Spend a Little; Save a Lot

Another coupon post! Get excited! Okay, pep rally over.... down to business.

Economics might well be one of the most boring subjects in college, but you need to understand the basics of it to save the most money. One axiom of economics is that you have to spend money to make money. This is usually applied to things like start-up costs for business or advertising or whatever, but the same principle holds true at the couponing level! Sometimes you have to have a little out of pocket costs in order to access great coupon savings.

The most obvious cost to a couponer is the Sunday paper - here in Tulsa it costs $2, but you are gaining a lot of savings from the coupons. But... that is not the only place to buy coupons! Here are some other great sources for coupons - check 'em out - they will totally help your bottom line!

Coupon Sources
1. All You magazine - this is a magazine that is sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, but you can also get a subscription to it (there are lots of deals out there for subscriptions - leave me a comment if you are interested). The newsstand price is $2.25, but it is full of high value ($1 and above) coupons on products, and their expiration dates tend to be further off than your average newspaper coupons, so you have a greater chance of being able to score an awesome deal when the item goes on sale.

2. eBay - Did you know you can buy coupons on eBay? (OK - technically, for legal reasons, they can't sell coupons per se, but they charge you for the time & effort it takes to find & clip the coupons. A loophole, maybe, but it works). There are essentially two categories of coupons on eBay - the first is big assortments of coupons, generally from the newspaper. This is a great way to get up to speed fast if you are new to couponing - for a couple of bucks, you can buy 100+ coupons and jump right in to saving (as always with eBay, check the shipping costs to be sure that you aren't overpaying). Will there be coupons in these assortments that you have absolutely no use for? Yes, but you'll find lots that you can use - you'll make your money back several times over.

The second category of coupons is multiples for the same product. This is an EXCELLENT way to get lots of coupons for products that you use a lot. For example, I've recently discovered that my husband (who will eat NOTHING healthy) really likes the Kashi frozen waffles. I know it's not as good as fresh fruits or veggies, but compared to the junk my husband used to eat for breakfast??? Vast improvement, people. I'm all about the baby steps. Anyway, these waffles are a good bit pricier than regular old Eggos, so I went to eBay to see if any coupons were available. Jackpot! I bought 2 lots of $1.50 off coupons, spent $4.90 all together, and ended up with over $30 worth of Kashi waffle coupons.

The beauty of eBay is that is gives you access to coupons you could never get in your local area, even if you bought up every Sunday paper in sight or did some serious dumpster diving. For reasons that I don't completely understand, coupons are different from region to region [or even city to city - Oklahoma City's newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman, has different (usually better) coupons than the Tulsa paper]. I recently purchased 15 50 cent offcoupons for my personal crack, Herdez salsa - I paid $1.50 for the coupons. Those coupons never even ran in the Tulsa area, so I bought them off of someone in California. I scored major deals on these jars of salsa, too, because Wal-Mart just started carrying them here, and they had them on roll back for $1.59 - I had been paying $2.39 at the only other store near me that carried them. With the coupons, they were $1.09 (plus the additional 10 cents per coupon- what I paid for them on eBay). That gave me a bottom line of $1.19 per jar, half off what I normally paid. Not to mention the joy I feel when I look in the pantry & see all those jars of yummy salsa.

3. Internet coupon clipping services - aside from eBay, there are other sites dedicated to coupons, the main one being The Coupon Clippers, here: http://www.thecouponclippers.com/coupons/home.php
If you poke around this site, you'll see that this is a family that looks like the Duggars, with only slightly fewer kids, but they make extra cash by selling coupons. You can shop for the specific coupons you want just like you would any other online store - just be aware that they do require a minimum purchase.

It seems a little weird to pay for coupons, but it is a great way to save you both time and money! Happy hunting - for deals AND for coupons. And Happy 4th of July!

