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!

Dinner Time!

We have been super busy the past couple of weeks and I realized yesterday that I have not cooked dinner in almost 2 weeks....yikes!  I felt like such a slacker!  I finally broke my non-cooking streak this evening with a recreation of a sandwich I had at Panera Bread this past weekend:  a steak and white cheddar panini.

from the Panera Bread website

Ingredients
bread (I used 5 grain Italian, the original sandwich is made with a soft baguette)
thinly sliced grilled sirloin steak
shredded white cheddar cheese
horseradish sauce
caramelized red onions

Directions
Assemble sandwich and press on a George Foreman Grill (or a fancy panini press if you have one).  If it were cooler I would have made some soup but I can't do soup when it is above 70 degrees outside so we substituted with chips.

Eric loved it, and I will definitely be adding this recipe to my recipe book.

Couponing

I have always loved a good deal and have been known to scour the clearance racks everywhere I go.  I guess I have been burned one too many time after buying something at full price and then seeing it discounted a few weeks later, so I have learned to be very strategic with my purchases.

I have gone to get a Sunday newspaper for the past year just to see what great deals I can get that week. Since the beginning of 2011 I have really gotten into couponing for my groceries.  At first it was a way for me to save money on groceries, but it has become more like a game for me.  Now every time I go into the grocery store I am looking back and forth between my coupons, my list, any deals that were not listed in the weekly ad.  Eric thought it was silly until he realized how much money I am saving us every month.  In January, I saved an average of 25% on all of our groceries, in February it was up to 37% and in March my savings was up to 44% on our groceries.  Keep in mind that I do not separate my couponing and non-couponing purchases, which is what a lot of extreme couponers do, so they can see their savings clearly.  Frankly I do not want to make multiple trips to the grocery store per week if I can help it--the only reason I want to go back is if there is a really great deal I missed!

Most of my coupons come in either the Sunday Newspaper or web sites like couponmom.com.  Since I work full time and don't have time to sit and match the ads up, I rely heavily on some awesome blogs to let me know what's on sale and which coupons to make sure I have.  My favorites are I Heart Publix and Hunt4Freebies.  They update throughout the day with great deals and freebies and most of their posts tell you what is on sale along with a link to find coupons for the items so you don't have to try to find them.  Although I have been known to google an item with the word coupon if I have a specific item in mind (hello $1 off Blue Belle Ice Cream when it was on sale for $3.99/gal @ Winn-Dixie one week and $4.50 @ Publix the next--needless to say Eric was a happy camper those weeks).

I am not quite on the level of the people on Extreme Couponing on TLC.  Although I am psyched to watch the series that starts this week to see how these people do it!

BOC for me!

I am very pleased to report that I today I acquired my very first "BOC" (Bag of Crap for those not familiar with woot.com jargon).  I have no idea what it will be but I can't wait to find out!

Woot is a 1 deal per day web site that has different items for sale each day at discounted prices. I always check it along with 1saleaday.com daily to see what kinds of deals I can get.   I have gotten 8G SD memory cards for $5, a digital meat thermometer for $15, a bluetooth headset for $20, LED flashlights for $3, Green Bags for produce (free), Ipod speakers for $5, a Margarator for $40, etc.  Woot.com occasionally has woot-offs where they have limited numbers of products so they continuously post them all day, which usually culminate with the holy grail of woot items.  The BOC.  It is always $3 plus $5 for S&H, but you can get anything from a few random items to a big screen tv.  Seriously.  Look it up on YouTube and you can find videos of people opening their BOCs.

So after 2 years of chasing the elusive BOC I now will have one of my own in the next week or so!

This BOC was a little different, since it was April Fool's Day (a perennial BOC day, along with Christmas) the characters at woot.com decided to come up with a game to play in order to qualify to get a BOC.  However, it apparently took wooters only 8 hours to come up with a cheat code that when entered repeatedly into your browser would take you to the purchase page.  As you can see it took me 73 tabs to get mine, but it was so worth it!