Coupons, Part III: Pharmacy

The pharmacy is a strange, hard, but sometimes very rewarding place. Number one rule: Go in with a plan and do not deviate. Let me back up... I guess I began at the end.

To start with, like I have said before, I only choose one pharmacy to watch. You can watch all of them if you aren't consumed with a job and/or have a one year old hanging on your leg all day. My choice is CVS simply because they were (and still are! Yay!) the closest to my house.

I begin by pulling their ad from the Sunday paper. You can also check in on {Southern Savers} and probably their website, but I really like having the paper copy in front of me as well. As with groceries, I check on {Southern Savers} to see what sales match with coupons that I have. Now, as you probably know, most items are marked way up at pharmacies, so you need to either have a written down list of the highest price you will pay on items (I have one from {Grocery University}), or just have a good idea of what good prices are.

Where you are really going to benefit from shopping at pharmacies, though, is from their "Extra Bucks." Each pharmacy calls it something different, but they all have something similar. You buy a product for X amount and you get Y amount back in store credit. At CVS, most weeks they will have an item for "free"... where you get the same amount back in store credit as you bought it for. The great part about this is that you can also use a coupon on this item. Thus, If you buy a "free" item that is $5 and use a $1 coupon... you are paying $4 and getting $5 in store credit. It happens quite a bit. You can turn around and use the store credit on a second transaction or you can save it for next time and use it on another Extra Care Buck item. If you keep "buying" these items with store credit that you receive store credit for, then you will essentially get things for free every week.

I don't always want the "free" things, and you probably won't either. Most of the time I spend my ECBs on items that I needed anyway... when paired with coupons it all comes out really great. I've gotten lots of free or near-free toothpaste, razors, soap, paper towels, etc.

Here are my rules for shopping the pharmacy:

• As with groceries, have and stick to the budget. Only buy what we normally use. 
• Make a plan before going (One transaction or two? What coupons do I use? What happens if they are out of this item?)
• Do not deviate from plan. A lot of times CVS will have something like: buy $25 of these selected items and get $5 ECB. By stacking coupons on the items, it can be a really good deal. However, it never seems to fail that at least one of the items I plan on buying is out of stock. In this case, I either have a back up plan (something else that I have coupons for) or scrap the whole deal. I'm telling you that if you try to substitute on the spot you will end up spending more than you need for these items. These are rarely great deals without coupons. 

I think that's all I have to share on coupons for now. As with everything else, I'm still growing and learning in how to be the best steward with our money... so I'm anything but an expert on this. My main goal has been to take care of our home and family well within our budget.

What about you? Any treasures of wisdom you would like to share on how to stay in your budget with groceries?

Coupons, Part II: Grocery

I should have prefaced the last post by letting you all know that I do not have this all figured out. My coupon/grocery strategies are forever changing alongside of our lives, location, eating habits, and amount of free time.

Our current location has proved that reality as I still don't know where I'm going to land in my grocery shopping. If you ask (most) anyone in this town where they shop for groceries they will answer "Wal Mart." I just recoiled a little writing that. I do not like Wal Mart... I definitely do not like grocery shopping there.

I really like Kroger. I really, really like Publix. I love Earth Fare. I had all of these in Auburn. I have a Kroger 30 minutes away here. Publix and Earth Fare are four very long hours away.

But, Enough with my personal problems.

Before I start cutting out my coupons and planning out my grocery trip, I have think about our food philosophy. Do you have a food philosophy? Ours, as I said before, is still evolving. My college best, nutritionist/blogger/NYC nanny Becca {her blog here}, let me borrow Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food (ummm... I still have the book, Becca. Sorry!!). My reading of that book started a conversation in our house about what we eat. I loved it and the main take-away I had was to shop the peripheral of the super market and never go down the center aisles unless you absolutely have to. So right now my evolving food philosophy is something like: buy mostly "real" food (produce, meat, fish, dairy); must buy organic: milk, eggs; try to afford to buy organic: meat, fish, produce. I rarely buy convenient sweets (sometimes ice cream, chocolate chips, gum). Only buy red meat on rare occasions.

See, I told you it was vague. All of the above may have been better as a whole separate post, but I feel like it's important in couponing. I am a firm believer that you shouldn't buy something just because it is on sale. Our food philosophy governs what we eat and not the coupons. Have a plan before you start to cut!

Okay, now I'll try to do more bullet points.

