Mild or Extreme Couponing?

Lately we have been trying to find ways to skinny up our budget. Here is how we got started...

1.    Make a budget...here is how we did ours.

               Add up all of your monthly bills - Tithes and offerings, mortgage, electric, garbage, car insurance, phone, Internet, school loans

              Subtract the amount from your monthly income

              Whatever is left you need to tell it where to go - Savings, Food, Home Improvement, Car Maintenance, holiday, baby diapers and formula... Here is what ours looks like (We get paid biweekly so this is for every 2 weeks.)

200 food

45 diapers, formula, wipes

20 car

10 entertainment

30 home maintenance and improvements

5 clothes/shoes

5 gifts

15 other/copay

330 Total Biweekly

           This is really tight right??? So all this money comes out in cash. Whatever we don't use just piles up until we have a car problem or need to buy a gift for someone.

2.    The next step is to cut back. Here are a few ways we cut back...

preschool at home - saves $100/wk

netflix - saves $8 (I think)

Dates - we still go but we trade babysitting instead of paying a babysitter

Home made food - make tortillas, brownies, cakes and bread from scratch

cell phones - we don't have them, saves $80 ish a month

gas - we only go to the store once a week to save on gas

oatmeal - I but the 25lb bag at cash and carry for $15 and figures it costs 39 cents for all of us each morning vs 60 cents if we are having cereal that I got on sale.

groceries...I will talk more about this in a bit

Remember - debt feels yucky so things are tight and you will go without but you'll feel much better to get debt off of your shoulders! It's only for a little while.

Oprah said, "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels."

I say, "Nothing feels as good as being out of debt feels."

3. Now...groceries are the easiest thing for me to cut back on. There are a lot of ways to do it and I have learned that you have to do what's best for you. Here are a few questions to ask yourself before getting started...

Do I want to do this full time?

Am I a "brand snob"?

Am I buying food that I will use?

Here are the babysteps on how to get started.

Make a 2 week menu. Look in your pantry and see how many meals you can make out of the things you have at home.

Get a newspaper. Look for deals. Choose the items that you already use or can start saving money if you use. (DO NOT buy things that you won't use just because of the price!)

Look to see if any of those sale items have a coupon to go with them.

Bring your ads and coupons to Walmart and pricematch. When you get to the register just tell them you are going to pricematch and tell them the prices and the store before they scan each item.

Remember!! Don't spend more then your food budget. No borrowing allowed!

That's it!! Easy right?

Here are my rules when it comes to groceries...

1. Only go once a week

2. Have a list and only buy what's on the list

3. only make what we'll eat. fancy cooking in this house results in wasted food.

If you want to get more extreme in couponing you can print coupons and follow websites like grocerysmarts.com and frugallivingnw.com.