First, I’m afraid blogging about this is going to make things worse. Now I have not only incentive to get good deals regularly, but the more entertaining/ridiculous things I do, the better for writing about. Enter today’s shopping trip.

Cereal is a couponing staple, although between matching up the best price with what you have a coupon for and which kinds you will actually eat is quite the challenge. There tends to be little to no organization among the brands, but for this deal, I decided to rough it.

I left the store with 62% savings and a total out of pocket of $8.84, and *ding ding ding* a free movie ticket! But wait there’s more, I also have a $5 prepaid gas card on the way from redeeming codes on the insides of the boxes (even more ridiculous than it sounds). Oh yeah, and at least a few months worth of cereal, which is now living in the hall closet while I enjoy the already-opened boxes I have in the kitchen.

I bought:

2 boxes of Corn Flakes (3.98 total)

2 boxes of Rice Krispies (2.98 total)

1 box of Frosted Mini Wheats (1.99)

1/2 gallon of Milk (It was 1.89 but I doubled my two coupons so I’m counting the extra $1 savings and saying I paid .89)

Plus the gas card and the movie ticket worth up to $12, I’d say this was a pretty sweet deal. Now who wants to have a cold cereal party?

Today I dropped $14, which included buying this week’s coupons (aka the Sunday Newspaper) and a couple things I totally didn’t need but WERE GOOD DEALS, such as clearance iced tea mix. Total percent of savings was 62% and I got:

-3 packs of Stride gum (1.28)

-Another pack of gum I thought I had to buy to make the coupon work but totally didn’t. (At least is was on sale for $.99)

-Iced tea mix (1.44)

-2 Spicy Brown mustards (.73 total)

-A pork loin (only 3.50, but should have been 2.50 if the stupid ecoupon I loaded on my card worked)

-2 bags of pistachios. (3.49)

Plus I donated 7 cents to prostate cancer.

I set out to buy stuff for dinner. I decided to cash in a couple catalinas I’d accrued buy buying the right things, including $5 off for buying $15 worth of batteries and $4 off lamb, (which I’m honestly not sure what I bought to get.) My actual needs were sour cream, potatoes (my first attempt a perogies!), a “nice cheese” and maybe some booze, but I spent $10.91 out of pocket (61% savings) and went home with:

-a bottle of Pinot Grigio (6.99)

-a lamb chop (never would have bought it but with the coupon it was $.05)

-sour cream (1.99)

-a thing of febreeze (only $.99)

-1.77 lbs of red potatoes (1.40)

-Some fancy spreadable cheese (chosen cause it had a peely coupon, 4.49)

I figure if I’m saving over 50% I’m doing pretty well. I know on the show they get everything for free, but yeah, that’s seemingly unrealistic for myself. My most successful trip so far has yielded 81% savings, and only consisted of SOME stuff I didn’t need.

For $4.25 I went home with:

-a box of pasta (free)

-a box of kleenex (.79)

-two big bags of M&Ms (the difference)

-two sticks of deodorant (one of which has already been donated to Party Time Nate) (free)

-a big box of popsicles (.49)

The kleenex cost $.79 and, the pasta and deodorant were free and the rest of the cost went to the sweets, less than $2 each.

If you know me well, you probably won’t be surprised about my latest hobby, because I get into random, ridiculous things all the time. I’ll be honest, I saw Extreme Couponing on TLC and said, that looks fun. I’m not doing it to save money or support my five kids on $150 a month, but I’m doing it because it sounded fun, challenging, and like that it came with small victories on a regular basis.

I’m a few weeks in, and the jury is still out if it’s actually going to save me money. In fact, I’ve bought a ton of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise purchased and even at 60-80% savings that’s still a net loss, but it sure is fun to see that percent savings on the receipt.

I have no intentions to make this a blog of any purpose other than keeping track of (ok bragging about) my savings. If you want to learn about how to Extreme Coupon, you should read one of the many other blogs out there. I check Thekrazycouponlady.com daily (ok 5 times or more) and there are tons out there that actually explain things. This is about me and my mini victories until I get bored with this and find a new hobby.

Oh and the name, well, when you buy two bags of pistachios because you got BOTH for $3.50 and then sit around and eat them, it’s inevitable.