a treat)

As for me I started at this 5 years ago with a budget of $400 a month to feed my family of two adults and 3 children (one baby that was nursing). Making that work was not always easy. When I got into couponing it was the factor that I could get more food for my money and I could afford to eat hamburger helper WITH hamburger LOL. My budget has not changed. I still budget $400 a month for groceries but now I have more mouths to feed (kids and pets) and I get more bang for my buck. I can skip coupon shopping for months if I want to and just get fresh foods and use that money for bills. Most months these days I bank a good $200 or more and put it in savings. But I like the notion that if there was a sale I just had to get in on and stockpile on (Meat, diapers ...when I had kids in diapers) I had that wiggle room. But I could probably just adjust my budget to $200 a month and say I am saving $200 but I just do it a little differently and that works for me.

Also it will depend on the sales in your area, if you have doubles and can get good deals on stuff too. But the more you stockpile...the less you have to buy at full price.

[judeshoney]

It's taken me close to a year, but I've reduced my grocery budget from $500/month (not couponing) now to less than $200/month. I started with a goal of getting it less than $400/month, then $300, then $200. An extra $300/month is hard not to notice - especially since I've become unemployed in the interim. It's one of the things that's helping me to stay home with my kids instead of going back to work.

Now I'm going into October with a freezer full of 3 months worth of steak, chicken, pork and ground chuck. I've got plenty of Capri Sun, peanut butter/jelly and fruit snacks for the kids lunches. My DH eats frozen Stouffer's meals for lunch and I know I'm low on those. They take up more room in the freezer so I can only buy a month at a time. I figure I can get by in October for less than $150 - or at least that's my new goal!

So since I chipped away at my grocery budget a little at a time, that's the advice I'd give. In the beginning it is harder because you're working on your stockpile. Somebody here once gave great advice (unfortunately, don't remember who but it made an impression on me so I apologize for for not giving credit where it's due) - set aside a specific amount each week and use it for stockpile items. If you have a grocery budget of $100/week, spend $80 on staples and another $20 on stockpile. That makes you more discerning about what you stockpile.

As you begin to stockpile more, shift that number so that the next month you're spending $70/week on staples and $30 on stockpile. Pretty soon you're spending most of that $100 on stockpile items. After that, you've got your stockpile built up so you're strictly buying staples.

Good luck to you! You'll get there soon!!

[flyingv]

It took me about 6 months also. I reduced our bill from 400.00 to about 250.00 month. My goal is in a year to have our bill at 150.00 for the month.

[babygirl5151999]

slowly it happens

amost 2 years into couponing, and i still dont have much $ saved (oh ive SAVED tremendous amounts of $, but there are MANY weeks were we have less then 15$ for groceries) ----and now im replacing the stockpile, it all got used when we were in between jobs--- i dont have $ in the bank simply because its being used to pay bills



With me, it was about 4 months in before i started to notice the savings, BUT like i said, all extra $ is being used for bills, so i dont feel like i have anything to show for my couponing skills ....at least not yet anyways, once the bills are paid, theres not much leftover for anything anyways


We have a few CC and medical debt bills that we were doing fine on paying off without me couponing, my goal is to have the medical debt paid off in 9 months, one will be paid off when I get the next bill in the mail, than that money I'm saving will be put towards another medical debt bill, and so on and so forth, until I'm putting the money I would divide over 5 bills on one bill. Once the medical debt is paid off I'm hoping to be able to put that in savings to build that back up.

[babygirl5151999]

I would say that you need to give it a good 6 months to a year for your stockpile to build up and for that to start paying for itself.

This is not an overnight process and if money is really tight you need to "just say no" to things like the Glade candles unless they are 100% free or you feel like splurging (even at $0.16 each it's a splurge unless you would have already spent $4.80 plus tax on candles)

What a lot of folks get hung up on is that either they can:

Buy their stockpile in the first month and be good to go



Skip the whole stockpile process all together because who needs 20 boxes of Hamburger Helper



Focusing on all the cheap deals without sticking to a budget and/limit...going crazy chasing each and every deal before they know that it truly is a deal, and something they can use.


You can get really excited to get 30 Glade candles for $0.16 each and 40 tubes of toothpaste for $0.50 each and 100 cans of air freshener for $0.75 each and before you know it you have tons of things that you got for free (that you thought were great deals because you were used to paying full price OR going without because you could not afford them) but now you have things you don't really need and that will last forever. And you cannot feed your family these things.

You need to focus...focus your energies on food deals, non food deals that your family uses on a daily basis (toilet paper, toothpaste...don't go crazy on this..it lasts forever, ) And only chase those non food and food items that are not necessary when they are free OR you count it as a little splurge (like you can get Ben & Jerry's ice cream for $1.00...normal price is $4 you might consider once in a while getting a pint as a treat, now you can get 4 for the price of one..so limit yourself to just getting 4...as a treat)

As for me I started at this 5 years ago with a budget of $400 a month to feed my family of two adults and 3 children (one baby that was nursing). Making that work was not always easy. When I got into couponing it was the factor that I could get more food for my money and I could afford to eat hamburger helper WITH hamburger LOL. My budget has not changed. I still budget $400 a month for groceries but now I have more mouths to feed (kids and pets) and I get more bang for my buck. I can skip coupon shopping for months if I want to and just get fresh foods and use that money for bills. Most months these days I bank a good $200 or more and put it in savings. But I like the notion that if there was a sale I just had to get in on and stockpile on (Meat, diapers ...when I had kids in diapers) I had that wiggle room. But I could probably just adjust my budget to $200 a month and say I am saving $200 but I just do it a little differently and that works for me.

