22. Month of coupons!

Those of you who know me know I love a good deal! So, I am sure it's no surprise that I love using coupons. I had heard that you can get some great deals at CVS so, I decided to get a CVS card and start shopping there as well.
I do have to say I used to make fun of people who walked around the grocery store with their binders with baseball card pages to hold their coupons. And now I am one of those people now! I buy 2 papers on Sunday so I can have double the coupons. You can get the Sunday paper at the Dollar Store for a dollar!
So, for the past month I decided to write down everything I spent and keep track of my coupon savings as well. At the end of a month between Harris Teeter, Target, Kroger and CVS I spent $219.73 (That includes food, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, a few random things at Target, printer ink, few things I needed for my house inspection and the medicines I needed after my surgery) and saved $285.03 between sales and coupons I also got a st $10 Target gift card and still have $5 rewards bucks from CVS. Not bad for my first month of tracking things and using a coupon notebook!

Here's a break down from each store:
At Kroger I spent $26.71 and saved $20.99, that was mostly in soda and produce.

At CVS I spent $70.73 and saved $68.16 this included printer ink, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, lots of contact solution, candy and other personal hygiene items.
For those who don't know about the CVS deals they basically every week have things that are on sale that give you money back to use at CVS. For example this week they have Herbal Essence shampoo on sale for $2.99 and you get $2.00 CVS dollars, add that to the $1 coupon from this weeks paper it's basically free. The CVS dollar print out at the end of your receipt. Also, if you use your own bags and get one of their green tags for every 4 times you use a reusable bag you get a dollar back.

At Target, I spent $44.86 and saved $58.22, this included groceries, a couple of things for my kitchen inspection, light bulbs, and my medicines from the surgery.

Lastly Harris Teeter, I think Harris Teeter is over priced for groceries but they do have good sales and great deals with coupons. They double coupons up to 99 cents every day, they also some times have triple coupons as well as super double coupons, where they double coupons up to $1.98. Between April 19th-May 19th I spent $78.34 at Harris Teeter and saved $137.66. That included lots of ice cream for when I got my wisdom teeth out and a trip to H.T. with Justin, which means we got things he wanted that weren't on sale nor did we have coupons, shocking I know, lol.
Here is what I got at Harris Teeter yesterday:
5 boxes of soda, we enjoy our sodas, a loaf of bread, frozen pizza (as I was avoiding cooking in my super clean kitchen, lol) 2 boxes of mini-wheats, bag of pretzels, ready made sausage for Justin, jello, sour cream, whole black peppers, honey mustard dipping sauce and my "splurge" of the day almond joy pieces I had been wanting to try out. Between the sales and coupons it came out to $22.61 and I saved $43.26.
This is one of my better days at HT:
I got 2 packets of grill mates, 3 things of rice, single serving cream cheese, gum and Sargento cheese so a total of $1.02!
Believe it or not that's not my best deals so far have been at Target the first one was when I spent $2.14 and saved $28.85 which included make up, cleaning products, meat and other things I can't remember right now. And my best deal so far was a couple days ago when I spent $.61 and saved $13.13 this included body wash, several feminine hygiene products and energy efficient light bulbs. But I forgot to take pictures of those.

I also tracked my other spending, not including business related things. Between A.C.Moore, Bath Bed & Beyond, Dick's sporting goods and Old Navy I spent $72.03 and saves $97.90. This included a wedding gift, my new awesome rain jacket and a couple other things.
I enjoy buying things when they are on sale, and stocking up on things I know I will use. If I had a freezer I would be able to save more as I would be able to stock up on meats and things of that sort.

So, I think that's it. I am a big fan of coupons and am happy to share some tips if you are interested. You can also check out www.southernsavers.com every week they match up coupons with current sales from all sorts of store.

Thanks for reading!