Wal-Mart Paid Me!!!

This weekend I sent my friend Jackie to Wal-Mart with my coupons. (It costs me $6 just to get to a Wal-Mart so if I can find other people that are going I send my list with them.) She picked up $15.38 worth of products for me, and after she checked out the clerk had to give her $0.15!!!

Can you believe that? Wal-Mart paid me $0.15 to buy 2 boxes of cereal, a bar of soap, two boxes of Zantac, and 6 Ziploc containers. I made money by shopping!!!


Jackie said the clerk said, “Well, that’s a first for me.” Well I can tell you it won’t be the last time it happens because I plan to keep it up. So how did I do it?

Thanks to all of the great frugal mom bloggers out there I have discovered the world of “couponing”. I’m still trying to figure it all out but in just 2 weeks I have saved a little over $24 off of my Wal-Mart bill. This is just a brief overview to help you get started if you are interested in saving money too.

Step One: Buy a couple of Sunday papers.

I buy the St. Louis Post Dispatch ($1.50) and the Bellville Herald and Review ($1.75). They both have two sale flyers in them every week and other flyers that come out just at the beginning of the month.

Step Two: DON’T clip any coupons.

You do not want to clip your coupons ahead of time. Just pull out the flyers and use a marker to write the date on the top of them and then file them away by type (Smart Source, Red Plum, Proctor & Gamble, etc.) and date.

Step Three: Find the deals.

This is actually very easy. Just go to the blogs that spell the deals out for you. I’ve listed some on my sidebar and they all link to others. So just find the ones that you like the best and check them every day. They will have the best ideas listed near the end of the week because they have had time to go to the stores and scope them out. It’s like having your own personal shopper, kind of. You can also use MyGroceryDeals.com to find what is on sale at all of the major chain stores.

Step Four: Learn the lingo.

There are a lot of acronyms involved with couponing that you’ll need to know.
BOGO= buy one, get one
OOP=out of pocket
$1/1=a coupon that is $1 off of 1 item
$3/$15= a coupon that is $3 off of an expenditure of $15
5/4 SS=tells you that the coupon you need can be found in the May 4th issue of the Smart Source sale flyer. This is why you do not want to clip any of your coupons until you are ready to take them to the store.

Step Five: Combine offers.

That is the most important point to remember. You CAN combine manufactuers coupons with store coupons and discounts. So only use your coupons for things that are already on sale. This enables you to get things for free or almost free.

For example: The Zantac that I bought was on sale at Wal-Mart for $3.98 a box. I had two coupons (that I printed on-line) for $5/1 ($5 off of one box). I bought 2 boxes so I got $2.04 back. The Ziploc containers were on sale for $2.48 but my coupon was only for $1/1 leaving me to still pay $1.48 for the 6 containers. But that’s OK because I’ve got that $2.04 leftover from the Zantac that can go to that. The Kashi cereal I bought was on sale for $2 a box and I had 2 coupons for $2/1. Voila! Two free boxes of cereal. See how it works?

It may sound complicated but it really is simple. Especially when the blogs actually tell you exactly which coupon to use at which store when. It is very little work for a big return.

Happy Saving!

Coming soon! How to get all that free stuff at CVS. (Still working on learning that.)