Less is MORE!!

So I've found my passion, my calling in life, my new love!
Okay, just kidding!!  But seriously, I don't know what's wrong with me...


I      L-O-V-E      C-O-U-P-O-N-I-N-G!!


I've been recently inspired to delve 'back' into the world of couponing that somewhat haunted me during my childhood.  I enjoyed it as a child, when our family would jump store to store with coupons.  I would stand in line by myself with $10 worth of groceries and sodas at age 12 because we were over the limit for the cheap price.  I remember periodically purging the coupon basket of all expired coupons.  I remember coupons with 'no expiration date' being around sometimes FOREVER! Okay - {insert big nostalgic sigh here}.  As an adult, I just haven't seem to get the hang of it....until now...


So, for a while we were getting a Sunday paper only for the coupons and ads but I guess I didn't really have direction in my couponing and I might only get 3 or 4 coupons with each week of things I thought I MIGHT buy.  Hardly worth the price we paid for the paper.  So we stopped.  Well, in the last 4 weeks I've been clipping coupons again.  This time I have www.moneysavingmom.com to help me out.  MoneySavingMom is a blog created by someone to spread the word on good deals.  Each week good deals are posted for various grocery stores using an item on sale and a coupon to create said good deal.


So today after leaving the house at 7:00am and picking Joseph up from school at nearly 6:00pm, I picked Joseph up a Happy Meal and we truck over to Kroger.  I should be tired.  I should be exhausted.  However, there's something sneaky and unassuming about using coupons and sales to get things nearly free.  It's those such things that gave me a little adrenaline rush to complete shopping even though I hadn't been home in almost 12 hours.  So at the checkout, I'm anxiously waiting to see what kind of damage I was able to do...
The original total was $136.05
 - $15 for Mix and Match 10 items get $5 off (x3)
 - $15.27 on things on sale using Kroger Plus Card
 - $22.64 for coupons (of which $3.95 was due to double or triple coupons)
I walked out of the store only paying $83.14!!  That's a total savings of 38.8%!!!
I got home at 7:45 joyfully putting away the groceries and enjoying the fact that even though I didn't take off my shoes for almost 13 hours, I was still happy with today!!