Today, I took all of the coupons that I clipped and sorted yesterday and compared them to the store sale flyers for the grocery stores that are close enough to my house to shop at. I also browsed through the Dollar General flyer because there is a Dollar General right next to Shaws in my town. Since I am easing into couponing, I did not look for every single item on every coupon that I have, I pulled out a few coupons for items that we could use right now and searched for those items.
Anyways, I did not find any matches between the coupons that I want to use this week and the sale flyers. Fortunately, most of the coupons that I have are valid for another couple of weeks, and some are even good for a couple of months. I really like that because it gives me time to wait until I have more money to play with as well as more time to wait for the coupons to match up with store sales. It seems to me that waiting for coupons to match store sales is one of the keys to getting good at couponing so maybe it is not a terrible thing that I will only part with a few of my coupons this week.
Even though there are no matches between my coupons and the store flyers, I was in Shaws on Saturday (and again on Sunday), and noticed the prices on some things. Those prices are in effect until this Thursday when the store closes. This information is key to my decision to use a few coupons this week. For example, I bought a box of multigrain Wheat Thins on Saturday. My son and I love to snack on them, and I like them even better than regular Wheat Thins. They are on sale for $2.50 per box when you use your Shaws card. I have four coupons for a dollar off of a box of any kind of Wheat Thins. I will be going to Shaws and buying four boxes of Wheat Thins for six dollars, which is a good deal since they normally cost three dollars per box.
Another exciting prospect, depending upon whether I will be allowed to use an in store coupon along with a coupon from the newspaper, is in the diaper department. I really do hope that I will be able to do this deal, because I will be able to try out the new slip on diapers, which I noticed are on sale for ten dollars this week. If I can use both coupons, I will save five dollars. That would be wonderful, and I’ll let you know if it happens.
My strategy for a couple of other items that we need which I have coupons for is to go to the store and check the price of the item after using the coupon against the price of its store brand counterpart. I am definitely a big believer in saving money with store brands, so I always buy those if they are the cheapest option. So, I have my small coupon related shopping list all planned out for this week. Tomorrow I will go to the store and see if it works out how I think it will.
Photo by mconnors on morguefile.com.