Also it will depend on the sales in your area, if you have doubles and can get good deals on stuff too. But the more you stockpile...the less you have to buy at full price.

I had the extra money to splurge on the candles LOL. I love candles and even though I don't normally use Glade candles (I'm not brand loyal for candles), so .16 a candle felt like a great deal to me LOL. My DH just rolls his eyes at me LOL.

I think that's what I'm gonna do, is say ok I have $100 a week to spend this week on food, HB, cleaning ect. And whatever is left over after out of the $100k will go into savings and that way maybe I'll actually see my savings.

[texxie]

I'm the type who needs to actually SEE it as well. So, what I did was, right before I started couponing (hardcore lol) I went back over bank statements and got an average of what i was spending on groceries, pet food, hba, ect.

Then....I started my envelope system. I pulled out said grocery budget every other friday (DH's payday) and started buying w/cash only. It did'nt take long before I started noticing that when i went to fill my grocery money envelope, there was still money there from the last "refill". That alone encouraged me to stick with it. It has paid off tremendously. Good luck to you.:wavehi:

[tmsmalley]

One of the ways to see it is to take your receipt and put it into a spread sheet so that you see what you would have paid full price and what you did pay minus sales and coupons. That can be a lot of work and depending on how your receipts print out it can be hard to calculate by item but it is a way to see it. I only did that a few months then stopped bothering.

The other way to see it is that you're spending the same amount of money, but your cart has twice as much stuff in it.

After a few months, you'll see what you need to spend really dropping because you won't be picking up Hamburger Helper anymore. I've got a year until I need to buy anymore toothpaste that I used to pay nearly $3 a tube for (Mr. Fussy only likes one kind). I used to routinely spend $250 or more at the store, now I'm spending about $100 because I just don't need Tide at full price, and my cart is just as full or more so. And remember, you don't have to get EVERY deal.


Tess

[mommas2moody]

I'm a newbie at this myself and I can't give much advise but I can tell you how I have started it. I have very little storage space so I decided that I would only stockpile the items and brands that I use all the time, like things I'm going to buy even if they aren't on sale.

As I was making out a grocery list I started a list of brands that we use all the time. Then I started coupon hunting. Most of what I found were printable and I would print off as many as I could. Before I went shopping I would look through a few store ads to see if I could get a deal on those items. I would go ahead and get enough to last a few weeks to buy me some time to do the deal seeking for the next batch. Honestly at the very first I might have spent a few extra dollars to get me to that point but now I am at the point that I have at least lowered my spenting by about $25-30 a week (and climbing), got a small stock, and getting more at the store.

HTH

[puakinikini]

It took me about 6 months to really see the difference, but when I started I only stock piled stuff that was free (I still paid tax on non-food). I did not have alot of money when I started so I had to be very careful with my spending. I now spend about $75 a week for 6 + 1 dog (and that includes everything, including soy products for my dairy-free daughter and diapers for 1). I feel like I really get my money's worth for my $75. I buy a lot of produce and meat. I usually save about 63% these days. I am lucky though to have stores that double and who compete with each other.

[Robbied]

I am new here and this just all seems so overwhelming. I was excited to save 23.00 at publix today. Just wondering how you get coupons for meat..steaks, chicken etc? I did find some Jennie O coupons but how do you get fresh food, fruits coupons etc? Robbin

[wealthybarney]

One helpful thing that I found was on the frugal living forum. There, they have grocery store sale cycles. What will be on sale in Oct. & Nov. for example. Then, I'll know what I can match my coupons to ahead of time, or if it is a living off of what is in the freezer that month.

I like planning one or two months ahead what I can stockpile with, or if I am going to put that money into savings that month. The Month I am really looking forward to is March-Frozen Food Month! That means in December, we will start eating off the freezer until it is empty, defrost it, and then load up for the year in March!

[clu925]

I'm also a newbie ... discovered the underworld of couponing August 2nd thanks to a crazy friend (Thanks, Rhonda!) I went crazy at first too and spent ALL my free time searching for deals, buying up all the Glade products in town! I swear I would actually get "high" every time I sent to CVS and the total came up to $100+ and I only had to pay $2.98 AND they paid me to take it home - I was hooked!!! But I soon discovered that all those $2.98 prices tags quickly added up and I was actually spending MORE than I was before and going in the hole every week because I was buying stuff that I normally wouldn't buy just to get that great deal. And for some strange reason I was terrified that I would miss a deal - crazy, right?

I HAD to get a grip on my mental process!! My main focus now is saving money on food and stuff we use all the time (like toilet paper). My goal each week is for my grocery savings to be MORE than what I paid. Like yesterday at Publix my bill was $98.47 but I only paid $32.89, a savings of $65.58. I only buy the "extras" if they're FREE. I still get a little queazy everytime I pass up a great deal ... but if I really don't need and can't afford it I have to control myself and not buy it. I have a great stockpile so when I'm feeling "sick" over missing a deal I look in all my fully stocked closets and it makes me feel a little better :-)

[mommas2moody]

clu925 - "And for some strange reason I was terrified that I would miss a deal - crazy, right?" That doesn't mean you are crazy, I think (from reading posts by the pros) it's a common "feeling" that alot of newbies have. Personally I think it's part of the learning process.

I like your thinking about buying the "extras".
For me, I have a bad habit of buying "extras" because I feel like I have made up for it with the coupons. Like this weekend at Publix I bought us some ice cream (Bryers BOGO :) ) even though I didn't have a coupon for it, I felt like I was paying for it with the other coupons I was using.

[YouPdWhat]

This thread contains helpful info so :bump93: ing it up for new members! :wavehi: