We all love saving money, but how many of us are extreme coupon shoppers? Kudos to those of you who are, but I am certainly not good at it (maybe I can learn from you one day!) But I like to think of myself as a gal that likes to find good deals. For me, that means using coupons when I can, pre-planning my trips to the store if possible, stocking up the basement for my family's future needs or even just scouting out which store carries the product I like for less.
Plus who doesn't love coming out of a store feeling like "Wow! I just saved how much?!" So here are my personal rules for what I consider a good deal:
1. Don't purchase things just because it's on sale or have a coupon for. If I don't typically use it or I don't actually want it, I don't buy it.
2. A "good deal" means I can save at least 25% or more in a shopping trip. Anything higher than 25% is simply a bigger happy dance when I come home and more $$ in my pocket.
3. The savings needs to outweigh the price of gas it costs to get to the store. If it costs less to have it shipped free from the store to my home, it's worth the wait.
4. Time is valuable too. I don't want to spend too much time coupon hunting. If it takes me an hour to find coupons that total $3, then it really isn't worth it to me.
5. Have fun and don't have too many rules or it gets too confusing!
So I've been running low on a few things in my home and I had a $10 off $100 at BJ's coupon in the mail. I like BJ's for buying things in bulk since the unit price tends to be a good deal, especially when using coupons. I looked at my house inventory and decided I needed more paper towels, tissues, dish detergent, cleaning products, and sponges in the house. So I took maybe 15 minutes to look through the in-club coupons I had available to use and also checked coupons.com to see what I should purchase. And off I went...
But ladies, let me tell you what was the best part of this trip: My husband came shopping with me! How lucky am I that he was willing to endure a coupon shopping trip? I honestly needed him because I needed help lifting up items because my wrists have been bothering me lately, and he was a great help! So if you are lucky to have a helper too, be sure you pay attention to their needs as well. My poor husband was busy doing yard work all day so the least I could do was take a pit-stop to Starbucks for a nice cup of coffee for him prior to shopping. (Oh yeah, and we used a gift card, so "free" coffee is always a great treat!)
Here's the break-down of our trip to BJ's:
I had a coupon for all but 2 items on my list: Tilex Mold&Mildew and Snuggles Fabric Sofetner sheets, but I had a coupon for all the other items. Plus, since my order came to a total of $107.71, I could use my $10 off $100 total order. So my shopping total came to $78.71 ...that's a savings of 27% Yippie!!
