I am having a really hard time with couponing lately. I use to be so get-up and go when it came to couponing. In fact I was a bit obsessed. I thought I had to get every great deal that came around. Well, now that I look at my stockpile of 10 tubes of toothpaste and 10 bottles of men’s body wash I had to “redefine” my limits. Now I only buy items I have a lot of already that are money makers after coupons.
The past month I have somewhat lost my drive to coupon like a mad woman. I use to get so excited when I saved over $20 in coupons in one grocery trip, now not so much. Lately our shopping habits have changed. We have been going to Aldi a lot more often since milk is cheap as well are a lot of the household staples. The store is also close to our house and easy to get in and out of for a quick milk run. I have been doing a lot of price comparisons and more often than not, Aldi is the lowest price in town and you do not have to remember your coupons.
I am still making the occasional Giant Eagle runs, but last month I only went to the store two times. Once to use my accumulated foodperks and then another time to use the Catalinas I had from the previous trip before they expired. I still buy a lot of my meat at Giant Eagle since they often run BOGO sales on different cuts of meat. I do stock up at those sales. Giant Eagle is a lot more expensive for everyday items, but on the flipside when you pair up sales with double coupons, you can really score some great almost free to free items, which I love.
I have alot going on at work right now so my time has been limited. Plus I would rather spend time with my boys after a hard day. Right now I feel a lot more content since I am not obsessing over coupons and deals. However, I did see a slight rise in our grocery budget for October. Our previous three months we spent:
August - $287.31
September - $314.26
October - $371.32 (ouch!)
Our family goal is $300 a month for a family of four. I know we can do it. On the flipside, I looked at the money spent eating out for the past three months:
August - $204.39
September - $189.49
October - $144.56
So now I am seeing a trend, of course if we are eating out less, then we would need to buy more groceries for at home. When I combine the 2 amounts:
August - $491.70
September - $503.75
October - $515.88
So I still think October was a bad month, I am striving for November to keep the groceries under $300 and keep the eating out under $120. Wish us luck!
I can SO relate to this post! Extreme couponing is both hugely rewarding and totally exhausting. I have managed to build my stockpiles and now just have to figure out how I don't run out of products when there won't be any sales for a while. I've gone back to 'school' and take classes online (in addition to my full-time job) and I can't spend too much time on shopping when I need to do homework. The worst thing is, though, that I'm using couponing as a home work procrastination -- and the end of the semester with TONS of exams and papers is around the corner!! Anyway, there just isn't enough time in a day to do all the things that I need to do... perhaps that's why is a perfect time to put couponing on the backburner. I'm tired.
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