Learning to Coupon

I've made up my mind to learn how to effectively coupon.  I could definitely use the money I hope to save and plus...it seems fun! I admire those women who can come out of a store with more money in their pocket then when they arrived. Seriously..how do they do that?  I'm going to find out so I can do it myself :).

I've fiddled around with coupons before.  It's never been a highly organized nor consistent system.  It usually ends up being one or two random coupons here or there.  However, I was inspired by my pastor's wife who recently offered to give me a few pointers on couponing.  She was the one who introduced me to Money Saving Mom--a wonderful woman who blogs about frugal living.  On her blog you will find ideas for saving and making money, being organized, living frugally, and couponing.  I've enjoyed perusing through her website and gaining some background knowledge on this "couponing science."

This week, I had my first coupon transactions where I actually saved a decent amount of money.  I am so excited about them that I just feel the need to share.

Last Saturday, I stopped in at Weis where they were having cereal sale: buy 4 boxes of Kelloggs cereal for $8.00.  I had a couple of $1/2 coupons which I paired with this sale. The best part--a free gallon of milk when you purchase 4 boxes of cereal! I walked out of the store with all of this for only $6.00!

Then, yesterday, I carefully read up on the coupon/deal match ups going on at CVS and ventured out to try it for myself.  I stopped at the counter and requested an Extra Care Card before I started shopping so that I could earn those Extra Care Bucks :).  I won't go into all the tiny details, but I left the store with 4 Glade candles, 2 deodorants, and a trial size John Freida shampoo and conditioner -all for $5.00 after Extra Care Bucks.  Sweet!

Now that I've gotten a taste for how fun this can be, I'm excited to expand and try my hand at it some more. I look forward to sharing more of my "savings" experiences with you soon!

How about you? Do you like couponing? Have you gotten any great deals this week?