This post was inspired by two awesome girls I know who always have great tips for living on a budget and share them with their friends and followers online. My friend Julie, who runs this blog, cheapchicbyjulie.blogspot.com/ and my friend Sam, who is into coupons, have both inspired me to take a look at my spending, and see what I can do to help keep my budget in check.
Recently, my friend Sam moved back to rural Alberta from suburban BC, to be closer to her family while she and fiancé, Andrew, give birth to their second daughter next month. While Sam had access to a lot of coupons in BC, because her location is a little more remote now, she relies on the groups she belongs to online to help collect and trade coupons.
My family gets three newspapers every Saturday, so I spent a few minutes clipping out the coupons from these little "Saver" flyers, and stuck them in an envelope to mail west to Sam, which included many for cleaning products, laundry items and personal hygiene products like toothpaste and grooming items. Sam keeps coupons for diapers and baby items, and trades them to other people for ones they need, and mails them in exchange for the coupons she can use.
While I was clipping and collecting, I decided to try this fad out for myself, and kept a couple coupons to use while I did some shopping this week.
I had two copies of the same flyer, so I ended up with two coupons that were the same. They were a manufacturer coupon for Pantene Shampoo/Conditioner, which were a buy-one-get-one-free deal, and definitely the best deal I saw in all the flyers. I combed through the weekly sales flyers and found three stores that had Pantene on all for the same price. One of the stores was Shoppers Drug Mart, and since they give points for their products, and the other two stores (No Frills and Walmart) do not have any customer incentive, I elected to go to Shoppers, since I was planning to pay the same price as the other stores, may as well get the points for it. The regular price for the Pantene Shampoos and Conditioners at Shoppers was $7.99, so they were on for half the normal price.
You will see from the price tags, I already got the items for half their normal price, and was planning to get two of them for free as well. Then, to my surprise, some of the bottles had these $2 off coupons attached to them (sorry the photo quality isn't that good) -- and one of the bottles was a 25% bonus size bottle, with extra product in it at no extra charge. So, now I was paying 3.99$ each for two bottles, getting two free, and then using my 4$ off.
The total for these four bottles you see pictured above, regular price would've been nearly $28 at Shoppers. My grand total was about $4. I did have to pay tax on the two free bottles, so I ended up paying $6.05 all in, but I was pretty excited with my purchase as I was watching the cashier ring everything in.
I have watched the coupon shows on TV, but because we can't use duplicate coupons on the same item in Canada like they can in the States, I thought it wasn't that big of an excitement. Sam told me something I didn't know, however, which is that different coupons can be combined, which is how I got the extra savings at Shoppers. I had combined the manufacturers' coupon for the BOGO offer, and the $2 off coupons that came from Shoppers, plus the sale offer, which got me the lowest possible price. And hey, now I don't have to buy shampoo again for a while!
When I started looking at the coupons I had, and watching the flyers this week, I realized there are definitely plenty of savings to be had. The brand of hair dye I use is regular price $12.99 at Shoppers. (Their regular, non-sale prices are highway robbery. Do not pay full-price for anything there, it all goes on sale regularly!) The dye was on sale last week at Walmart for $5.97 per box. I had also clipped a coupon for $5 off when you buy two.
So now, instead of paying the completely insane $12.99 at shoppers, I have two boxes stocked up and only paid a grand total of about eight bucks including taxes for both these at Wal-Mart. One thing I learned, however, was that Wal-Mart doesn't always have items in stock you may want. I had to visit three different Wal-Marts on a total of four trips (I visited the one near my house twice) in order to find my shade, which had previously been sold out the other three times I had gone. However, it was worth it, since I was already at the mall anyway, didn't hurt to go look, and now when I want to do my hair, I have a couple boxes, and saved a few dollars doing it.
I also had been anxiously awaiting Thursday, as that is the night we get the flyers for the coming week's sales. I was waiting to find somewhere that would have Irish Spring bodywash on sale for $2.99, which is regular price around $5 at Wal-Mart, No Frills etc and around $7 at Shoppers. I have four coupons for $2 off, so I was hoping somewhere would have them on for $3 so I could get them for 99 cents. My dad and brother both use this type, and since both my brother's birthday and fathers day are coming up, I figured these would be good items I could put into their gifts.
I was a little disappointed we didn't get a Shoppers flyer yesterday, and Wal-Mart didn't have the bodywash on sale. However, as I was flipping through the Lowblaws flyer, I noticed they have it on sale! In addition, they have shaving cream, (regular price at walmart $3.16) on for $2.49 ... I have a coupon for a dollar off, so now I can pick it up for $1.50, which is less than half price at the cheapest store.
Not sure if I'll be this crazy about it forever. It sure is a lot of work trying to remember what coupons I have, what's on sale where, and how much things cost at all the other stores. Maybe if I wrote them down in a little book or something? It's also tough to remember to bring all the coupons with me to the store. I saw a deal at Shoppers or Wal-Mart the other day and thought, "Argh! I have a coupon for that at home ... I wish I had it with me!"
For now, however, it's definitely cool to be saving a few bucks on items I know I'll be using. For everything else, all the coupons I didn't need, I put them in an envelope and mailed them to Sam, where she will sort and divide them and trade them to others who are looking to save a few dollars on their bills.
For anyone who is interested in getting involved with Sam's coupon project, willing to trade or perhaps even share (instead of recycling your flyers, for the price of a couple stamps, Sam will know what to do with them!) please do get in touch with me, tweet or e-mail me and I can get you in touch with her!
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