People tell me all the time that they don’t use coupons because all of the coupons are for junk food or pre-packaged items. They tell me they “cook from scratch” and just don’t buy that stuff.
Personally, I don’t buy a lot of that “stuff” either. I make dough and pizza sauce from scratch and bake it on my pizza stone every Friday night. Frozen pizzas are rare at our house. We don’t buy frozen taquitos, I make my own. Prepackaged cookies are only bought when they are super cheap (like FREE), otherwise, we make our own and freeze them individually (and the chocolate chips are bought with coupons, too.)
I don’t buy canned chicken. I buy 7 or 8 pounds of chicken breast when it’s on sale, throw it in the crock pot with a can of chicken broth and slow cook it for 7 to 8 hours. I shred the chicken and freeze it in meal size portions. I don’t buy bread at the store. I make five loaves of whole wheat bread every week and I also make my own laundry soap. I have never purchased Hamburger Helper or Totino’s Pizza Rolls and I have used Coupon Sense for 10 years.
So, why have I used coupons for the past 10 years? Well, even if you cook from scratch you still need the ingredients to make your recipes. For example, I use canned tomatoes in a lot of recipes I make: pizza sauce, pasta sauce, soups, etc. A few months ago, canned tomatoes were on sale for around $.20 a can. I stocked up using every coupon I had. (I get six sets every week.) The tomatoes ended up being on sale at more than one store over several weeks and during that time more coupons came out. I ended up with a year supply of canned tomatoes at a rock bottom price. Other items I cook with and get cheap with coupons are pasta, sour cream, butter, beans, canned vegetables, broth, chunk cheese, shredded cheese, tortillas and peanut butter. And not all “convenience” foods are bad. I LOVE the frozen vegetables that you can pop right in the microwave and steam. They are done in five minutes and with coupons I frequently get them for less than $.50 each and many times for FREE.
Most shoppers don’t realize that coupons can save you a bundle on non-food items, too. Currently, my cupboard that houses cleaning supplies contains these items:
- 3 Shout
- 3 Spray-N-Wash
- 4 Lysol Bathroom Cleaner
- 1 Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner w/ Bleach
- 2 Febreze
- 3 Lysol Multi-Purpose Cleaner Triggers
- 3 Lysol Multi-Purpose Cleaner Pourable Refill
- 1 Windex
I paid $1 or less for most of these items using coupons. When I need them I have them and they aren’t going to go bad. I also got six 20 count boxes of Electrasol dishwasher tabs for FREE a few months ago. And, what about paper towels, toilet paper, paper plates and cups and storage bags? Coupons abound for these items and using those coupons when these items are on sale saves me a bundle.
Another way I save is using the Coupon Sense Shopping List to find the prices for my produce. With a few clicks of my mouse in the Shopping List I know who has the cheapest prices and the Shopping List can even print out a price match list that I can take to Wal-Mart to get all my produce in one shot. I also use the Shopping List to know when to stock up on my meat, which I freeze, as I already mentioned.
Finally, I haven’t paid for toothpaste or toothbrushes in 10 years. My husband I both have a bin full of deodorant that was anywhere from FREE to $.75 because I know I don’t have to pay more than that. I even save buying my make-up with coupons at CVS or Walgreen’s. When I use my coupons with an Extra Buck or Register Reward deal, make-up costs me almost nothing.
Coupons save me money on most of the things I use every day. And the time I save using Coupon Sense to get these deals means I can cook from scratch, bake my own bread and make my own laundry soap.