More Couponing

So a couple were interested in what I do for couponing. Here is the first website that I started looking at: www.savvyshopperdeals.com. She has some videos on there that you can watch to get you started. Then I actually attended one of her free classes, very helpful I might add. What I do in a nutshell:

• I subscribed to 'The Daily Herald' (I only get the Sunday paper which has the coupons)
• I cut my coupons every week and organize them in a binder by category
• I check up on some peoples blogs who post good deals or I use the 'Shopping Wizard' on the SavvyShopperDeals.com website and it shows me where and what the good deals are.

There are a whole lot of people out there that have blogs that describe all the deals and it seems like the coupons are the same across the country, except for local grocery chains. Anywhoo...I will make a list of some of the websites/blogs I check so you can see what they do.

My experiment today: Laundry Soap!

So I got an email from Seth's Grandma Jean and she had forwarded this recipe to make homemade laundry detergent. So I thought why not try it. It would be a lot cheaper. So here is the recipe, the ingredients, and the result!

Pretty simple instructions, but I still managed to get them wrong. :)

These items can be found in the laundry detergent aisle at the grocery store. They are reasonably priced from what I can remember. I bought them about a little while ago so I don't recall the exact prices.

So here are the results. Note, the recipe only makes 2 gallons and you can see I have 4. That is because I accidently stuck the entire bar of Fels Naptha soap in the water the first step and you are only supposed to have 1/3 of the bar. So then I was supposed to triple the recipe, but I didn't have a large enough pot to do it in one batch so I just doubled the rest of the ingredients and hopefully that doesn't throw it off too bad.

Other note: make sure shake your mixture well. One of the gallons was a harder one to shake since there was no handle and so it didn't get as much shaking as the other ones and it is kind of solidified. I don't know if it is because I have too much Fels Naptha Soap in it or because I didn't shake it enough. The other three seem to be fine. I washed a load today with the soap and it seemed to do the job just fine.

Anyways, there is another money saving tip for you thrifty people out there.

Happy New Year!

So it has been awhile....what in the world have we been up to? Just celebrating Christmas and the New Year. Pretty exciting let me tell you! Actually I pretty much had to work the whole break. No worries though. Seth had a nice 2 week vacation, way too short though with everything he had to do. The picture above is of some cheesecake cups I made for a party that we went to, they were pretty tasty. We all had to make something with cream cheese. Lets just say there were lots of tasty treats there!

So my latest thing to do: COUPON! I have seen those ladies around with their coupon binders and have always wondered just how much they save....Or do they really just end up spending more all in the name of 'getting a good deal'? So finally my budgeting-self just couldn't let it pass me up any longer without finding out just how much truth there is to the system. I have a rule though: I will not spend $ on anything that I would not buy anyways, unless it is free. So even though I could get Hersey Kisses for .20 cents a bag, I wouldn't because that is .20 cents I wouldn't have spent anyways. So I am determined not to spend anymore than I normally would.

And here are the result. I started the last week of November, so not quite two months yet. I have been told it takes a couple months to get the hang of it, and I would have to agree. I am still trying to get a system going. But I just wanted to share the completely FREE stuff I have gotten so far. The following pictures are only the FREE items I have bought. I have also gotten some really good deals on cereal, lunch meat, and a couple other food items, but have not included them in my FREE collection.

Warning: Couponing takes a lot of effort, but it does seem to yield good $$ savings. I am still in the learning process, but if you have questions on what I do, feel free to ask. :)