Extreme Couponers-- no not the show-- YOU!

[Mothernature]

You have a very large household. I see the warehouse clubs the best route for your food needs. Even if you could find the deals in the grocery stores, you'd either need a rather large amount of coupons and/or a lot of shopping. This negates the benefit of savings.

Where you can really make a difference in saving money is cleaning products and HBA. With CVS, Walgreens and RIte Aid, you should find most stuff for real cheap or free. If you need a large quantity of product, try to pre-order with the store manager.

You can make cleaning products for cheap. If you want the recipes, let me know.

[meggers]

Their totals do not always reflect their investment. I've seen many folks spend 10.00+ for 20.00 in coupons & then brag that they got 20 items free, when in fact, they spent more than someone with a lesser value coupon that cost them next to nothing.

[434Teresa]

Their totals do not always reflect their investment. I've seen many folks spend 10.00+ for 20.00 in coupons & then brag that they got 20 items free, when in fact, they spent more than someone with a lesser value coupon that cost them next to nothing.

so true..I just cant see paying what some do on ebay for coupons...

[leqet]

I think part of it depends on what part of the country you are in. I'm in a highly competitive grocery market (Charlotte NC) and during our special coupon events (Triples or Super Doubles) I can do 99% savings consistently. But, I have four different grocery stores that double up to .99 every day and several that offer Triple Coupons or Super Doubles often.

Michelle

I don't track my savings, but I know my numbers are very high for the same reason as Michelle, WHEN I DO A COUPON RUN. What I mean is that, I'm not saving that much off of EVERY grocery bill. At least not anymore. I have .99 doubles, sometimes triples and sometimes super doubles up to 1.98 at my stores. When I first started couponing overage was more common with doubles or triples. Now the stores have changed their registers so that overage doesn't happen very often. When I first started couponing I also had no food restrictions and I needed to save as much as possible just to make ends meet. If that meant we were eating whatever I could get free/cheap that week, then that was the way it went until I got a stockpile built up.

Now I have food allergies and other health concerns that force me to buy more fruits, veggies and meat, but coupons still allow me to save so I can afford to get fruits and veggies elsewhere. Even for fruits and veggies I shop the sales and buy in season. I may get my coupon items at one store and my produce at another or at several different stores. My meat mostly comes from BJ's because that's where I can find organic meats for the lowest prices. So if I were to post my coupon runs only (trips to stores where I only purchased things that were free or cheap with coupon) my savings would be about 90%. But if I post my produce run my savings with sale prices would only be around 50% on average. That averages out better than if I had bought all my produce at the expensive stores that double.

To be honest I really don't think I could do this is I had several kids to tote around with me. Unless I really needed to save the money to make ends meet I would want to shop just one store and plan to get everything I needed for the week (or two weeks) in one trip. I'm just shopping for two people and in order to save I actually have to shop more frequently or we will have fresh food go bad before we can eat it. If I can't can it, freeze it or dry it I don't buy more than we can eat at one time. But I will plan on going to a store two or three times in a week to buy the same fresh item if it's a really good deal. Where I am now I am within walking distance of two stores. I walk to the store several times a week to buy extra fresh produce or meat thats on sale. No gas wasted and I get a little exercise. And if there happens to be a good coupon deal on shelf stable itmes I can take advantage of it on more than one day.

[ari'smom]

Certainly no extreme couponer here as I'm kind of just starting out here, or more accurately starting over. I've actually been a bargain shopper my entire life but stopped couponing somewhere between 10 and 20 years ago when stores stopped doubling coupons in my region. So I really didn't feel like I was missing any really killer deals. And in a way I was right, at least on food. There I don't find like I can save a significant amount of money with coupons unless they are combined with a super killer sale, but so far that has been only on things that I maybe can use but don't have a high need for. Otherwise I've found that sometimes buying another item not with a coupon is still less expensive, proving the addage that just because something is on sale or special, doesn't always make it the best deal.

But to support what Mothernature was saying, I am finding that i was missing some very nice deals on non food items, like cleaning products, hba, otc medicines, etc. So even though I've just started, I've already noticed that I have a little more of my actual food budget left over, and I have more of the non food type stuff than I used to because now I can actually afford to buy it lol.

So for the most part I think that is going to be my long term strategy and way of looking at things i.e. to save as much in the areas and on items that I can so that I will have that much more left over for the food items. Like others have said, I mostly cook from scratch and don't buy tons of prepackaged items, and I have a growing daughter who can't live without her fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact she just said to me (even though it's the end of the month and we're pretty much broke at this point lol) "don't you feel like things have been a little bit nicer since we've been couponing?" Tissues, tp, paper towels, dishwasher detergent, laundry soap just to name the basics all are last on the list when I shop so are usually kind of sparse. Just having enough of some of those kinds of things and not having to use a huge amount of the food money to buy them is kind of nice in and of itself. :)