My (strange?) Addiction

Like all working moms, I am constantly short on time, ideas and am forced to live within a budget (until we win Mega Millions, which is certain to happen any day now).  A few months ago, these limitations opened up a whole new world to me, one I never knew existed before...it brought out a side of me one probably wouldn't expect: I found couponing. And I don't just coupon like a regular person, I coupon like my life depends on it (slight hyperbole, but stay with me). I am extremely competitive (against myself) and I love the challenge.

I have never been competitive but have always loved thrifty-ness and data. I have combined these two loves and have become really good at couponing. I mean, really really good. In the last 6 months, I've taken our food budget down by nearly 40%! Each week, I "compete" with myself to save a higher % than the week before.
My addiction isn't the kind you are going to see on that TLC show about extreme coupon-ers. Those people are in a totally different category than I am--I call them Hoarders. I coupon to feed my family, save time and money and not convert my entire house into a bomb shelter of sorts so that I may stock-pile ridiculous amounts of food, just because I can.  Plus, I'm quite lazy and have I mentioned the lack of time I have?

Since I get asked about this all the time, and am ALWAYS sharing my awesome bargains, I thought I should blog it. I figure if I can do it, anyone can!

Here are my tips:
1. I ONLY grocery shop at Safeway. Ever. And if they want to sponsor me competitively, I will wear a jersey with their logo on it. Here's why Safeway is my top choice:
a.) They let you coupon online--easily!! I mentioned the lazy bit and the time crunch earlier so getting scissors out is way too much work for me already. I have no system for organizing coupons and I'm not spending time or effort setting that up (too busy). Digitally couponing is such a thrill to me, it gets saved automatically to our family Club Card! Love it! The Safeway website is by far the most user-friendly that I have tried (although I haven't tried that many, I'm too lazy).
b.) Cheap gas; for every $100 one spends at Safeway, one can earn $.10/gallon off of their gas. Once again, maybe because we're awesome devoted customers, but we were randomly selected to get $.30/gallon off last December! That's helped out tremendously as the gas prices here in Whatcom Co. are highest in the state and don't seem to be coming down any time soon.
c.) Every two weeks Safeway gives us $10 automatically. Is it because we're such awesome, devoted Safeway shoppers? I have no idea where it comes from. But this $10 counts toward my weekly savings percentage so I love them for it
d.) Ease of website: aside from the coupons I can digitally set to my Club Card, I can also click through the weekly add, selecting whatever items from there that are on sale that I want to remember to buy. Then, one could print this list out from their computer with their coupon reminders! I don't do this, and I'll explain why in a minute.
e.) BOGOs; these are what those of us in the couponing game call the Buy One Get One sales. Safeway does these about every 6 weeks on meat and cheese-these are my favorite weeks and the one and only time we stock up the freezer. 

2.) (back to the tips) We take meticulous inventory of what we already have. Our grocery bill prior to this was filled with mini-time/$-sucking-trips to the grocery store for lame things like mayo or crackers; things we needed quickly for the next day (we all three brown bag it to school each day). Now we are careful and work together to go over what we already have (no more finding 3 vanillas in the baking cupboard or realizing too late that we're out of bread at 10pm)

3.) We plan, plan, plan our week. The three of us eat three meals a day from our home. That means we work together to come up with a week's worth of breakfast, lunches (fortunately, these two meals are the same pretty much every day) and dinners. We are extremely thorough here. Like all moms, I want my family eating well, with fresh unprocessed food. We have found that by kicking processed food (except for one: Rice a Roni--I can't get enough of it!) and prepared meals out of our weekly rotation we're able to save more $. We also make sure there's enough produce to grab for snacks and we always keep a stocked baking cupboard--we don't purchase boxed cake of breakfast mixes or frozen cookie dough anymore.

4.) My best tip: LEAVE THE SPOUSE AT HOME. Taking Cam with me adds about 15% to our weekly bill. If I can, I will leave Clem home with him. She's helpful and not as grabby as Cameron but she always finds something she can't live without.

5.) So, after we take inventory, coupon and go through the weekly ad, make a menu and find something for Cam to do while I shop, I create the list. Cameron says that I am the only person he's ever known that makes a rough draft of my shopping list. It's true, I do that. I'm pretty sure that after he said that, he also threw in: "It's what I love most about you," but I'm not sure that's the exact quote.
My creative process is to take notes on a sheet of paper for all the weekly deals and coupons, THEN create a menu based on our options, then create the actual store list. Here's my true nerd colors: after all that, I create a Final Draft store list with items listed by aisle. At 25 months pregnant (at least), I am not waddling up and down aisles more than once. I just can't do it. This process of drafting my store list may seem like a time suck, but really, I can get a week's worth of grocery shopping done in under 30 minutes. I'm a pro. And I'm enormously pregnant.

6.) At the bottom of the receipt, Safeway feeds my ego by telling me exactly how much I saved--in dollar amount and in %. On average, my weekly savings is 38% but at times it's been higher (thanks to those $10 cash back!)--my highest was nearly 50% savings. Once I get back to the mini-van, I breathlessly call Cam to gloat about my success, to share the near misses, BOGOs and explain to him the thrill of the hunt.

(Yes, I do realize this is my longest, nerdiest and least picture filled blog post ever.)