Couponing Success!

So TLC has a new show called Extreme Couponing that comes on Wednesday nights, so this week I decided to see what it was all about.  I must say I was a bit disturbed by the people they profiled.  In the 3 shows they aired, they profiled 8 couponers and in my opinion 7 of the 8 were borderline hoarders.  I understand the purpose of stocking up of cheap items, but why do you need to purchase 300 toothbrushes or 50 packets of cold cuts (won't they go bad?) or 77 bottles of mustard?  The one that was really nuts was a guy who bought 1,100 (yes 1,100) boxes of cereal.  He did get all 1,100 for $150.00 which is awesome, and he did donate them to his church's food bank, but 1,100 BOXES?!?!  Most of the people who were profiled had garages and other rooms of their homes that looked like mini-grocery stores.

However, aside from the massive quantities of groceries these people purchased I can honestly say I VERY impressed with their savings: $230 worth of groceries for $2.50, $1,900 worth of groceries for $100, $600 of groceries for $6. I can only aspire to do that well some day (but with a much more reasonable amount of groceries).

I was inspired by the show and decided I was going to try really hard this week with my grocery shopping.  I got all my coupons together and hit up Publix after work yesterday.  I am pleased to report I had my best shopping trip to date:

That's right.  I spent $20.98 and saved $46.38 (69% savings!), and no I did not buy a bunch of random stuff that we will never eat.  Some of the items I scored were several bags of frozen veggies, some granola (a new favorite of mine), a couple of boxes of cereal, some frozen pizzas (Freschetta), some pasta, toothpaste and some oh-so fabulous Jello Temptations for $.13 per 3 pack (if you have not tried these yet, you are missing out!).  Hopefully this will become a trend for me, I could get used to these kinds of savings!