Saturday shopping

On Saturday, July 23, 2011 my husband and I went shopping. We first went to Office Depot and picked me up a paper cutter so I could clip my coupons faster. We used his employee discount for the purchase. and before we left the parking lot I convinced my hubby that we go to the Family Dollar to get something we needed. I didn't have a plan so I am sure it took way longer than it needed it to. But that's ok we got some great deals. One of the deals that I loved and was excited to get was an Air Wick starter kit. Family Dollar had them priced for $5.00. I had 4 $4.00 coupons. So I was charged only $1.00 each. After being there for a couple of hours I went to check out. I only had problems with 3 of my coupons that I used for all of my purchases. The cashier call the supervisor over and she was able to get them posted. When everything was said and done I saved $41.00 on my purchases. She announced it to the other patrons and they clapped and cheered me. I was so excited that I wanted to do it again.  Hopefully, the more I go at it the easier it will get. I know that shopping on saturday wasn't good. There was a lot of people at the Family Dollar and I was holding them up. I felt bad but with my health there wasn't much I could do about it. I know there is one question that appears alot with other sites that I belong to and that is: Where do you find all of your coupons? I know some have said that they go dumster diving, some say they buy several sunday papers to get coupons. For me I am not about to go dumster diving. That is so icky!! Being a nurse you never know what kind of ick that you can get. I have seen people where shorts and flipflops to get into the dumster. I have also seen people who don't wear gloves. Which could be the worsening ick factor for me. To become an RN I had to take medical microbiology. So I have seen some pretty icky things under the microscope. (I don't recommend it. Especially if you have problems with germs to begin with) So far I have gotten my coupons from 2 different areas. 1. Ebay and 2. one sunday paper. However, I have increased my sunday paper by several. I have received many Ebay coupons that I have been really happy with. Be care if you decided to get a binder from someone on Ebay. Some people will charge up to $100.00 for these binders. They promise some coupons, and policies and everything that you made need to start becoming an extreme couponer. I, however put together my own binder. Alot of the people that sell the binders will tell exactly what they have in the binder. And if your careful you can put a binder together for less than $20.00. The binder being the most expensive part. I was able to get my binder on amazon for a little more than $10.00. It is very important to get a binder that you are comfortable with. It is also best if you get a binder with a zipper. I had another binder that I used and the coupons would fall out pretty easily. I also got some dividers. Right now with school starting you could get those pretty cheap. I chose to put mine in alphabetical order by brand name. You can do it by produce, fruit, poultry, frozen food and anyway you feel comfortable. Another thing it is very important to have is the store policies that you frequent with. I was able to get those by going to the store's website for free, The only one I had trouble getting was Kroger's Grocery. I sent them an email and had the policy within the week. One of my goals this week is to try and find out in advance when they have certain items on sale. From what I learned it's important to make a plan of action before going to the store. It helps keep the time to be minimal as possible. Which I realized it was important yesterday cause my husband was bored and would walk away from me frequently. So if you need help it's important to have a plan. It reduces the time you spend at the store and helps keep you partner, other patrons and even the store happier. One of the things you need to get is the baseball card holders so you can put coupons into the binder. Therefore you can keep all the coupons where you can access them quickly. Which of course helps with saving the money. They say time is money and they are right. I mentioned earlier about how I get coupons on Ebay. Many other extreme couponers get many coupon inserts and sells them on Ebay. You can also find specific slipped coupons on Ebay if there is a specific item that you are wanting to get. The common thing I see from sellers on Ebay states that you are not paying for the coupons but are paying for the time spent on organizing, clipping, and putting together coupons. But I have found that the same items can cost differently depending on the seller. I have also noticed that some of the coupon sellers may charge for shipping and some use free shipping. I have been charged as little as 44 cents to get coupns. You have to find an ebayer that you can trust. Unfortantely you don't get what you ask for. It's really important that you look at their reviews.Especially if they are recent negative comments. So be careful. I tried to get them from a local grocery store and the local newspaper and they neither one could help me. The grocery store stated that if they don't sell the newspapers the newspaper picks them up. They can't give them away on Monday. So when I called the newspaper they said that they recycle the papers. So I couldn't get them. I tried to get a Sunday Paper from another publisher and they keep the coupons and send me the newspaper itself. I know that on Saturdays they have an "Early Edition" of the Sunday Paper. My husband picked up 2 papers from the local drug store and I was able to get the coupons. (I told him not to pick up the newspaper if they didn't have coupons) And then we get a Sunday paper every sunday anyway. So depend on how serious you are with couponing you can get the coupons that you want. Another big way you could get the coupons is to talk with family and friends. Usually you could take turns and exchange coupons pretty easily. I will clip all coupons and keep what I am willing to use and the rest goes to my friends and family. That reminds me that I want to explain about couponing is that it's important to decide if you can use different brands and not be so strict on specific items. An example is toothpaste. Ask yourself if you are willing to use colgate even though you may use crest normally. It depends on how you feel. Also you can be strict on one item but a little more willing on other products you use. An example is: I only use Charmin toilet paper due to allergies. But I am willing to use colgate instead of crest because of coupons. The extra money that you save with the couponed item and you can put the difference towards the Charmin toilet paper. Like I said I am still a Rookie. And that I save $41.00 on my trip to Family Dollar yesterday is just the beginning. I know if I could do it I know you can. Hang in there and please let me know what you think and if you have ideas to save money. Whatever, money we can save we can cause it to be better in this economy. I wanted to add one more thing: I have seen alot of questions that state that some have expired coupons and didn't know what to do with them. In case you didn't know you can donate the coupons that have expired to the military overseas. There are several very good websites that can get you hooked up with a military family. You can donate to anyone in the military or to specific military families. For the military in the USA  that are stationed overseas they are allowed to use the coupons up to 6 months passed their expiration. If the governement doesn't pass a budget by August 5th and the governement shuts down that means that our military won't be receiving a check and will definately need those coupons to support their families. So please donate them to the military. A facebook site is "Expired Coupons for Overseas miltary" other sites the Overseas Coupon Program at www.ocp.net , Coups For Troops at www.coupsfortroups.com, or Support Our Troops at www.supportourtroops.org .  Yes, I am a military mom. I have a child who is in the military and had 2 other children that had been part of the military also. Even if you don't like the governement I believe in helping the military. Some of these folks had no other option but to go into the military to support their families. Especially with the economy the way it is. This is an excellent way of supporting our troups and their families. So please keep that in mind when getting rid of the coupons. Good Luck and I will keep you posted on how I am doing while I am working towards to Financial Freedom.  Have a great week!!

