The Value of Couponing: The Proof Is In My Pantry!

The practice of couponing is not a required skill set for prepping, but it is one that will help you stretch your budget dollar, and will fast track you on building your stockpile.

Here & there, as the opportunity arises, I will try to feature some examples of my own family's shopping savings in a blog post, but I really wanted to get a good, foundational post up for you, so you can fully see what is possible, and how it's possible, to quickly grow your stores. Something to show you The Value of Couponing.

So, to that end, I asked my dear friend, Counter Culture Mama, to consider writing a guest post for me on this topic. She's been doing this longer (and more consistently) than we have, so I thought she'd be the perfect person to write about this.

Without further ado, here is her post. Enjoy!

~ Mom, Prepared!


The Value of Couponing: The Proof Is In My Pantry!



Mom, Prepared is a big proponent of building your stockpile by using coupons. I must agree with her 100%, as I wouldn’t have much of a stockpile if I hadn’t finally started using coupons myself!

When my husband & I first set a goal of stockpiling & building our food storage, we used our warehouse membership & bought items in bulk. That works, but we were spending a lot, and not getting enough to truly build it up. I felt like we would never get a decent stockpile, or we’d go broke trying!

After I figured out couponing, we quickly had to buy additional shelving for our pantry just to accommodate the overflowing supply! And we had saved more than enough on the groceries to be able to buy the shelving! Now, that’s what I’m talking about!

Couponing can be such a useful tool in building your stockpile. The proof is in my pantry!

We grew our stockpile from this (Taken after 3 coupon shopping trips [I apologize for the poor quality, I had no idea at the time I would ever need the photo & used my husband’s phone to take it])…



…To this (Taken 5 months later)!




In 5 months. That alone is impressive, right? How about some numbers?!

We’ve bought $3738.00 worth of food over the last 5 months, but we’ve only spent $1304.00 on it, saving us a total of $2434.00. That’s 65% average savings over the last 5 months! The savings per week fluctuate. One trip we saved 76%, and a one was only 34%. It’s the average that’s important.

Interested in doing the same thing? There’s no need for me to explain how to coupon. There are incredibly helpful experts that have already done that! You just need to know where to look. I’d like to share a couple of tips & resources to help you get started!

First, read everything under the Learn To Coupon section  of Southern Savers. Even if you need to read them a few times, do not give up. I openly admit to having a severe mental block for the first few months I was learning. You’ll catch on quicker than I did, I’m sure of it. Second, listen to & watch the webinars at The Coupon Wizards. These really made all that information “click” in my brain, and then we were ready to go. It is worth your time to watch them all!

Here’s a tip that really helped me out: start buying the Sunday paper now. Always buy in even numbers (to get the most savings from BOGO sales). Start buying them now, even if you don’t understand “this coupon thing” yet. Also, always, always save the coupon inserts from the paper, even if you don’t know when you’ll use them. Buying the papers & saving them while I was learning allowed me to jump right in when it all clicked for me. During my November 19th shopping trip, I used coupons found in one of the August Sunday papers. Trust me, buy them now, even if you’re still just figuring this out.

I hope my experience inspires you! I encourage you to really give this a try. With a little investment of time & newspapers, you can save a bundle & have a stockpile that brings you peace of mind in uncertain times.

~ Counter Culture Mama

http://counterculturemama.blogspot.com/

 

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