• I organize my cut coupons in baseball card holders in a binder. I tried to lay out the coupons as they would be walking through an average grocery store. If you want a list of all my different categories, let me know and I might have the time to type them up someday. :)
• When I was able to shop at Publix and Kroger, I would go to {Southern Savers} on Sunday night and look at her listings to see which store had better sales going on for things that we normally buy. 
• After I chose one store I would sit down with my coupon book and a piece of paper. Jenny lists out each item that is at its rock-bottom price and lists coupons that have been in past inserts along with coupons that are printable. As I found items that we use, I looked through my binder and pulled any corresponding coupons or I printed out coupons she provided links for. I wrote them down on my grocery list and stuck it with my coupons.
• I then looked at my list and thought through meals I could make using these on sale items and then made the rest of my list as needed. 

Here are some things to note....

• A lot of grocery stores double coupons up to .50... thus, a .50 coupon becomes 1.00 off. Also, Publix will take a store coupon and stack it on a manufacturer coupon... hence why you can get things for free there. Check out your store's coupon policy (available at the customer service desk).
• Many couponers buy a lot of papers so they can buy multiple items and stock up on things when they are at their lowest prices. I think this is a great thing to do if you are stocking on things you normally use and have the space for it. I saw an episode of Extreme Couponers where a mom was stocking things in her children's room. Sad. I don't have the room to stock a lot...  I stock up on pasta (I get this for free... a lot), cereal, and canned tomatoes. That's about it for groceries.
• I would recommend bringing your coupons to the store with you (which is why I like to use the binder)... it never fails that when I don't bring it I remember a coupon I had for something I end up buying that I didn't plan for.
• It takes about 4-5 weeks of building up your coupons to really feel like you have enough to make it worth it. Hang in there. 
• I don't really know how much I save using coupons because I have a fixed budget that I, for the most part, meet every month. I know that couponing has allowed me to have more in my budget to splurge on more produce and more organic items that I wouldn't have the budget for otherwise after buying other things we need. So, in my case, it has allowed our family to eat healthier.

My sweet friend, Stacy Leigh, mentioned in her comment that they are moving towards only no processed foods and have a very restrictive diet. Is it worth it for her to spend time couponing? I'm really not sure... but to those of you like her, I would suggest (if you do any shopping at a commercial, even organic, grocery store) to watch the sales at your store. All stores have about a six-week rotation of when items are at their rock bottom price. There's even a coupon site for Organics {here}.

And... even if coupons don't work out for you in the grocery department (I don't think every family needs to coupon, by the way), you might think about it for your household items... which will be my next post! It might not come until next Tuesday... so hang tight. In the meantime, buy a Sunday paper, check out Southern Savers and check out your grocery store's coupon policy!

Coupons, Part I

Right before Wilson was born, my mom got me started in couponing. Spell check is telling me that is not a word, but pop culture will tell you that it is a well-worn word among thrifty moms these days.

I'm sure you've all at least seen clips of Extreme Couponing on TLC. You know, the ladies digging through the garbage cans for (gasp) paper money that some fool tossed away!

This is not how I roll. I do not have grocery store shelves in my bonus room, nor do I buy 10 Sunday papers. I'm more of a subdued, practical couponer.

If you like extreme, I'm not going to be much help to you. But, I would like to offer some advice to those of you who would like to get more for your budget.

1. (What should be most obvious) Have a grocery budget. A lot of couponers will tell you that you succeed if you save 80% or more at each shopping trip. While this is a great deal, you can still overspend as you are "saving." When we first got married, I would run home after a shopping trip and tell Andrew "I saved such-and-such percent!" and he would reply with, "Great... how much did you spend?"

2. Choose one or two grocery stores and one pharmacy to shop at. Again, I am being a rebel in the coupon world, but I have found it best to not worry with checking out every sale in every store every week... I like to keep it simple and fix my attention on just a few. My personal favorites for grocery stores are Kroger and Publix. My favorite for pharmacies is CVS.

3. Find an online helper. There are several great helpers, but the one I check at least once a week is {Southern Savers.} Jenny will tell you about all the sales each week and under each price she will list coupons that have been in the paper or give you links to printable coupons online. She will get an extra crown in heaven for all this work, I'm sure. It's incredible.

4. Buy two Sunday papers a week. Another conservative move on my part... sometimes we only buy one if the coupons don't look that great.

5. Cut the coupons that we will use. Another way I differ from the extreme world... I go though my coupon inserts once a week (usually) and cut out only the coupons that are for things that we actually use. I do not cut out coupons for items that I wouldn't buy if it were not on sale. For instance, I do not cut out chocolate-covered Oreo coupons because I do not want to be tempted to buy them if they are on sale. It's pretty standard around our house to not have convenient sweets laying around and I don't want to change our standards just because something is a good price.

In Part II, I will talk more about how I organize the coupons and plan out my shopping trips! I hope this is helpful. When I first started, I couldn't really find much advice for those of us who wanted to be practical couponers. So if you are not a dumpster diver... we just might be in the same category!