Day 1 to financial freedom

For those who are new to my blogging, this is the plan. By August 2012 I want to be completely debt free.Is this a possiblty? In this blog I am going to discuss the different things that I am trying to use to be able to get to my ultamate goal.  My husband and I have already paid off credit cards and some loans thanks to consumer credit. We both have paid off all of our vehicles. Consumer Credit had talked to the creditors on our behalf and was able to get our interest lowered. Don't get me wrong, we still have our normal monthly bills, plus we have 2 mortgages, and 2 school loans (mine). One of the complications we have had is that I have been off work since the day after Thanksgiving. So with 1 income we have been able to pay off some of the debt. Not that I would recommend it but when I was unable to work anymore (at least right now) I took my retirement and my husband took some money that he got from his dad's death and we paid off the consumer credit. I know that if I was still working that I wouldn't have been able to use the retirement.Let me explain my work status. I am a RN who hasn't worked since the day after Thanksgiving. My health has been really bad for the last couple of years. I have chronic issues with Migraines. Have been hospitalized 3 times since then for the migraines and 1 time for my gastric bypass surgery. In December 2010 I was diagnosed with a pseudo tumor cebri. Which mean my brain thinks it has a tumor and retains alot of spinal fluid. Also my neurologist stated on May 31, 2011 that my migraines are not just the pseudo tumor but it is also vascular. Therefore I have a headache everyday. So paying off some of our bills was such a joyous feeling knowing that we paid it off. But everything is tight with only 1 income coming in and we have had my short term disability. But the short term disability ended in June 2011. Here it is July and I haven't heard anything regarding my long term disability from my old job. I am hoping to get this and I could relax about getting healthy and getting my next job.  Luckily, that the short term disability was sent when we were about to lose our house. Thank God the economy is in a slump and it helped us keep our house. We refinanced and it lowered our interest rate. If you can afford to do it then do it. It will help your credit and may help your finances. Another thing that I have begun again is clipping coupons. I remember when my children were still living at home I would clip coupons and was able to save some money with our grocery bill. However, we have decided to take it to a new whole level. Or should I say that I have decided to take it a whole new level. I have been doing alot of research of people who do extreme couponing. I am hoping to not just save money but maybe to help my son and his fiance and maybe our church. Everytime I blog I will be discussing how the couponing is doing and I will try to come up with other ways for saving money. They say you should have 6 months of savings in case of an emergency and with this economy this is the emergency. And I hope I can help all of you too. Here we go!!!