The Couponing Queen-in-training

Hand me my scepter, please, I saved $15 today in coupons.

Ok, so I'm not a queen yet, but today I embarked on my first coupon grocery store adventure. I am couponing now. I am going to be a coupon Queen. Why?

Because Sacramento has the audacity to charge an average of 7% more on groceries that Los Angeles or Malibu, CA. Appalling, I know. I don't think it makes any sense - it's Sacramento, not some distant tropical island that needs everything shipped in. I'm not lounging in the coconuts here, I'm just trying to buy my cheerios at a reasonable price. Am I asking too much? Apparently so.

Anyway, a 7% increase translates into $15-$20 more in groceries for Bob and I. I just don't find that acceptable, but how on earth do I fight something like that?

Answering my call for help, my dear and lovely friend Hannah Jones passed on a brilliant website to me: www.faithfulprovisions.com. "Coupons can save you a lot of money", she promised,"and this woman teaches you how to combine coupons. You can even get things for free sometimes!"

Now, I don't have the best track record for coupons, although this is somewhat my fault. I've tried couponing in the past. I learned that there were only so many coupons on different sites, and I had to print them out myself. It's a pain. Not only that, most of them weren't the brands I like. Which brings me to the biggest problem I've had with coupons: most of them don't apply to me.

I am, without shame, a granola-eating, whole-wheat toting, preservative-free, all-natural, organic-focused, quasi-vegetarian who believes in purchasing only animal products that are hormone-free, cage-free, humanly-raised, deeply-loved and fed lots of yummy, nutritious stuff. Some of you may have a problem with that. Some of you may think it's my west-coast showing. It is what it is, get over it. That's what I buy. It can make shopping trips a little pricer, but in the war between my wallet and my values, my values win out 85% of the time.

This makes it difficult to coupon, however. I'll tell you what you can buy a lot of with coupons - crap. A lot of things containing high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and added sugars. I don't care if I can get lucky charms for $.59 a box. I won't eat it. I will eat a sweet potato for breakfast, but you don't see a lot of coupons for sweet potatoes. You don't see coupons for produce in general, which makes up 75% of my diet. And anything else I buy is usually too specialized (i.e. vegan mayo) to have a coupon attached to it. Thank goodness Kashi is on the public's radar.

So what's a girl to do? Back to Faithful Provisions. I took Hannah's advice and took a skeptical peek at the site. There was a headline saying something to the effect of "Get Herbal Essance shampoo for $.49 ea!" Not possible, I thought. Guess what? It is. And here's how it works (this is all taken directly from the faithful provisions website):

Couponing 101

Types of Coupons: Manufacturer and Store

There are two types of coupons, manufacturer and store. They can be combined and used on one item for HUGE savings! See the example below…

Note: The best place I see this work is at Target and Walgreens, because these stores tend to have lots of store coupons that matchup with manufacturer coupons.

Manufacturer Coupons

·      In Sunday paper as inserts from SmartSource, RedPlum and Proctor & Gamble

·      Get subscription – more affordable and convenient

·      1-2 inserts per week; usually none at the holidays

·      Print online manufacturer coupons from sites like Coupons.com, Smartsource and RedPlum

·      Accepted at most stores; excluding Costco/Sams or Dollar Stores – ask your store.

·      Double/Triple – most stores double and some triple coupons up to a certain value i.e.) Publix and Kroger double $.50 and under, Harris Teeter doubles all coupons up to $.99 everyday, periodically they triple coupons.

Store Coupons

·      Offered in-store booklets, flyers, mailings and online: Great examples of store coupons are Walgreens store ad coupons, Publix flyer store coupons, and Target online printable coupons.

·      Specifically offered by store for either store brand products or brand name

"Stacking" Example

Publix might print a coupon in its weekly sale ad for $2 off any Ocean Spray product. You can combine a store coupon with a manufacturer’s coupon and really save. So, if you have a manufacturer’s coupon from the paper for $1 off any Ocean Spray product, now you can save $3 off of one bottle. This makes products end up being free. This is used best when the item is on sale.

Cool, huh? This was my way to fight back.

After reading up on how to save, away I went on a coupon scavenger hunt. I got the sunday paper and clipped coupons. I registered at all the manufacturer sites. I registered with all the stores in my area. Yes, I even printed and clipped my own coupons. I scoured the weekly ads looking for savings, and I planned menus for the week based on what was on sale.

I did all the prep work, and this morning I was able to test my coupon-prowess.

At 10:14 AM Saturday Morning,  Bob and I stepped into Nugget Market, coupons in hand. Why so early? Because Nugget was having a HUGE sale on Progresso soup, and I wanted to get there before everyone else. I am that committed.

We started in produce. A bag of russet potatoes for 87 cents. Spinach for 97 cents. Bob went for the Organic Apples, weighed 7 of them. Way too much. We bagged 5. So far, so good.

We moved onto to meats, then the cheeses, saving this way and that, then finally, we approached the progresso soup. Oh, I was so excited for that soup. This is why we were here at 10 AM on a Saturday, to buy Progresso soup at 99 cents a can. Progresso soup is reasonable anywhere else in the country, but in Sacramento it's usually about $3.50 o $4 a can.

I had prepared for this moment. In my head, I saw us buying can after can of progresso, filling a swimming pool with all our favorite progresso soups, swimming in savings. There was a Mayor involved, and he was saying something like "Erin, we give you the key to this city for saving more on soup than anyone else in the state of California", etc, etc.

But you know what? The 99 cents only applied to certain soups. And, if I may add, it applied to all the blech soups. Really, who wants to buy french onion soup in a can? I didn't. Bob didn't. And there was a moment there in the aisle where a dream was crushed by a can of progresso soup. Had I noticed in the ad that this applied to only certain soups, I wouldn't have built up such an anticipation, but I did, and now I had to deal with it. Bless Bob for his encouragement. He assured me that it was just a can of soup, and it would be ok. With my courage reinstated, the shopping trip went on. We each grabbed the most appealing of the 99 cent soups and moved down the aisle.

We ended our trip at the store $48 less than our previous trip there, but we weren't done shopping. We needed to go to Safeway for our produce, and Target for a few other things. And this is the only chink in the great coupon mission. The extra-mile effort is that many of these savings are in different grocery stores. Bob and I went to three stores today to grab all of our savings. To be fair, we were shopping other places for other things, and we were going to those stores anyway, but this is something that will need to be addressed next time.

In the end, when all was said and done, I saved $15 in coupons. Not bad. I have grand visions of $50 savings or more per trip, and maybe one day I'll make it. After all, this was my first coupon adventure.

But rest assured, friends. I will some day reign as the Coupon Queen. For now you'll find me here, in the little apartment on Q street, clipping coupons and tracking weekly ads.