Coupons: The Crazy Way.

Next on my 101 things to do is saving $200 in coupons. I started couponing mid November and in only two months I have saved over $200 with coupons and rebates. The process comes off as crazy and I feel crazy at times, especially at checkout time when I have all this stuff for the cashier to scan, but it is worth it in the end. It is time consuming however if you want to get the most for your money.

Manufacturing Coupons: $44.45 Saved
Sunday Ads
I do not have a subscription to the Sunday Newspaper. I have not done much research on this but whenever I do a quick look it costs about $3-4/week for a Sunday paper. However, some dollar tree stores sell Sunday newspapers for $1 every Sunday. They go fast however, so I have been that crazy person standing outside dollar tree before it opens. I also send my husband when I work on Sundays. So far the coupons have paid for the paper.

When I get them, I cut them all up and organize them into my binder that has baseball collection card holders. Then I have tabs for food, personal items, cleaning supplies, medications, and random coupons.

Coupons.com

















This site has a bunch of printable coupons in it. A lot of the time they are similar to the Sunday ad coupons. However, sometimes they are better or worse so I decide accordingly which one I would use. Usually the coupons have a limit on how many times you can print them. I think the app on the phone is a lot easier to navigate then the website itself and I figured out how to print directly from my phone. However, if I have hit the limit on my phone I simply print from my computer and the limit is reset.

Target Deals
Cartwheel: $24.40 Saved


















I am sure a lot of people know about this app. This is Target's discount app. When you are in Target you can scan an item you intend on buying and it will tell you if there is currently a discount on it. However, I like to plan ahead and scroll through the discounts before I go to Target. That way I can stack it with any printable coupons I may have as well. When I go to the app I click on offers and then food, since that is easier than scrolling through everything.


Promotions: $53 Saved
Now this is where the fun comes (if you weren't already having fun)! When I get the Sunday newspaper, I look through the Target ad to see what kind of promotions they have. They almost always have some kind of promotion like "buy 3 get a $5 gift card". This is where it is easiest to stack coupons. For example, last week they had buy 10 greek yogurts get a $5 gift card, plus I had $1 off 10 yogurts, plus $0.50 Ibotta rebate (I will talk about later) which meant I got 10 yogurts for $3.50.

Sometimes they have other promotions such as "Buy $50 worth of X and get $10 off". This is all before coupons. For example there was $10 off $50 worth of food. So once I hit $50 worth of food I got $10 off then I loaded on the coupons as well. So I ended up getting $54 worth of food for $26.

Red Card: $32.19 Saved
This a basically a credit card for Target that gets you an additional 5% off your purchase. I hesitated on getting this because I did not want to open a credit card. One of the cashiers said you do not have to make it a credit card and you get just link it to your checking account instead. I was nervous about doing this because of all the Target scams but I eventually did it anyway.

Also there was a promotion where you could get 10% off Target gift cards up to $300. We still have a bunch of gift cards from the wedding so we get went to Target and bought gift cards with our gift cards and got an additional $30 worth of gift cards.

Ibotta: $50.10 Saved

This one is my favorite app. All the other stuff I talked about previously is very specific to what brand you can buy and almost always it is not store brand (which is almost always cheapest). This is a rebate app. So you do not save up front but once you get enough rebates you can cash out a gift card (I use Walmart). For example if you bought any kind of bread you would get $0.50 back whether the bread cost you $5 or $1. For awhile Walmart was selling milk for $0.98 and there was $1 cash back on any brand milk. So I was getting milk for free for a couple months until Walmart increased their prices. Also if you sign up with the above referral code you get a free $10 when you redeem your first rebate. I signed my husband, Jason, up just to get the free money.

There are a bunch of other rebate apps such as MobiSave, SavingStar, and Checkout 51 on my phone that I have probably saved $1.50 combined on those since the items are VERY specific and not as commonly found as Ibotta's items. For example you need to find a 20oz jar of Smuckers Jelly. However, Walmart does not sell that specific size.

Shopkick: $15 Made

This is an app that builds points, called kicks, when you walk into certain stores. Every 500 kicks is equal to $2. On top of walking into the store there is also a scavenger hunt to find certain items to scan. I think the purpose is to build awareness for the items and for people to come to their store. For example on Black Friday there was a lot of points for walk ins since stores wanted you to come to their sales. Some stores will also give you a certain amount of "kicks" for purchasing. However you have to enter your credit card on some of them and I am not sure if I trust that.

Walmart Rebates: $3.47 Saved

















I thought this app was going to be awesome. What better than scanning your Walmart receipt and getting a rebate if any other stores had a better price? However the item has to be the EXACT same. So if you buy a 20oz box of cereal for $3 and Target has 24oz for $2.50, they are not going to give you a rebate because its not the same item. Also if you buy Walmart brand, obviously no one else has that brand, so there is no price match.

Krazy Coupon Lady

















This site helped me get started and some one else does the work to show you sales, coupons, and rebates that are stackable at the time. When I first started I used this site a lot but then I started learning how to find the sales with out this app, but it is definitely a good way to get started.


Overall, this has become more of a hobby than saving money. I know that was probably a lot of information but if you had to choose one app to try out I would say Ibotta. Next, I would work on all the Target stuff, especially cartwheel. The hardest part is finding manufacturing coupons, which I am not the biggest fan of looking through those because it is the most tedious and takes up the most time. Honestly, I have caught myself scrolling through my coupon apps instead of scrolling through Facebook when ever I am sitting somewhere waiting. It is just a slight change in lifestyle.

Puzzle Master

The next thing on my 101 things to do is doing a puzzle. I have always loved doing puzzles. I had two 1,000 piece puzzles I loved to do as a kid: 101 Dalmatians and The Little Mermaid. I did them over and over again to the point where I knew where each piece was suppose to go. We had a dinning room table that we never really used where I would set up my puzzles, put on some music, and do my puzzle until bed time. 

A little over a year ago I started doing puzzles again. I went through a hard time where I failed at something I worked really hard on. I did an 1,000 piece puzzle in a day and a half to distract myself. It actually worked out pretty well and I started doing puzzles again for fun not just to cope. I bought a couple puzzles off amazon, however, with planning the wedding and working a full time job , I got busy and was not able to do them all. I added doing a puzzle to the list so I would be able to finish this puzzle I have been wanting to do for a while now.

Below is the last days work, when I was determined to finish.

 Jason helped a little bit. He found the last of the edges and is proud to have done the pink flowers on the bottom left. It took me about 3 solid days to finish this puzzle. I really enjoy doing puzzles but it is time consuming. I can not just see the puzzle sitting there undone and come back to it every once in a while. I need to sit down and do it whenever I am home so I neglect other things I should probably be doing instead. I haven't decided if I am going to glue it together or put it back in the box. For now it is something pretty to look at.