artofthecoupon.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve written a few posts that are designed to help you save money on groceries, so I thought I would provide a very brief and basic summary: (more…)

Lately, the deals at CVS haven’t been quite as good, so I have been expanding to Walgreens and Rite-Aid.  These stores, too, offer a wealth of great deals.  But, they can be confusing for newbies to the Drug Store game.  This confusion is compounded by the fact that there are different rules for Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS.  Here, I provide a guide to newbies who want to take advantage of the deals that Walgreens has to offer. (more…)

According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal “Stocking up on food may… may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. ”  Reading (and forwarding) this article provided me with a measure of vindication because some members of my family have implied that I am a bit on the crazy side after seeing my full pantry.  It also made me very glad that I have been building a stock pile of food for almost a year, so we not as impacted by the price of groceries as many others are in these tough economic times.  However, while the Wall Street Journal Article touched on the idea of buying in bulk, it fell short of explaining the how of buying and organizing your stock pile.  Here is a basic step-by-step introduction for Stockpiling.   (more…)

Extrabucks, the free “cash” you get for buying certain products at CVS, have a 1 month expiration date.  So, there are a few different ways people handle these.  Some people (no one reading frugal websites I hope!) forget about them and let them go to waste.  Others turn around and spend them on the first thing they need from the drugstore.  Still others will refuse to spend extracare bucks on anything that doesn’t net them more than they spend, so they end up with a glut of expiring extracare bucks and managing cards begins to feel more like a job than a fun and frugal activity.   (more…)

For those who aren’t familiar with the Extracare program, let me give you a brief summary of how CVS-ing turned into a verb, and why there are a select few of us who frequent the store 3, 4, 5, even upwards of 6 times a week. (more…)

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I feel a need to shop. The thrill of going out into the world, finding shiny new items and making them mine is just sometimes too much to tame. And I know I’m not alone here. I’m convinced that this Urge to Shop which many woman (and even some men) seem to possess stems from our natural hardwired tendency to hunt and gather. We no longer need to go and track food, or to forage for berries so we fulfill this same internal drive by heading to a strip mall and hunting down the latest and greatest in whatever items catch our fancy.
(more…)

Once in a while, usually near Christmas time, I’ll hear a terrible story on my local news. It usually begins the same way… there was a great sample sale, or a door buster, or a limited amount of X item sold at some great price. And it usually ends the same way too… video footage of a crazy old woman with wild eyes beating another with her purse as she desperately tries to grab a scarf; or fathers in the toy aisle each grabbing on side of a box and tugging like a couple of dogs who got ahold of a sock in their teeth.
(more…)

I started using coupons seriously in March of 2007, approximately 1 year and 4 months ago. I was inspired by an MSN money article called Secrets of Superstar Grocery Shoppers, and by reading about the great deals people were getting at CVS. On Sunday, I dutifully bought my paper, clipped my coupons, made my list, and headed out to CVS. Now, less than 2 years later, I buy 4 papers a weekend. I do at least 8 transactions at CVS a week, not to mention approximately 4 weekly trips to Wal-Mart and assorted other grocery and drug stores. I am what you might call a Coupon Addict.
(more…)