Stained Glass Jell-o

My awesome friend La requested a while back that I include some crafts in my blog. Well. I have a half-finished latch hook rug from 1978 lying around here somewhere as a testament to what a non-crafty person I am, so, as much as I love Laura, I didn't really think I'd ever do it. HOWEVER... I think everyone on the planet (plus a few on Mars) now knows that I am into couponing. As a result of this, I have been snapping up boxes of Jell-o for super cheap, but I soon realized that plain old Jell-o wasn't cutting it, and I needed to find a way to jazz it up. I went searching for recipes, and.... SHAZAM! I found a cool, kid-friendly craft that is edible and aesthetically pleasing, so I think just about everybody can get behind it.

I mean, look at it!! It's gorgeous, right?

Here's how you make it:

STAINED GLASS JELL-O

4 small boxes of jello, different colors

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin

Dissolve each box of jello separately, into one cup of hot water. Pour into individual containers (small tupperware works well) and chill overnight.

Ready a 9×13 pan. Cut flavors of jello into small blocks. Mix together carefully in pan.

In a separate bowl, dissolve 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water. Add dissolved gelatin to 1 3/4 cup hot water and condensed milk. Cool.

Pour cooled milk mixture over jello and chill overnight.

That's it! Totally easy! And the crafty possibilities are endless. You could use cookie cutters to make fun shapes with it. You could choose your Jell-o colors to create themes - Red & blue for the 4th of July! Pink & purple for a princess tea party! Green & red for Christmas! If you are a big ol' nerd like me, you could use the whole process as an educational experience for your kids! Teach them the science behind gelatin! Explain stained glass vis-a-vis the Catholic church and the importance of Martin Luther & the Reformation! Seriously, what couldn't you do with Stained Glass Jell-o?

I've realized that maybe I AM a crafty person. Next project - expired coupon paper mache!

The Baseline

Baseline - a specific value or values that can serve as a comparison or control

I've been able to get some incredible deals since I started couponing, but let's face it: if you get a bottle of salad dressing for free, or a box of cereal for 30 cents, you don't need Suze Orman to tell you that you are doing well. Coupon deals like that are an awesome little rush, but you can't get them all the time, particularly for items that are at a higher price point. So you have to figure out how to maximize your savings on all your everyday purchases, even when the stars don't align for you to get them for pennies.

Here's what the Coupon Gurus out there tell you to do: make a list of the 20 or so items that you purchase regularly. Visit all your local stores every week for 12 weeks and record their prices. Track each store's sale cycles (which are pretty constant - if you pay attention, you can know way in advance which weeks Hot Pockets are going to be on sale). Buy your items at the low point in the price cycle (and use your coupons, natch).

I'm sure this is awesome advice, but here's the deal: I have a 4 month old. If you think I'm schlepping him out to every store every week for the next 3 months to record prices in my little notebook, you have another think coming. I had to figure out a way to know when I was getting a good deal that wasn't so labor intensive. So here's what I do - I try to determine what I call the baseline - the price per unit cost that I am looking for in order to know whether to skip the item, buy the item, or stock up on the item. This is vital because with items that are sold in various sizes, it can be confusing to figure out which sizes are the best deal, so instead of just looking at the price, pay attention to the per unit cost. Example of units might be rolls of toilet paper, loads of laundry detergent, tampons, slices of cheese, packets of oatmeal, etc.

Here's an example that is super relevant to me right now - diapers! A size 1 jumbo pack of Pampers Swaddlers has 44 diapers and retails for $10.99 for a 25 cent per diaper unit cost. A mega pack has 66 diapers and retails for $15.99 for a 24 cent per diaper unit cost. A value pack has 216 diapers and retails for $45.99 for a 21 cent per diaper unit cost. Since those are regular retail prices, I know that my goal is to beat 21 cents each - that's my baseline. Figuring from that, I can guesstimate that 18-20 cents a diaper is a good deal worth buying, and anything 17 cents or less is a deal I'll want to try to stock up on.

