Extreme Couponing - California Style

I am hooked on that Extreme Couponing show.  I am amazed by what those shoppers can achieve at the checkout line.  I am jealous of their 96% savings.  I am flabbergasted by their $25,000 stockpiles.  I am in awe of the time spent on couponing.  You get the idea....

But I can't do what they do where I live.  There is no longer a grocery store that double coupons, since Ralphs closed about 5  years ago.  And we aren't allowed to do coupon stacking, the process by which a shopper can use multiple manufacturer coupons on one item to bring the price down, sometimes all the way to zero.  So how extreme can I actually get?

Well... I can save almost half every time I go to the store.  For me, for this area, I think that's pretty darn good.  But it takes work, every week to keep it up.  I go to 6 different stores almost every week, and the trick to being successful is knowing the "regular" price of the items we use all the time.  There will never be a $25,000 stockpile in my garage, but I do stock up on what we use.

There are tricks to maximizing savings.  Each Sunday, I clip coupons for items we use and things we might want to try.  Then I go through the ads for the stores where I know I can get the best deals: CVS, Walgreen's, and Target (grocery store ads show up on Tuesday or Wednesday).  I look for, again, only the things we use.  I always try to match up sales with coupons.  I also look for rewards that the stores give, so I can save money on the next trip.  I had $5 in reward coupons from Walgreen's - Christian and I got our movie candy free!  I do the same at Vons and Savemart - at those stores, I ONLY shop for sale items that I have coupons for; otherwise, they are just too expensive.  And my final stop is Winco for everything else. 

Winco rocks!  Let me just put it to you this way: I save almost $3 a box on my Kashi cereal (and I buy 3 boxes at a time), almost $4 a bag on Christian's spicy chicken wings, and over $1 a gallon for milk.  Just on those items alone, I save $20 by shopping at Winco every pay period.  And that's just a small example of what I save there.

My mom taught me how to coupon when I was a kid.  I've done it off and on for years, but this year we got serious, and I am getting a lot more out of our grocery budget.  While I may not be able to save 96%, I am still proud of what I am able to do.  Want to learn more about my methods?  Message me on Facebook! 

Adventures in Gardening

I am not a gardener.  I am got good at keeping plants alive, so I never kept any.  But since we moved into our house, I have found that some plants can pretty much keep themselves alive.  The poppies that come up every March, for example, are extremely hardy and need absolutely no interference on my part to do their thing (you know, make my front yard gorgeous for a few months each year).  The roses in our back yard, as well, have fared without me doing much of anything, other than annual pruning.

But this year, our rose bushes have not done so well.  They grow well and are producing large, beautiful roses, but they appear to have some sort of fungus and they are full of aphids.  We don't like to use pesticides on our plants, so off HC went to OSH to buy some ladybugs.  Tonight, after hosing down the rose bushes and waiting for them to be out of the sun, we released our new little friends.

We all had fun, trying to shake them out onto the plants while many of them flew away and many crawled over our hands and arms.  Finally, we got a large number of them onto the bushes, happily wandering, drinking water, and searching for food.  According to the container, in a couple weeks, our bugs will lay eggs.  I hope in the next couple months, we have lots of larvae and many more ladybugs.

For not being a gardener, I sure am enjoying have living plants in my yard!  I have no idea what to do about the fungus on my poor rose bushes, but once our little friends eat those pesky aphids, we'll move on to that.

One of these days, I will post photos about our wildflower garden (which takes no work, either)! 

Happy May Day!



Getting Older

April is the month of birthdays for our family.  Mom, my three brothers, and I all have our birthdays in April (plus countless friends) - it's a great month. 

Mom's birthday starts the month, and every year it makes me re-evaluate what a person's age means.  She is still working full-time, on her feet most of the day.  Will I be able to do that when I'm her age?  Will I still be as strong as she is?  Will I look younger than I am, like she does?

Brother #2 has the next birthday.  We're 5 years apart, but it seems much closer.  Every year, I can't believe he's THAT age!  He and his wife just had a baby last year - there's something about a new baby that makes a parent seem younger.

I'm the next birthday.  My own birthday doesn't usually bother me, though I have to admit that when I turned 26, it was a tough day.  10 years later, my own birthday didn't bother me (I'll re-evaluate in 4 years).  It was just another birthday.

3 days after my birthday is Brother #3.  This is the birthday that makes me feel older every year.  My brother is the baby of the family.  It doesn't matter that I'm next to last - when the baby gets older, I feel it.

And, rounding out the April birthdays is Brother #1, the eldest child.  He's turning 50 this year, and I'm still in shock.  I have no idea how HE feels about his big day, but I can't believe I have a sibling who will have a 5 in the 10s digit of his age...  Sister #2 will be joining the 50 club next year, so it's only getting closer for me.  I have a ways to go until I get there, so I take comfort in the fact that my siblings have aged very well!

April brings about a more contemplative me.  I wonder what my life will be like as I get older, but what I've learned so far is that I don't change much every year, other than a few more wrinkles and a couple of stray white hairs (only a few!).  I'll still be me when I'm 50, perhaps just wiser?  One can hope.      

One More Down... One To Go!

We paid off the SUV yesterday!!!!!

We paid the remaining balance of $3798.97 one year and 4 months early for a savings of almost $500 in interest! 

I am so glad I found Dave Ramsey on the radio that day in 2009 - we have paid off half our debt so far.  No, I won't tell you how much.  Maybe when we're done, I'll shock you with the number.

We will now begin attacking my student loan (I still can't believe it equals half our debt, but it's true).  We should have it completely paid off by April 2013.  Only 2 more years to get completely out of debt (except for the house), and then the REAL fun will begin (saving, saving, saving, and investing!). 

I highly recommend The Total Money Makeover - it changed the way we think about money.



Book Club Selection - April

Reading Waiting for the World to End by Nicole Hunter this month. 

So far, it's a slow read, but interesting. After reading essays, in which I hunt for sentence fragments for hours on end, the author's extensive use of fragments is kinda wearing on me.  She also uses the second person narration A LOT, which drives my crazy, as it's mixed in randomly with the third person narration of the rest of the story.

I'm not even half way through; I thought a week would give my plenty of time to read this one, but I find myself thinking of ways to avoid reading it.  I think it's probably a good story, but the delivery is not my cup of tea.