Coupon organizing, weekly savings, weekly menu

Hello again my friends. Today is a beautiful sunny day here in Ohio but it is blustery and cold. 53 degrees in my little spot of town. I can't really complain though. I love the sun shine!

Today I'm gonna tell you about my week in couponing, organizing and cooking.

I had to change my method of arranging my coupons. I was using the binder method and I just didn't have the time or patience to keep up with it. You file all of your clipped coupons in baseball card sheets. Whenever you get new coupons you have to move the coupons around and let me tell you, I just don't have the time for all of that. So I went to Walmart and bought a 26 file expandable file folder.

You can see it in this picture. I closes up nicely, has a nice carrying handle and isn't as heavy as the binder was. So far so good. I like it.

As you can see here, on the inside is these nice tabs. I have all of my categories on the tabs and I used sheets of printer paper and divided each tab into sub headings...well you can see better in the next picture...

Ok there you go. See The cheese on paper. It is under the category refrigerated. Using this folder I just clip my coupons, paper clip the ones that are alike together and organize them in their sub-category according to expiration date. The cool thing is I don't have to pull them out to know what I have.

Here is my handy dandy list I keep in my couponing file. In this picture I am showing the Coupon policy for the store I use. My store is in the Central Ohio Region and doubles coupons who's value is less than 99 cents. On the opposite side of this policy I have the Cincinnati Region coupon policy. I am right in between the two regions and depending on which town I go to, I need one of these two policies.

Also in my handy dandy list is a rock bottom price cheat sheet I printed from the Saving Well Spending Less website. The nice lady who oversees this website is from Florida so her prices may be a little more than mine but since I am just starting out, it gives me a nice place to start and reference. I can keep track and change the prices as I go along.

Finally in my list is my actual coupon list. You can see I type out what the coupon is for and any exclusions for the coupon. I write out the value, the expiration date, and how many of the coupons I have. This list comes out at the stores and I can easily find which coupons I need.

I don't go to the store all willy nilly. I do make a list of my needs. Right now I am spending alot more than I should be on my groceries and such because I don't have a stockpile. Please don't think I am one of those crazy people on the Extreme Couponing tv show. I don't want to hoard goods. The purpose of a stockpile is to have enough goods to last until the next time the prices are at rock bottom for those items. For instance, recently my store had Dial Hand Soap on sale and with my coupon I could get it for 18 cents. They also had  Dawn Dish Liquid on sale and I could get it for 99 cents. Since the prices are at rock bottom (or won't be able to get them much cheaper) you buy enough to last until a similar sale comes along. Usually 3-6 months. So, I'd say a person should buy no more than 10 of these items. That should be enough to get you through until the next sale. Sadly, I have a small stockpile. I only have 8 toothbrushes and 3 tubes of toothpaste in my stockpile so I have to pretty  much buy everything we need as we need it. So right now I am trying to make sure I stock up on items when they are at rock bottom prices so eventually I will be able to shop from my stockpile and plan my meals around the meat sales and such.

Here you can see my dry erase calendar. Don't you love the picture of our family my 6 year old drew? You can see I have my meals planned out according to our themed nights.

Monday=Casserole

Tuesday=Pasta

Wednesday=Soup

Thursday=Beef/pork

Friday=flex (take out, leftovers, sammies whatever)

Saturday=slow cooker

Sunday=Chicken

What I do is look at the sales papers I get on Saturday and see what is on sale and what I have coupons for. Then I plan my menu around that. This the stores around me didn't really have good sales.  But I did take advantage of a few items. My total money spent on things we needed this week was $150.76. I spent $29.76 at Walmart on my case file for my coupons, belts for my sons, cat medicine, magnetic paper clip tins that were clearanced to $1.50. No coupons used.

At one of the supermarkets in my town, Community Markets, I bought 2 gallons of milk for $2.50 each. Normal price is $2.99. I also used coupons to get toaster strudels, bologna, and coffee. I spent $21.74 and saved $8.00.

I got the rest of my groceries finished at Kroger. The best deal I got was almond milk for $1.18 a carton (normally $2.89) and toilet paper for 25 cents a roll. I spent $100.26 and saved $28.69. So in total I saved $36.69. Not good but not too bad. At least I saved a little right.

Ok my friends, I have bored you enough on this. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them and I will answer as best I can. Until next time....Be Blessed.