Savings are addictive

I'm sure you've probably all at least heard of TLC's show Extreme Couponers by now.  It is all the rage and we had to check it out by sheer curiosity.  At first I couldn't really get into the concept...we are watching people shop?  I do miss the days of Supermarket Sweep!  Watching contestants race down the aisles to grab as many frozen turkeys (I think there was a 7 turkey limit) and vitamins as they could, grab the secret item of the day and rush to check out.  What a great show!!  Then we watched an episode and instantly...we were hooked.  These people are insane with stockpiles of cereal and pasta taking over their kids bedrooms with toilet paper stashes.  What madness!?  Then Max gets the bright idea...we could totally do this.  I quickly squashed his dreams of rolling down the aisles with four shopping carts and taking 2 hours to check out.  I won't do it.  However, if we started small we could make a reasonable stockpile and see if it's worth repeating.  Oops.  Shouldn't have started this one...

We did start small but Max's dreams quickly took over and my 10 item dry run turned into a 40 item anxiety attack.  If your numbers are off (mine were), if you don't pay CLOSE attention to the item description and don't make your cashier nervous by hawkishly glaring at her every move then a mistake will be made and you'll actually end up spending money.  The upside is that we both have jobs and do not have 7 children like some of the people on the show so I can afford mistakes and we learned a lot for next time.

Here is the good part!  It actually worked.  We bought three papers, started following the blog of Savings Lifestyle and even traded a few coupons with friends.  We set our sights on Kroger's Mega event, compared, counted, created email addresses to sign up for crap and BAZINGA...SAVINGS!!!  Granted, we only bought items we currently use and a few items that weren't part of the mega event but our total was $117 which we brought down to $41.  Yup, that's a 60% savings on our bill.  Just by doing about 3 hours worth of homework.  Now that I know what I'm doing it won't take so long but man did that feel good.  We are crazy about coupons.  I have always loved coupons.  It used to be my job when I was little to cut out the coupons from the paper for Mom and I still enjoy doing it to this day.  Of course now it reminds me of Mom which is pleasing too.

Now we have a mini stockpile that doesn't fit in my tiny cabinets which forced us to move the stash to the basement.  It is nestled in the new organizing system of metro racks that we started using a couple of months ago for camping and gardening equipment.  It's kind of exhilarating to know that I don't have to buy pasta for the rest of the year.  I find that I'm really looking forward to Sunday when I get to find out the next deal.  I"m telling you savings are addictive!!