Now, are you paying attention? Because something interesting happens when you add coupons to this equation. Let's say I have a $3 off coupon for Pampers. If I use that coupon on the big value pack, I've lowered my cost per diaper to 20 cents. If I use it on the medium sized mega pack, my cost becomes 19 cents a diaper. But, if I use it on the smallest pack - the jumbo - my cost per diaper drops to 18 cents!! The best deal! Also, stores are more likely to have sales on smaller items, too, so that multiplies your savings. Let's say Target put their jumbos on sale for $9.99 (which they do, all the time), AND I have the coupon - all of a sudden I am paying less than 16 cents per diaper! What started as the most expensive way to buy diapers has turned into Stock Up City!

This illustrates another component of coupon logic - usually, coupons have the biggest savings impact on SMALLER sized items. In shopping, we are trained to think that bigger = cheaper, and if you are paying retail, that is normally true. But it doesn't take much for that to be turned upside down when you are taking a dollar or so off of the price.

Figure out your baseline on all your faves, and buy smart. The Schoolhouse Rock people were right - knowledge IS power.

Life isn't perfect, so there's Walgreens

I've mainly focused on my grocery store savings, but you can really score some AWESOME deals at drugstores, too. They tend to have different kinds of deals than grocery stores, so today I'll explain how to maximize your dollars at Walgreens. I know people are reading this from all over - if you live near a CVS or an Eckerd or a Rite Aid, they all have similar types of programs, but since we don't have those in Tulsa, I don't know the deets. Actually, that leads me to a major coupon savings tenet I haven't discussed yet: know each store's policy on coupons. You'd be amazed at how different they are (here's a hint - WalMart stinks), and some of them allow things you'd think would never be allowed.

Which brings me to Walgreens. First off, Walgreens has some pretty great sales every week (and their weekly circulars are available online on their website), so it is easy to score some deals by following couponing policy 101. For instance, this week they have Chinet paper plates on sale 2 for $3 (they are normally $1.99 each). By combining that sale with 2 $1 off coupons, I got 2 packs of Chinet plates for $1 - 50 cents each! This will allow me to look good on the 4th of July when Eddie's family comes over for a cookout - I get to whip out the "fancy" paper plates, and I won't have to do dishes when it's all over. Since looking good & not doing the dishes are two of my favorite activities, I especially loved this Walgreens deal.

But it gets better! Walgreens is famous for doing B1G1 sales [pop quiz! Remember what that stands for? "Buy one, get one free"]. But even with these B1G1s, they still allow you to use two coupons on the items! Crazy good deal! Example: last week, Wags had the big 8 ounce tubes of Banana Boat sunblocks B1G1. They cost $9.99, so getting one free is a pretty good deal from the start. But, I had two $2 off coupons! So I got two giant tubes of sunblock (one was the kind for babies) for $5.99. Keep an eye out for the B1G1s, because the bottom line with these deals is that you get one item free, and the other one double-couponed.

Okay, are you ready for your Walgreens PhD now? Wags has a program called Register Rewards. How it works is that when you buy certain items, you'll get a coupon (a CAT, specifically) that can be used like cash at your next visit to Walgreens. These items are clearly identified in their weekly circular, so you know what you are looking for. I personally like to use the Register Rewards [RR] for stuff I was going to buy anyway - that way I can get that stuff plus whatever my original purchase was for free. Here's my illustration: early last week I bought some Colgate that was on sale, and I got a $1.50 Register Reward for it. I went back later & bought a birthday card for my friend with my RR. Register Rewards make sense for Wags, because it gets you in the habit of coming back to store - obviously something they want to encourage. But if you are a smart shopper, they can make money sense for you, too.

Now that I've outlined all the good deals at Walgreens, I finally get to tell you about the Triple Crown of couponing that I achieved at Wags yesterday. I was able to use ALL THREE of the concepts I've just discussed to score the Holy Grail of couponing - an overage! Here's how I did it: Walgreens had 45 count Ecotrin aspirin tablets on sale for $2 (good sale). I had an Ecotrin coupon for $2 off (good coupon), making the aspirin free. BUT.... I also got a $2 Register Reward for my next trip! A $2 overage on that purchase! Do I use Ecotrin? No, I do not. But my mother-in-law does, so I get the added bonus of helping her out with my bargain hunting.

Wags is fast becoming my favorite place to shop - let me know what kind of great deals you find there!