Grocery Coupon Savings Saving Money on Food

These grocery coupon savings are brought to you by one of our readers, Deborah Malle, a self proclaimed coupon junkie. She uses them very effectively, saving her family a ton of money. During our conversation, I had disclosed to her that our family's grocery bill averages $350 per month for six people. This includes the two parents, two boys ages 10 and 9, and two girls ages 5 and 3 in the central valley of California. It is important to know the ages of the children since my boys as teenagers will consume much more than they do now.

Deborah then went on to give me, with much clarity and examples, her way to save money using coupons. I told her that coupons, for me, do not prove fruitful. This could be because I have yet to learn how to use them effectively, I am lazy (a prime candidate for being the real reason), or the way I shop discount stores, I purchase most food items cheaper than using coupons at regular stores; the stores in our area do not double coupons. I will explore this and other tips on budgeting in future articles.

Let us continue then, as Deborah tells us how others can benefit from grocery coupon savings:

Mustard and Razors

Last story - 17 bottles of mustard and 20 women's razors:

French's mustard - usually $1.79 each - was on sale for $1.50 each. I had two coupons for .30 cents off one, but my local stores double the coupons - so it was .60 off of each jar. So I paid .90 for each mustard - half off.

BUT after I had checked out and got my receipt, my store prints out coupons. The coupon I got said 'thanks for using French's mustard - here's a dollar off of your next purchase of anything at this store'.

So they gave me a dollar - which means technically that I only paid .40 for each mustard.......which is less than 1/4 of the original price....

And razors: the local BP used to give me the Sunday papers that they didn't sell, and I would take all of the coupons. I once had not one but 20 coupons for a certain women's refillable razor (came with a refill) that was good for ONE FREE.

Had 20 coupons - got 20 razors. Free.

Donate the Grocery Coupon Savings

All of this made me remember the verse...........I think it's in Corinthians....which says that 'you will have more than enough for all of your needs and more besides to give away'.

What was I going to do with 20 razors? Give them to a local women's shelter, was what I thought. But I haven't yet - I wanted to build up the box with some other things too.

But I'm working on it.

Are you inspired to look at grocery coupon savings in a whole new way?

And it doesn't hurt to think about this: if you know that with a coupon (hopefully doubled) and a sale on an item, that you'll pay some ridiculously low price for something you don't normally buy (bought a frozen big pretzel one time for 15 cents.....what the heck) - why not buy it and try it?

I've really expanded my horizons that way, with some good results! All on name brand stuff. And if you still don't think that you'd be able to use enough coupons to make it worth your while, then what about keeping your eyes peeled for a sale on something that you have a coupon for (but wouldn't use the product) and getting it for almost nothing - and donating it?

If you got your whole church involved, think of how much your church could give to the local shelters! For pennies on the dollar!

I bet the local stores would donate to a church (rarely a person) the leftover Sunday papers that they don't sell. People in the church could volunteer to cut out and organize the coupons....watch for sales and alert the appropriate people.....

Okay, I've talked your head off - you can see this is a passion of mine. I hate to pay full price for anything! Ha haha.

Time for Action

Thanks again, Deborah. Paying full price when you do not have to is pretty silly. It might take a little extra work, but the benefits of grocery coupon savings are incredible! If you, my awesome reader, missed the first part of her talk on grocery store coupons go there now.

This series continues with ways to have frugal meals when eating out.

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