In certain cases, I think that is true. For example, I could buy five pounds of white flour for about 5 times less than what I pay for almond flour. That is a cost that I am glad to endure, though, because almond flour is higher in protein and much more natural (and nutritional) than processed, refined white flour, which is stripped of nearly every ounce of nutritional value. However, when I consider snack foods, our natural or healthier snack foods are actually less expensive than what they sell in the stores. For instance, we use our food dehydrator to make our own fruit roll ups out of natural, no sugar added applesauce instead of buying sugar filled fruit chewy snacks (a cost of only a few cents per roll up, and added value because we aren't putting unhealthy foods into our kids bodies).
For us, though, our major cost savings come in what I call the "drugstore" items-- shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toilet paper-- those items that you need, but don't like to spend money on. I am hardly a "super couponer" as portrayed by the media. I haven't seen the super-couponing show on TLC that many people have talked about (we don't have cable-- trying to use our money wisely!), however, I get the impression that these people are way more extreme than I ever could be.
That being said, I do like to find some good deals! Today's big bargain for me is below--
What I have above is: 2 bottles of Head and Shoulders (15 oz), a large tube of Aquafresh Extreme Clean toothpaste, a 3 pack of Ivory Soap, a 3 pack of Venus razors and a 12 inch supreme Tombstone pizza.
The total cost of what I would have paid had I paid Wal-Mart's shelf prices for those items is right around $22. However, after price matching and couponing, I paid $7.39. I think I probably could have done a little better-- the razors weren't quite as low as I would have liked, but I need them, and they were better than paying $7 for the package. So, here's how my costs break down:
Head and Shoulders-- price match at $3.99/ bottle; had a buy one get one free coupon, so now it's 2 bottles for $3.99, and then I had a $2 off of 1 coupon, so it brought it down to 2 bottles for $1.99 (around $1 per bottle).
Toothpaste was a price match for $1.99 and I had a $1/1 coupon, so toothpaste: $0.99.
Three pack of Ivory soap was $0.97 shelf price at Wal Mart. I had a $1/1 coupon, so free, plus a three cent overage, which Wal-Mart policy states that they apply to your purchase. They actually paid me to buy this soap!
Three pack of razors were $6.44 price match, and I had a $2/1 coupon, which brought them down to $4.44 (higher than I would have liked, but I'll take it).
The tombstone pizza was $3.84 shelf price, and I had a free Tombstone pizza coupon from purchasing the travel connect four game (which I also had a coupon for and paid around $2 for that game before Easter). So, the pizza was free.
I did not figure out how to do all of this on my own! I have been following a few different coupon sites for a couple months and get updates from them about what great deals are where. I have, however, been price matching for a long time, so I am used to looking through ads to find the best price out there. The catch to super couponing is that you cannot be brand-loyal. For example, we prefer Crest toothpaste, but I can't get a large tube of Crest for $0.99 like I did with the Aquafresh.
If you are interested in learning how to do some of this, some sites to follow are:
Some coupon sites I use are:
Coupon Network (this has coupons, as well as tells you about what are called "catalina deals", where if you buy something, you will get a coupon from the register toward your next purchase).
And, since I also have a Swagbucks account, I get coupons from there as well (they are essentially the same as you would find on coupons.com, but the benefit is that after you redeem the ones from swagbucks, they will credit your swagbucks account so you can earn more points from them). If you are interested in swagbucks, see this post.
I hear people say all the time that if they had more time they would do this. I have to agree that this does take a lot of time, and I am willing to invest that time so I don't have to work full-time outside of our home. To me, being a wife and a stay at home mom is my full time job, and saving my family money is one part of that job. If I had a full-time outside the home job, I wouldn't be so worried about saving pennies (since I would be getting paid!), and probably wouldn't spend nearly as much time on it as I do.
Let me know if you have found any great deals or if you follow any great money-saving sites! I would love to add more to my resources!
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