[homerlovesmarge]

Ok I know you all have heard, seen and been through this before so I am hoping I can get some advise. I have been couponing for three months now and I have a great HBA stockpile going on however I need lots of help on the food items. We currently have a food budget of $1200 per month for a family of 7 that I have got to cut down on and I also have horses with a monthly budget of $650 for feed. I live in a small Texas town with a Walmart and HEB. Any advise and help would be greatly appreciated!!!

[kmeiding]

With Walmart, you should be able to price match stores in nearby towns. I don't do great with food either but when I find a good deal on something that isn't perishable I do my best to stock up. I look at 7 different ads each week to see if I need to price match anything.

[diskeycoupons]

1200 a month for family of 7? Wow. You could easily cut that in half.

This is what I do.

Every sunday I get 5 double coupon papers so 10 inserts each... $3.00 each. I use my walmart discount card. So I get 5 for around $13.00

I usually spend 35 to 40 dollars a week in groceries for a family of 4. So total is usually max 53.

The biggest things that I do, are of course find the frees. So I always get 10 of those, I usually get a lot of the 10 for 10 sales.

Then I worry about my meat, milk, eggs etc.

Make sure to ask your normal stores if they accept competitor coupons. Not sure if HEB does. But check none the less.

For your horses, are you getting the feed at your local feed store. If so check out your local farmers. They may be more than willing to give to a break for 400 a month if you set up a monthly thing with them.

[homerlovesmarge]

Thank you so much for the information! I would love to be able to cut the budget in half!!! I need to buy more papers for sure I normally get 2 or 3 papers so I need to do like you and buy more to maximize savings. Thank you !!

[littleprincess]

Do you have any outlet stores in your area? In my area we have a poultry supplier that has their own outlet store which often has great deals on chicken,pork etc (like 40lbs of chicken for $20.) We have a pretzel company that sells their products for $1.00 a bag. I can get loaves of bread (all different kinds) rolls & buns at the local bread company's outlet for 50 cents. We also have a candy manufacturer which has an outlet store but I try to avoid going in there to often because the last thing I need is tons of chocolate in the house.

[Goddessoflubbock]

Diskeycoupons - what is a WM discount card?

[LetaB]

Can we discuss your family's diet? That has quite the impact. I understand if that is too personal, though.

If you have horses, do you have room to grow anything?

Our friends who have five horses buy a semi trailer full of hay at the end of summer, and then they sell off small amounts of it to others, so they essentially break even on horse hay. They built a pavillion-type shed in order to do this, but if it saves $650/mo, it seems like the shed would have paid for itself rather quickly.

[TAFrank]

Not sure what brand feed your using. Purina has a program if you sign up they send you 5$ off a bag coupons. They are bricks Q's, so you can print each one twice. I have three other family members who signed up, and they give me their Q's also..... They give you an initial set of Q's right after you sign up too.... go here, Purina Difference - Home If you do sign up, use my code 20100813-66-04248032 and i get an extra Q too!!

[littleprincess]

Originally Posted by Goddessoflubbock

Diskeycoupons - what is a WM discount card?

I'm not Diskey but I can tell you that the WM discount card is an employee discount card that walmart employees (and their spouses/dependents) can use on their walmart purchases. I think when I worked there (years ago) it was like 10%

[monalis35023]

Originally Posted by littleprincess

I'm not Diskey but I can tell you that the WM discount card is an employee discount card that walmart employees (and their spouses/dependents) can use on their walmart purchases. I think when I worked there (years ago) it was like 10%

When I worked there 4 years ago it was 10% I believe but that did not apply to food.

[leithaingram]

In what small town in Texas do you live? I'm in Cleveland, 45 miles NE of Houston.

As far as coupons, I get on Houston Chronicle delivered so I can go through, see the fine print on the Qs and decide which ones I want. Then I go to Home and order multiples of what I want to stock up on. For me that's better than buying multiple papers, if I bought $10 worth of papers (5 papers), I'd only get 5 each of the Qs I want AND I'd have to clip them myself. For that same $10 I can get many more of each one I want, clipped and ready to go, plus I don't have a bunch of Qs I'm not going to use and a bunch of papers to carry to recycle.

[qrazy]

It will take awhile until you see the big savings on your grocery bill. If you are still buying your normal things, and also stockpiling the good deals, you haven't seen the savings yet. I say it takes about 4-6 mths to build up a good stockpile. That means working at it every week, getting multiple coupons to buy multiple items. You'll get there.

[mama2twins2000]

[quote="diskeycoupons"]1200 a month for family of 7? Wow. You could easily cut that in half.

This is what I do.

Every sunday I get 5 double coupon papers so 10 inserts each... $3.00 each. I use my walmart discount card. So I get 5 for around $13.00

What are double coupon papers?

Sent from my iPhone using AFullCup

[notrbl2]

I feel your pain! With no hay in TX this year, I"m afraid your feed bill is only going to go UP UP UP! I have 19 horses!
But, I feed a family of 4. My budget used to be $600, I've recently got it down to $500 before I started couponing (I didn't buy much!). But, I"ve been able to use coupons to stockpile and buy my everyday groceries and save money, still trying to stick at $500/month while stock piling at the same time.
I buy 1 paper a week. That's it. If there is a really good Q I go online and buy a bunch of that one coupon. It's cheaper than buying that many papers.
I've been using Qs since April and I've bought Gillete deodorant (b1g1) Qs, V8 fusion, Ivory soap and 1 more Q I can't come up with off the top of my head.
I shop at WalMart b/c I'm small town too. I'm also watching Albertsons b/c while they are more $, they are running some good sales. And, I'm stocking up on those sales.
I am spending my same budget, using Qs for the weekly stuff I can and using those savings to buy my stockpile deals (hope that makes sense).
Right now I"m stocking hte V8 fusion, got 8 at Target today for $8! They are normally $3 each at WM so I saved $16 this way.
I also found a really good trading partner on this site. We send 25 Qs weekly.
And, I frequently print a lot of IPs. I have access to 3 computers to print from, so I can usually get 6 of each!
Hope this helps some!

