artofthecoupon.com

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I’m excited.  Every two weeks, we go to this Butcher in this little local market in the city.  We’ve developed a relationship with him because I buy a lot of my puppies meat from him, and we get all our ground beef from him ($1.29/lb for the good stuff, all the time!).  He called me and told me that his supplier sent him an extra box of beef rips and that he needs to get rid of them, so he’s selling them for .59 lb.  Beef is the item that we have the hardest time finding for our puppies, but it is very important as a part of their diet.  So, needless to say I am thrilled and planning on buying 40-60 pounds of it!

So, it pays to develop relationships with local stores, and to shop outside of your standard “Grocery Store” environment.  Not only is it cheaper on a regular basis, but it also allows you great little perks that come from actually getting to know your store owner.  How many people can say that Mr. Safeway has their interests at heart and would give them a call if a good deal came??  Just some food for thought…

I got together with some old school friends a week or so ago, and handed them all goody baskets filled with toiletries.  They were impressed with all the stuff I had gotten for free and asked some questions.  I answered, and they were interested so I told them I would send them weekly shopping lists for the national stores (Walgreen’s, CVS, Wal-Mart, Rite Aid). 

 Well, I got emails from two of them today when I hadn’t sent out the shopping list by this afternoon.  Apparently they were looking for it… they had done the deals last week and were hooked already.  I was so proud!  I immediately sent out the email (which I had been working on anyway).  And, one of my friends also sent as a mass email with a deal SHE had found!  Talk about the student learning quickly!!! 

 So, there is hope… maybe not everyone will become a mad, coupon-happy, binder toting toiletry collector.  But, if just a few people do than I will have made a difference.

 (BTW, I don’t post my shopping lists here because there are already so many good places to get this info on the Internet already… but if anyone is interested in me doing this, leave me a comment and I’ll put my lists up on Mondays)

The end of September brought with it a large unexpected purchase  So we go into October with a small credit card balance.  We’re going to be getting a big check next month for our first paycheck (overtime for the DF and more hours for me) so hopefully we’ll do better.  Of course, it seems like I say that every month  But, heres the roundup: (more…)

This past weekend, our freezer broke  For us, having a freezer is a necessity not a luxury.  We raw feed our puppies, and since they go through about 60 pounds of meat a month between the two of them, it is essential that we buy in bulk when meat is very cheap or that we have a place to store meat we got for free from hunter friends.  I also like to cook a bunch of meals at one time and freeze them.  So, it wasn’t a question of whether we would buy a new freezer or not, it was more a question of “who can we buy a freezer from tonight at 7 PM on a Saturday that will deliver it tomorrow before all 500 pounds of food in our existing warm-box goes bad.”   (more…)