I suppose it could be worse. There are those who blow off friends and family just for the search, for the thrill, for the high. Some spend upwards to 60hrs a week doing searches and preparing for this adventure of epic proportions. My sleep certainly could be cut short by this. While the addiction certainly is there, it hasn't debilitated my life. Do you suppose they have meetings for this sort of thing?
Hello, my name is Cass and I am a coupon addict (Hi Cass).
For someone who is still new to the scene, I don't do horribly. The thing is that if I had stores like Rite-Aid, Krogers and Food Lion, I would be getting much better deals. Albertson's just started a system where they double and triple coupons, but these coupons have low values. Up to $.30 can be tripled and up to $.49 (or is it $.50?) can be doubled. I wish it would go up to a dollar. I would be in business then.
It just seems that I spend a decent chunk of time trying to find online coupons to print so I can cut them out. Cutting coupons from the printer, or from the inserts, is just a part of that high. With every clip, I have the phrase "Winning!" popping in my head. I typically will print something everyday but only clip once a week. The process of clipping could last up to an hour with me depending on how many coupons I have and what program I just happen to be watching on tv. I use to have scissors in the car so I could clip some last minute coupons before I went to the store.
I imagine the great specials that Walgreens or CVS could have and hope that some BOGO deals will pop up so that I can maximize my savings. Oh how I love certain words. "BOGO", "Sale", "Free" etc. Those words can mean gold! At the moment my savings tends to be 50% off no matter if it is grocery (at Albertson's) or at Walgreens. A few times it's been in the upper 60's. I believe my highest savings was 73%. You have to understand that not a lot of stores will let you double store coupons with manufacturer coupons. Only one store here allows you to double coupons. Typically I am online for hours finding the right links to give me what I want and I spend quite a bit of time on walgreens.com and cvs.com looking through their weekly circulars. I write stuff down. I figure out which of the two is the best deal and try to get the highest coupon with that. It still ends up being around a 50% savings, but considering what it is I am working with, 50% is still pretty damn good. If I had the right stores here, I could be upwards in the 90% range but beggars can't be choosers. Maybe I can move to an area where I have all these stores.
I do need to eventually switch over to my coupon binder. My little black booklet is starting to get rather full and hard to close. I plan on using my black one for grocery items and my binder for non-grocery items since I have more of those. I try to get a little bit of everything, but only brands that I know I would buy. I'm not brand loyal but I'm certainly not going to clip coupons for cat food since my cat isn't with me right now, but I will clip coupons for cereal. It doesn't matter if it is Kelloggs or General Mills. Both have deals and specials. I am not picky when it comes to laundry detergent but I try to only buy Secret Clinical if I can. I have so many various coupons that it just seems as though I will have a hard time finding anything soon. I just know that binders are easier for people if they have more than four coupons of the same item. I have not got to that stage yet, but soon.
Right now I want to go back to the store for more back-to-school stuff. Eventually I will be back in college and Gabriel will be in the first grade next year. Walgreens has one subject notebooks for $.40 right now. They have a bunch! CVS has sales as well. Supposedly next week's sales will be even better, but that is just here say right now. It's the newest fix in this addiction. I still leave Walgreens with a shopping cart full of stuff, which isn't saying much since their carts are much smaller than a typical grocery cart. I haven't got to the point where I need six carts that are piled with items, but maybe one day. I just don't have the space to be storing stuff like that. One day I will have my own house. Daylan already said that I could have a designated space for my stock pile and it would be enough space to where it could grow a bit. Then I could have these shopping carts full of stuff I don't need, but can donate, so that either I can use the overages to pay for the items I really do need or I could simply have stuff to donate to shelters of any kind. One day I will make donations to pet shelters and perhaps a women's shelter. Oh one day my shopping carts will look like those on Extreme Couponing.
Until then, I am completely content with the small amounts I do now. Of course I have to reorganize my stock pile and I'm not sure how or where I'm going to put these new items. Certain stuff I can stop on, like the pads, band-aids, men's deodorent, men's body wash and tampons, but other stuff like neosporin, toilet paper and air freshener are more difficult to come by. I'm getting there eventually and it's with the help of coupons and Walgreens.
No comments:
Post a Comment