I Heart Coupons

I don't even think that words could adequately express my love for coupons! I feel like my life was so empty before I discovered the joy of couponing and I can't believe that I actually used to pay full price for all my groceries! I just look back on those dark pre-couponing days, shake my head, and thank the Lord that I at least discovered coupons when I did. It's saved us untold amounts of money! I've gotten our weekly grocery bill down to about $60 a week and that includes diapers and toiletries and everything. We're actually spending about 30-50% less on groceries now than we were a couple years ago when there were just two of us to feed!

One of my favorite things about coupons is that my grocery store here occasionally has "Super Double" and even TRIPLE coupon weeks! (Now that I think about it, this may be the first truly great thing about the East Coast. I have never heard of a West Coast store that triples coupons. I'd be happy to be wrong though!). Super Double week is when the store doubles the value of coupons up to $1.99 (normally they only double up to $0.99) and Triple week is when the store triples all coupons up to $ 0.99! This means that a $0.50 coupon becomes a savings of $1.50 and a $0.75 coupon becomes a savings of $2.25!!! Incredible, right?! Each week I always get one or two freebies using coupons but during these special coupon weeks I usually get tons of free stuff!

For instance, here are some free things I got this week:

Worcestershire sauce, Skinny Water, hot sauce, refried beans, taco seasoning, Land O' Lakes butter, canned chiles, Greek yogurt, McCormick spices, dish detergent, 100% apple juice, white rice, frozen veggies, tortillas, Ziploc bags, Arm & Hammer cleaners, and pasta.

Since I usually have multiples of the same coupon I got several of each of the things listed above all for free. I seriously got 6 bags of white rice! And I also got tons of other things including milk, lettuce, and shredded cheese for $0.75 cents or less!

If you're one of those people who doesn't use coupons because you think you'd end up buying things you don't need just because they're cheap/free or think that coupons only exist for junk food, think again. Granted, there are tons of coupons for junk food and if I wanted to I could probably get twice as much free stuff if I used these coupons. But I don't even bother cutting junk food coupons out, instead I only cut out coupons for the things we actually use. And before I buy anything I ask myself, "Would I buy this if I didn't have a coupon?" and "Will we actually use this?" If the answer is no, I don't buy it. Nearly everything I bought this week is healthy and something I feel good about feeding to my boys. (Well, ok, with the exception of the refried beans and taco seasoning... but you can't make 8 layer dip without them and Brandon and I can't have movie nights without our 8 layer dip!)

There are coupons for every single household staple (including milk, butter, eggs, etc.) as well as toiletries, cleaners, paper products and everything else you buy at the grocery store. And there are even many, many coupons for healthy and organic products. I regularly get organic frozen berries for less than the store brand non-organic frozen berries. I have a stockpile of Kashi cereal that I got for about 25 cents a box. I also got 3 bottles of Seventh Generation cleaners for absolutely FREE a few weeks ago. And just today, I got a big container of organic yogurt and a block of organic mozzarella cheese for less than $1.50 each. That's about half the price of non-organic yogurt and cheese! These organic and natural deals are the ones I get most excited about! And I get them a lot! Plus, I can take the money I'm not spending on paper towels or rice and use it to buy organic fruit and vegetables and they don't even make a dent in my grocery budget.

I could go on and on but I'll stop preaching to you all about coupons. I got so excited about triple coupon week that I just had to share though! If you don't use coupons, you probably think I'm crazy. But guess what- I think you're crazy! Haha, in all seriousness though, coupons are AWESOME! They've completely changed my life!