[childofsolitude]

If you REALLY want to save, I have a few tips for you. In my household, we have a grocery budget. First of all, I'd suggest you make one. I do it by week. For example, I can spend $56 per week on groceries (there are only two people in my house). Then I break that down even further into more categories-I have xx amount of money for breakfast, xx amount of money for lunches, xx amount of money for dinners, xx amount of money for snacks, and xx amount of money for bread. You may want to include other household items in your budget (like toilet paper, cleaning items, etc.) as well as any other categories you must have.

Now, what I've noticed other people do is that they find a really good deal using coupons so they buy lots of a certain item because it's at a good price. There's two things that a lot of these people do that I think can blow your budget. First, they buy 20 boxes of cookies on clearance for 50 cents each box and they don't limit the amount their household can eat. For example, my household can spend $2 per week on snacks. It may be higher for a family with kids but we don't need much at my house. Now, if I see a deal at my grocery store where, say a bag of chips is $3.99 and it's BOGO, we'll spend the $4 on the chips but those two bags of chips has to last us 2 weeks. This may sound excessive to some but it works for us. Secondly, whether you realize it or not, you may spend more money stocking up then if you were to just buy an item here or there when you run out of it. Yes, you may think 50 cents for a tube of toothpaste is a good deal and you want to buy 50 of them. And in the long run, maybe it'll be worth it. But if you have a budget you need to follow, spending $25 on toothpaste when you only budgeted $20 per month for toiletry items is not a good idea. Most likely, you will overspend in this category throughout the whole year. Instead of actually SAVING money, some of these people tend to actually overspend on their budget by getting more food/other items than they actually need. What would you rather want? To save money and have the amount of food that you need or spend all of your budget and maybe even more on more food than is necessary?

Also, is there something you MUST buy? Is there a particular brand of mayo you NEED to use? Or does your husband NEED to have coke in the house at all times? If so, this can be a bit more difficult to save money because you'll obviously be able to find really good deals on other brands of mayo and other beverages besides coke. Does your kid need to have certain chocolate chip cookies for a snack? Say you regularly spend $3 per week on these chocolate chip cookies. Say you see a box of oatmeal cookies for $1.99 and you have a $1 off coupon. You could get 3 boxes of oatmeal cookies which will last 3 WEEKS as opposed to 1 week and you pay the same amount. The more open minded you are, the better. Don't care what kind of shampoo you use as long as it cleans your hair? You have a better chance of getting good deals than someone who must buy Garnier. I hope that makes sense.

Also, if you want to get the most bang for your buck, plan your meals around your grocery store's sales and the coupons you have. You could save sooo much money on your grocery bill if you do this. HTH

ETA: I probably clip more coupons than the average person. When I'm clipping coupons and I don't know if I should clip one for a particular item, I ask myself "Would you buy this item if it were free or really cheap?" If my answer is yes, I'll clip it. If my answer is no, I don't bother. For example, I don't have kids. I wouldn't clip a coupon for diapers because I have no need for them. However, I would clip a coupon for baby wipes because I could use them as regular hand wipes. I wouldn't pass up really cheap wipes if I saw them so I'd clip the coupon. I can't tell you how many deals that were posted on this forum that I wouldn't have been able to get in on if I only clipped coupons for items I "need". I'll give you another example. I had two coupons for $1 off one Fisher item. Fisher is obviously most known for their baking nuts. Just this week at my local grocery store, something called Fisher Frusions went BOGO. It's basically like a trail mix type thing. They were $1.79 and BOGO. I was able to get both items for free plus overage. Now, the average person who uses coupons wouldn't have clipped that coupon if they had no need for Fisher nuts. A smart couponer would clip it because the coupon states "$1 off ANY 1 Fisher product". You never know what good deals you can get by clipping coupons. What's the worst that could happen if you don't end up using it? You just throw it out, right?