Adventures in Couponing: Third (and final) Trip of the Great 3-Day Couponing Weekend

Final run to the last few sales I wanted to catch, before everything rose back to pre-Memorial Day prices.

First Stop:  PETCO
I worked in pet retail for 3 years, so I know some of the tricks.  The best deal is if you can find a clearance item to stack with a manufacturer's coupon.  And PETCO, with its ever-changing product lines and planograms, always has a ton of clearance.

Read more »

Adventures in Couponing: Second Trip

Hubby and I have our big beginning-of-the-month grocery run planned for tomorrow, so I decided to make a couple more small couponing ventures tonight, so we can get whatever's left on our shopping list on our last big trip tomorrow.  Here's the breakdown:

Read more »

Adventures in Couponing: First Trip

I decided to try to go small after my first experimental couponing trip to Harris Teeter (where I got $50 worth of groceries for $20).  So I made a list of just a few things I wanted to go at each store, organized my coupons into envelopes (stacking manufacturer and store, where I had both), made a shopping list, grabbed some circulars, and hit the road.

For a beginner couponer, I am very pleased with the results.  See for yourself.

Read more »

Couponing: Perfect hobby if you have OCD

My latest big obssession has become couponing.  I made one half-hearted couponing trip to Harris Teeter during Triple Coupons week, and walked out with $50 worth of much-needed groceries for $20.  That was a big thrill.

Then I started watching a couple of episodes of "Extreme Couponing" and saw the much more impressive discounts self-taught housewives were receiving.  And I thought, "I can do that!"  I worked as an accounting tech for six years.  I managed a retail store for three.  Now I work in finance for a state government division.  If anyone can take obssessive organizing and use it to maximize cost-effectiveness, it's a numbers nerd like me.

Read more »

TTC Insanity

Every morning when my alarm clock goes off, I reach with one hand to silence it while my other hand goes to the thermometer I keep next to the bed.  I pop the thermometer in my mouth and wait until it beeps, getting the reading before I so much as sit up.

Once I do sit up, I turn to my laptop and enter the temperature reading onto a handy little line graph.  Normally, I'm disappointed by what I see.

I get a shower, get dressed, and head downstairs.  While I prepare my morning coffee, I pop pills from three different bottles, kept next to the coffeepot so I don't forget.  One is a basic multivitamin, one is an iron supplement, and one is a folic acid pill, which is completely uncoated and about as easy to swallow as a handful of sawdust.

Read more »