Laine

Thanks!!!!!

Melanie here, from Merchant Maidens! I’m the Bi-Lo “queen” from Southern Savers! {hugs from Charleston, SC} Thanks for the great post about coupons and saving! It’s quite addicting, isn’t it?

I just wanted to jump in and respond to Teresa’s comment about how to start stockpiling. If you’re looking to start a stockpile, you need to consider that you are going to have to spend extra, at least at first, to buy extra. How fast you want your stockpile to grow depends on how much extra you have to spend.

Let’s say you want to start a stockpile, you just started couponing and your grocery budget BEFORE you started couponing was $100 a week. But, alas, coupons came into your life, and now you are down to only spending $70 a week (or saving $30). You may be tempted to spend that exta $30 for take-out pizza, but if you really want to get your stockpile moving, put that $30 BACK into your food budget to build your stockpile.

EXAMPLE: Olive oil is BOGO one particular week, you have 6 coupons that will double, and you spend $10 to buy the 6 bottles. Now you are stockpiled on olive oil for the next 6 months or so and you have $20 more dollars to spend on other stockpile goodies for that week!

If you continue doing this weekly with items that are free or drastically reduced after coupons, you will eventually get to the point where you will be on what I call “stockpile maintenance” and will only be spending the bulk of your grocery money on milk, meat, produce and your maintenance items. Maintenance items are just replacements for the products you may have used from your stockpile. For instance, if you stockpiled that olive oil from the example above, and you use one up, the next time it goes on sale (12 week sales cycles are common), then you may only need to buy 2 and still have a great stash!

Once you have a great stockpile, you can then donate, save or invest that extra money that you are not spending by using your coupons and your stockpile!

Hope this helps for those somewhat new to the idea of stockpiling using coupons!

I have to say, I’m super excited to try out the Chicken Stew recipe! It looks like comfort food at its best! I’ll report back when I do!

Question for Christy – have you ever substituted split chicken breasts for the chicken stew? If so, how many did you use? I always have a freezer full of split breasts that have usually been on sale for .99 a lb. and would love to use them up!

Thanks!
Melanie

So here is the breakdown. Different varieties of Hamburger/Chicken/Tuna Helper are around $1.59/box. But they are BOGO Free. I also had $1 off 3 things of Hamburger Helper. (might as well get 4 since they are BOGO Free-right?) So they were $0.80 a box. The Lysol Wipes are $4.99/container but they were also included in the BOGO Free. I also had a coupon for $1 off when you buy 2! So I paid $1.99 a container for those.

Long story short, if you would not have posted this blog, I would have never discovered this. Give me another week or two to really get the hang of this and I am going to be a money saving machine at the grocery store. Thank you so much!

I made (err.. asked very super nicely) my husband build me a pantry using a spare closet over the summer so I could continue stockpiling my food that I find cheap/free on sale with coupons and/or sales/clearance. I also have a spare upright freezer in my laundry room for storing meat. I have enough meat to feed my family (just me, my hubby, and our 5 five year old) for six months. I have enough food in my pantry to keep us going for a couple of months. Did I mention my personal items stockpile? I haven’t had to buy shampoo/conditioner in a YEAR for ANYONE in my family! I just recently had to find a good deodorant deal for myself after not buying any for a year and a half! And soap? HA! I haven’t bought it in about 9 months and probably won’t have to buy any for another year.

You should totally do a blog about making your own homemade bread. I do (but I’m lazy — I use premade loaves out of the freezer section cause I don’t have a breadmaker) and it’s SO MUCH cheaper! My son has a special diet that includes no milk, no food colorings, no artificial sweeteners and it was so hard to find a bread he could eat. Now that it’s made by me at home, he can eat as much of it as he wants.

There’s lots of way to cut your grocery bill. Using coupons and combining your coupons with GOOD sales and stocking up on things you’ll USE (not things that look good on the shelf, but go bad in your pantry cause you won’t use them) is a great money saver!

I’m tracking my savings with coupons and sales this year. So far, I’m up to $1100!

And as someone else previously pointed out don’t copy the internet printable coupons…that is coupon fraud and in the end it hurts us all as the stores will, and some already have, begin to stop taking them because of that. They will not get reimbursed for the copied coupons. You can usually print two copies per computer of each IP that is issued.

Southernsavers is a good site, thanks for sharing. Another really great site for couponing is hotcouponworld.com It is a large coupon forum board with forums for all the stores nationwide listed on there and has tons of helpful info. Try it out you’ll love it!!!