Couponing 101 Update

Check out Utah Deal Diva for organizing your coupons in a coupon binder

COUPONING 101

I LEARNED A LOT from the SAVVY SHOPPER

She has 3 short videos you can watch to help guide you! SHE IS AWESOME!

If you live in UT, she has FREE classes you can take from her!

I am not a PROFESSIONAL!!!

But, this is what I know....

COLLECT & ORGANIZE

First, you need to subscribe to the Sunday newspaper only!

For those of you living in UT, go to the Savvy Shopper class and you get a HUGE discount!!!

(I started out with 2 sunday papers a week, then as I understood couponing better, I subscribe to 5 newspapers a week. This is normal for most couponers)

Make sure the newspaper is the one that receives the Smart Source and the Red Plum, and sometimes others. In UT, it is the Daily Herald

You want to start collecting the coupons in the paper for a few weeks before you even start couponing.

Organize your coupons by date into 3 piles:

9/13 SS (Smart Source)

9/13 RP (Red Plum)

9/13 ?? (Random ones)...

usually is P&G (Proctor and Gamble) or GM (General Mills)

Purchase ONE 2-inch (or bigger) notebook WITH A ZIPPER to organize clipped coupons:

I have one for my 'food' and one for 'misc' (toiletries, detergent, freshners...)

I use these notebooks to organized all the coupons I have printed off or coupons I cut out of the newspaper, but never used because the products were already gone, or coupons I cut out of magazines, etc...

Then purchase about 2 packs of these baseball card inserts. Found at Walmart in the baseball card section.

The Krazy Coupon Lady organizes her coupons in categories

SEE HERE

I label each insert by food category:

some people use 7 categories, and others use like 25

Do what is easiest for you and stick with it. Your brain has a photographic memory and will remember where you organize your coupons.

If your really really determined, you can cut ALL the coupons from the newspaper and organize them in here, like the Savvy Shopper does...There is a big benefit in doing it that way, but is VERY VERY TIME CONSUMING! (there are short cuts in cutting if you lay the exact pages out on top of each other and cut them at the same time...especially if you have 5 copies)

Now you are prepared for my Couponing Cheat Sheets!!!

Here are my CHEAT SHEETS:

Common Sense with Money

Coupon Cravings

Krazy Coupon Lady

Utah Deal Diva

Freebies 4 Mom (not my exact favorite)

Somehow these people are paid for their BLOGS.

I subscribe to these blogs and get emails from their updates.

They are the ones that tell me the deals at places like Target, Walgreens, CVS, etc...

Sometimes they post about Smiths, Albertson's, Kmart...

A lot of their posts are on free samples and other stuff that I might just ignore.

Try to find blogs like these in your area that post about stores you go to.

HERE is my UT GROCERY CHEAT SHEETS:

Savvy Shopper from the daily herald. I learned a lot from her!!! I even went and took a class from her (here in UT)! SHE IS A PROFESSIONAL!!! Click on Shopping Wizard to choose a store and see the best deals there

Grocery Smarts (this is the link to the Utah stores)

g84rcm is the passport (like a password)-which you can see already posted on the upper right corner of the website.

PLEASE CALL ME IF YOU WANT ME TO WALK YOU THROUGH HOW TO USE THESE SITES!!!

Don't FORGET TO WATCH the VIDEO CLIPS from the Savvy Shopper on the HOW TO's.

P.S. I have made a lot of mistakes in my shopping crazes at times. Sometimes cashiers give you a hard time. So, if they don't take a coupon, I don't buy the product. Most of the time, I hold the line up behind me because I may have 2 or more transactions, or because the coupons don't go through and the cashier gets flustered and says they can't accept it, even though they can...

It can be very annoying and embarrassing. I can have VERY SMOOTH transactions, and sometimes very long ones where the store manager has to come fix a problem:)

P.S.S. You can use a STORE coupon with a MANUFACTURER's Coupon (one each per product)

Just a few examples of Internet Printable Coupons:

STORE COUPONS:

Target coupons (from A FULL CUP)-you can print an unlimited amount of these

Target Coupons (from Target website)

Smith's loadable coupons (load them onto your rewards card)-only one coupon per product though :( NOT GOOD FOR STOCKING UP

Manufacturer Coupons:

Coupons.Com

Redplum

Smart Source

Eat Better America

Remember that when you print a manufacturers coupon, you can only print it twice. After I print it once, I push the "back" button to resend it and print again.

Free 8 inch round cake for 1 yr old

Albertson's Bakery will make an individual cake for your baby's one year birthday!

See details HERE

CRAZY COUPON LADY!

I bought this shirt because I AM CRRRRAAAAZZZZZYYY!!!

I am one of those CRAZY coupon ladies!

The shirt says " KRAZY COUPON LADY" on the front

and on the back it says, "Pick another checkout lane, honey"

To buy one, get it HERE

ANYWAYS, this is why I'm CRAZY OBSESSED...

Target now price matches... and Walgreens had ALL GM cereal for $1.99

Target had a store coupon for $1 off 1 GM cereal, and I had a TON of manufacturer coupons for 75 cents off 1 GM cereal. That means: $1.99-$1.00-$0.75=24 cent cereal!!!

Some of my manufacturer coupons were $1/2, so some cereals were 50 cents instead of 24 cents, but I still SCORED!!!

Not many people knew about this killer deal because of the recent price match Target does now, so there were LOADS of cereal still around.

This is ONLY SOME of the GM cereal I bought at Target. I did like 5 transactions. In one trip to TARGET, I bought 52 cereal boxes for $19.00!!!