[dntexpectmercy86]

Originally Posted by TAFrank

Not sure what brand feed your using. Purina has a program if you sign up they send you 5$ off a bag coupons. They are bricks Q's, so you can print each one twice. I have three other family members who signed up, and they give me their Q's also..... They give you an initial set of Q's right after you sign up too.... go here, Purina Difference - Home If you do sign up, use my code 20100813-66-04248032 and i get an extra Q too!!

I'm in Michigan and feed purina to my small herd as well. My I use your code? Thx

[homerlovesmarge]

Originally Posted by leithaingram

In what small town in Texas do you live? I'm in Cleveland, 45 miles NE of Houston.

As far as coupons, I get on Houston Chronicle delivered so I can go through, see the fine print on the Qs and decide which ones I want. Then I go to Home and order multiples of what I want to stock up on. For me that's better than buying multiple papers, if I bought $10 worth of papers (5 papers), I'd only get 5 each of the Qs I want AND I'd have to clip them myself. For that same $10 I can get many more of each one I want, clipped and ready to go, plus I don't have a bunch of Qs I'm not going to use and a bunch of papers to carry to recycle.

I am in stephenville that's a good idea about just getting the coupons you are going to use! Thanks!

[TAFrank]

Dntex Please use the code!!! I get a Q for every person that signs up with it!!! I can use every Q I get for feed!!

[autumnkavila]

Originally Posted by homerlovesmarge

Thank you so much for the information! I would love to be able to cut the budget in half!!! I need to buy more papers for sure I normally get 2 or 3 papers so I need to do like you and buy more to maximize savings. Thank you !!

I buy one paper per person in my family, more of there is a coupon I'm going to use to stock up. I ALWAYS price match at WM and get as many "frees" or overage items as I can because they cut the bill down.

[diskeycoupons]

[quote=mama2twins2000;4078328]

Originally Posted by diskeycoupons

1200 a month for family of 7? Wow. You could easily cut that in half.

This is what I do.

Every sunday I get 5 double coupon papers so 10 inserts each... $3.00 each. I use my walmart discount card. So I get 5 for around $13.00

What are double coupon papers?

Sent from my iPhone using AFullCup

Double Coupon papers are a paper that has two papers worth of stuff in one bundle for 50 cents less than buying two papers. Georgia does this and some other states also. It is not deliverable and there is only a certain amount that is dropped off at each store. :-( they go fast. Now Carroll County in GA also gets these and sets them out at Wal-Mart on Saturday. So we pick up the paper on Saturday afternoon/evening.

Yes WM discount card is an employee card for 10% off normal items (usually items you can find in the non-grocery section of the store).

[godiva99]

Definitely look out for outlets in your neighborhood. After living in this area for 4.5 yrs I recently discovered a hole in the wall store that seemed like a dollar store, only that they sell meat in BULK. We've bought a whole slab of skirt steak for only $25 and a huge ball of sirloin steak for $15! We go as often as we can since their selection varies everyday. They carry seafood, poultry, cheese, hotdogs and coldcuts, bacon, even desserts that are served at the diners for like $3-$4 a pie! Always have several coupons on hands lfor thos items that you use regularly and then save those that would seem to give you overage even if you don't use the product. You can use the overage to pay for meats. Also, look out for reduced meat packages at your supermarket. They'll mark them down the day of or day before they need to pull them off the shelf and then you can freeze them till you're ready to use.

Once thanksgiving is over, their ham and turkeys will be price reduced too so it's good to stock up. If there is a misprint on price even better! I got a 15lb ham last year for 0.67.

[momofsix6789]

We are a family of 10, 7 kids, hubby and me and my fil. We spend $1000 a month on everything, Food, household, personal, clothing, shoes, home school etc. I would say about $600 a month to actual food. But in order to do that I have to make alot of things from scratch and it helped out to build a stockpile then I could just shop sales. So if say this past week at biglots v8 fusion was on sale for 3/5 the 64oz, I purchased 30 bottles. But we were well stocked up freezer fridge and pantry so I could that. I have to say that especially for large families stockpiling is the way to go. I can't even think what I would spend if I was not able to purchase large quantites of food items at the rock bottom prices. Good luck.

[bigdogmom187]

Ok my Grann lives in Comanchie and I have an Aunt in Stepenville. First off for the feed (this is going to take leg work if you don't have a telephone book some towns have quit printing them I don't know about yours ) go to ALL the feed stores in the area with a pen and paper and get there prices and any "frequent buyer" promo info for EVERYTHING that you get there. Do this at all the stores. On way more than one ocasion I have been able to get the feed store clossest to my Grann's to price match one of there competitors prices (it was cow feed but still) it might or might not work but would be worth a shot. Also don't forget that HEB will give you the item free if you find it expired in the store (a non expired replacement). That can't hurt Also and I know that this is fround on here but check ebay for coupons for items that you use a lot of. I NEVER would have gotten coupons for some of the things we use without ebay (I don't know where they are coming from but there sure lucky folks!) Good luck sugar! And hang in there you can coupon even in a small town (it just takes more leg work LOL!!!)