The Coupon Learning Curve Continues

Thankfully, last Sunday, home delivery of my newspaper began. I was like a kid praying for a snow day, racing to the window to see if it had come overnight. I happily scooped up my four-year-old and let her help me get the paper from the end of the driveway. We returned triumphantly mere moments later and presented our prize to the rest of the household. The "real" newspaper went to my husband, the comics to my son, and the ads and treasured coupon inserts were put aside for me. Ah, sweet Donna Reed-esque victory.

Unfortunately, there were only 2 inserts this week. That was kind of a let-down. Also unfortunately, there really wasn't that much for me to stockpile this week. Another bummer. Just as I was getting so excited about my savings, I found myself in the position of needing the real basics, staples, you know, those things that never go on sale and never offer coupons. My coupon euphoria was blown.

I'm sure this is how most people who try couponing get discouraged and quit. Last week - WOW! Huge savings! This week - um, now what? Well, after my initial disappointment wore off, I did find some good deals. It actually worked out well that the simple coupon deals didn't line up with my needs this week, because it forced me to look at the alternatives and shop around. And the alternative shopping gave me some time to think over this week's deals and realize the values I had initially missed. Over the course of the week, I learned some new ways to save and learned to temper my enthusiasm with patience and wisdom.

One of the ways I saved this week was to shop at Sam's Club. We've had a membership there for several years, but had backed off a bit because it's easy to buy more than you can use or grab "great deals" you don't really need while you're shopping. To avoid both those downfalls, I used their "Click'n'Pull" option on their website. Because we needed some of the things right away, I used the feature to find out what was in stock and compare prices with the weekly inserts and online stores, but I didn't submit it. Instead, I printed it out and handed it to my husband to use as a shopping list. He knew exactly what to get, the right sizes, prices, quantities..., everything - and no temptation shopping!

I also signed up for AmazonMom this week and by combining that program with their Subscribe & Save program, saved 30% off all sorts of baby supplies - with free 2-day shipping for a year! You can cancel the automatic subscription any time (as I might have to, since babies race through diaper sizes so quickly), but the extra 15% savings is certainly worth checking out. Speaking of Amazon, I also got a $20 gift certificate for only $10 on LivingSocial.com. It seems to be one of those daily local deal sites, like Groupon, but yesterday they were offering 50% off a $20 Amazon GC, and I don't know of anyone who couldn't use that! Supposedly I could have gotten it for free if I referred 3 people to the same deal, but I always like to test these things before I tell anyone about them. I'm happy to report that although it's too late for me to refer anyone officially, I did get my CG code within 24 hours and it's sitting in my Amazon account right now awaiting my next purchase. Yea!

So what didn't work, you might be wondering, in light of the aforementioned shopping successes? Well, don't send your husband to the store to get a 12-pack of Sam Adams for $12.99 (save $3 with your loyalty card!). Anyone who likes Sammy knows that's a great price, but since I'm expecting, I'm not sure who he thought was going to drink all that beer. Somehow he assumed I was, and blew any savings by buying himself a 12-pack as well. 'Good thing we've been invited to a Superbowl party in a few weeks!

Also, my ancient PC and I had words about Java. My PC is so old it has a Pentium MCLIIV inside. It resents being bothered in its old age, and after a nasty viral bout last year, has been more crotchety than ever. My wonderful sister spoiled me with a new laptop for Christmas, but for now, our printers are still hooked up to Cap'n Cranky. Point being, I need Java to print about 40% of the online coupons in the universe, and my PC wasn't speaking to Java. It took about 2 hours of tense negotiations, but finally, I can print coupons from, for example, SmartSource. Yes, that's right, one of the two biggest coupon companies in the U.S. and my PC wouldn't acknowledge them.

Eventually, like the President, I offered my PC and Java each a Sam Adams, and they shook hands and made up.

The Grocery Game - Week One Results

I have a lot of math to do. Supposedly, I was going to spend $100 at CVS and Publix combined, using my "Teri's List" from The Grocery Game.com, and get $250 worth of stuff. That's what? Like a 60% savings on food and household items? Well I said yesterday if it works out even half that well, I'd be happy. Let's see if I saved 30% on this inaugural week of the Game.

CVS: Spent $50.67, Saved: $23.58 (off of regular prices)
Got $74.25 worth of products for $50.67, so saved 32%.

Publix: Spent $109.74, Saved $75.16 (again, off of regular prices)
Got $184.90 worth of products for $109.74, so saved 41%.

Week One Totals:
Spent: $ 160.41
Got: $ 259.15
Saved: $ 98.74, or about 38%.

So yeah, I guess I did slightly better than "half that!". I haven't gone over my lists in detail yet to see where I fell off the wagon, but I did notice a few differences even while shopping.

First, I had a hard time finding just the right size or package of certain things. The manager at CVS even noticed I had the wrong package of paper towels and fixed it for me, completely unsolicited, I might add, which was very kind of him, but I had more issues than one nice guy could fix. I have preggo-brain, and my 4-year-old was "helping", and I've been in that store about twice - ever. I also have this thing about asking for help, which is STUPID, but there you go. I'm just shy that way. Finally, I didn't have enough boxes of Kleenex on the first trip to earn the $10 of ExtraCare Cash. I went right back in and bought the rest, but it didn't show up on my card balance. I'm sure I'm going to have to visit the nice manager and fix that (ugh!) but I also suspect that $10 was part of the the savings percentage I was supposed to see today. Personally, I wouldn't count that cash as savings until I used it at a later time, but it does help explain the difference in savings.

In addition to being clueless and potential register errors, I also noticed that some sales weren't actually on sale like the site said. The VAST majority were, I should point out, but for example, at Publix the pork loin was $ 2.49/lb, not $ 1.99/lb, and things like that. I opted not to get one or two things that didn't seem like such a good deal once I saw them, and I splurged on $1.98 worth of my favorite pasta. I bought a few staples, like milk, which is almost never on sale anywhere. I couldn't find a couple of coupons when I was preparing last night, but I found others that weren't mentioned, so the fliers must change locally to some extent. Speaking of last night, I spent about 3 hours learning the site and preparing for this trip, and about 2.5 hours this morning shopping. That's a lot of time, but again, I'm sure I'll get more proficient with time, and well, I already told you my issues. AND it was pouring rain - did I mention that in my list of excuses?

As I said, I have some math to do to figure out exactly where I "went wrong" but honestly, for a first try, clueless, pregnant, with a preschooler, in the rain, and using a free trial of the site, I have to say it worked pretty well, not "wrong" at all. The list enabled me to pick and choose which deals I wanted to get, so I didn't buy anything just because it was on sale, and I ended up with a good selection of stuff I'll actually use. The junk food I bought was because darnit, I like Tostitos, not because that's all the coupon or deal offered. Actually I have a freezer full of fish and turkey right now - which is pretty healthy, in my book! When the free trial is over, it will cost me $2 a week to keep using this site, and so far, the first week's savings have just about paid for the year. Now, if only I can work my way up to those 60% savings...