It was the easiest shopping I've ever done, once I figured out that you HAVE TO GO TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE DESK TO PURCHASE THEM (IF YOU PRICE MATCH), otherwise you have to pay in full at the cashier and then go to the service desk to get a reimbursement....NO WAY, DON'T DO THAT!!! MUCH EASIER TO JUST GO STRAIGHT TO THE SERVICE DESK!!!

Here is my food storage of MORE CEREAL!

My sister in laws have been coming over to go SHOPPING! It is fun! They buy cereal from me for $1 a box. They score, and I SCORE! I get my high by seeing how much I save and sharing it!

It's a WIN WIN! I never buy cereal unless it is 50 cents, generally. I even told my neighbors to come over and buy any box of cereal for $1.00.

I sell them for $1 because that way... I get compensated for the newspapers I purchase and all the ink/paper I print out for the internet coupons... PLUS MY TIME!!!

Couponing is VERY TIMELY!!! But its fun for me. ;)

TONS OF PICTURES!

Don't want to miss this post!

I am showing my makeover! :)

Over Labor Day Weekend, there was a lot going on! I had my 10 year reunion! And other stuff..

So, my sister in laws helped me get ready for it!

I got my teeth bleached at Tyson/Tyler's dental office with ZOOM!

It is ZOOM 2 and much much better than Zoom 1! HOWEVER, it burned my lip and so it made my upper lip really puffy, but I didn't mind. It was like a free restylane/collagen injection :) LOL

Here's my white teeth 1 week after Zoom treatment

Here is the puffy upper lip

Here is the normal lip

Then my sister in law, Amber, did my eyelashes!

She took almost 2 hours to individually glue eyelashes onto my eyelashes to make them LUSCIOUS! Here is the before:

Here is the AFTER:

(no curling, no mascara) It is the best!

She also touched up my hair with more highlights

Amber has a tanning bed in the basement of her house,

so I went and got me some color too!

Tyson's oldest sister, Shelly, did my toenails. She is amazing! She can do all kinds of designs and french nails etc, but I just got a solid color

My poor dead toenail fell off (from the half marathon I ran), so it didn't get any lovin :(

And then they took me shopping for some cute outfits, since I had lost almost all my baby weight from Taylor!!!

IT WAS SO FUN GETTING MADE OVER!

We spent all Friday down in St. George at Tyson's sister's second home. We swam all day in the back yard and went to the park.

On Saturday (all day), was my Dad's family reunion in Santa Clara. So, we spent the morning playing ball and went to lunch at Pirate Island Pizza

Tay Tay is watching Daddy run to home base

Gma Gubler and Tay Tay

Tay Tay and new baby cousin Preston

Uncle Sean holding Taylor in the Tree because she wanted to climb it so bad, just like her big cousins

Tay's cousins love to swing her!

This is an AWESOME place to go eat pizza if you are in the Santa Clara area

We all shared the 'KRACKIN', which is the largest order of pizza you can get :)

Here is Tay blowing on her "hot" pasta

Love it when they eat with their hands :)

HUGE slices of PIZZA! YUMMY!

And of course, inside they have an arcade.

Taylor's favorite was pretending to drive, just like she does at home in mommy and daddy's car

Here's a little kids play area. She loved climbing around and sliding down the slide, of course (her favorite)

She could have done this all day

Our little pirate, on her ship!

SATURDAY NIGHT was my 10 Year High School Reunion!

AHHH! I'm getting so old!

So, you know how I went to Buckle to get a super cute outfit?! Well, the day before I was reading the invitation and on it, it said... "Cocktail Dress". I could have killed Tyson! I asked him to read it and tell me what the dress code was, but he said there wasn't one. So, just to be safe I read it the night before when I was packing.

Good thing I had a dress from Tyson's graduation, so I brought that.

Well, when we got to Vegas, Tyson decides to tell me that he doesn't know where his black slacks are. Again, I wanted to kill him! I was so bugged. "What are you going to wear then?"

All he had was his new Jeans. Oh Well!

He wore them, but pulled it off well because he is such a stud. There was maybe one or two others that was dressed down, but everyone LOVED him, that it didn't matter. He is so easy to talk to and so personable.

Tyson had more to say to my old friend's hubby's than I had to say.

He was such a great sport!

Here I am with one of my best friends from High School, Tiffany Strobelt-Milne.

This is a horrible picture of us!

They had a free photo booth, so we took advantage!

Here's me, Karen Neilsen-Froerer and Tiffany Strobelt-Milne

Me and Tyson

After the Reunion, I was craving my FAVORITE place for ice cream.

If you know me, I AM A HUGE ICE CREAM FAN, so I KNOW my ice cream!

Well, we went to Leatherby's in Vegas (in the scariest place downtown) at 11:00pm

And this is what I ordered. This chocolate fudge topping is no ordinary topping. Nor is the ice cream. IT IS HOME MADE! SOOOO DELICIOUS!!!

Sunday, we drove home late at night.

We did a lot of driving over the weekend... as you can see

Also, we got Taylor a forward facing car seat FINALLY! And she LOVES it!

On Labor Day, Daddy washed the cars with his little helper!

Monday night we went to a BLINK 182 concert! They are my absolute favorite band all through high school and college. I LOVE their music. Besides the crudeness and the bad words, it was AWESOME!

Here we are in line outside the stadium (even though we already had tickets) It was crazy how many people were there!

Here we are inside at the BLINK 182 concert

And here are just some random pictures of Taylor!

Gotta love her! She's so dang cute, I can't help but take pictures of her!

Every time I change her diaper, she gets up as fast as she can before I can get her a new diaper and runs off! It is hard not to laugh at her!

I love baby bums! They are just the cutest!

P.S.

The house we are living in (Tyson's Gma) has SOLD! :(

So we are going to have to move out soon :(

We'll keep you updated...