With two mortgage payments, two kids, and two dogs (I am beginning to see a pattern here), The Wife is becoming a Jedi Master at clipping coupons. At first, I thought it was just a scheme by the major stores to get you to come in and buy stuff you didn’t need. But The Wife has taken it to a whole new level.
I was not a believer until one day I said, “We’re out of dog food.”
The Wife said, “Here. Take this coupon to Target and buy a bag of dog food….it’s on sale and you’ll get a dollar off on the dog food. And then when you check out, they will give you a gift card.”
I thought, “Yeah right. Target can’t stay in business if they give money away for products that are already on sale AND that I have a coupon for.”
I decided to go along with the plan…although I let it be known for the record that if the FBI showed up at the door, I was pleading the Fifth.
Long story short, I came home with a discount bag of dog food and a $5 gift card to Target….which goes into the Christmas fund. Needless to say, I was convinced.
So what’s the system…I have no idea, but here are the sites where The Wife works her vodoo magic.
Money Saving Mom…this is where the Wife starts out most of her schemeimg. It lists a variety of deals for any given week and also includes daily updates for free stuff and great coupon mafia information.
Common Sense With Money…this site also lists deals and links to other sites that have great coupons. Now it’s getting good.
In the age of the free market (if it can still be called that given what Congress is doing to the tax payers), CVS (Extra Care Bucks) and Walgreens (Register Rewards) are trying to out-do each other at giving money away. Now you have to usually buy something in order to get the in-store cash coupons, but for example…one week we needed a toothbrush, some chicken broth, and pudding. We walked into our local Walgreens and The Wife said (with all the confidence of a professional mother of two)…”Watch this.”
She grabbed a toothbrush, two cans of chicken broth, and the pudding for a dessert she was going to make…and went to the checkout. The gal rang the items up, The Wife gave the gal at the register her coupons. the Wife paid $0.57 and the gal at the register gave her a Walgreens coupon worth $5 dollars. Somehow we got stuff we needed and Walgreens paid us to get it.
Don’t even get me started on what The Wife pulls off at Kroger. She clips coupons from the Sunday paper and files those away for her shopping trips. She then goes to the sites… shortcuts.com, cellfire.com, and pgesaver.com. She “loads” coupons here onto her Kroger card…and then the magic happens. Not only do they honor the paper coupons she takes with her to the store, but then they also deduct the coupons on her card, and when you combine this with weekly sales, double coupon days, and other mafia-type schemes, we are almost making money on eating food….which for a guy like me that likes to eat…is a very good thing.
In summary, the grocery budget has gone down quite a bit (at least 30%) and the quality of the food and products have increased. I have been ejoying JIF peanutbutter for weeks now instead of the generic brand.
So if you think you have what it takes, step up and try to out do The Wife. I think she would enjoy a challenge and is always looking to save more on the products we consume.
Couponing does have it’s downside though…it’s hard to justify spending money on a monthly poker game when The Wife is working so hard to save money…so that just gives me you more incentive to slow play those trip Kings…you could make mommy very happy.
