Blog Hops For The Week Of November 21, 2011

Another week of Blog Hops nicely organized into a NEW convenient post :) lol. Join us, make new friends, and find new blogs! This is my 70th week! Wow! Super long time!

Make sure you guys check out the "Quick Links" on the left sidebar for the Target Weekly Ad with coupon match-ups and coupon previews (updated every Wednesday). 

Don't forget to enter:

★Vamplets Plush Toy 11/29
★EatSmart Digital Luggage Scale 11/30

Blogger Spotlight - Tshanina

This week's Blogger Spotlight is Tshanina from Thrifty's Treasures. This week Tshanina talks about steps to take in order to help you Stretch Your Dollars! Check out her blog post below. Head on over to "Blogger Spotlight" for more info on being featured on Student Saving Bucks.

"Tshanina from Thrifty's Treasures - I started couponing in the fall of 2008. I'm now hooked and have made it a game to see how low our grocery bill can be each week.  Trust me, it's addictive."

Stretching Your Dollars...

Sometimes it's hard being thrifty isn't it? There have been many times when I've wanted to give up on this idea of paying off the house early. It's much easier to go on a shopping spree than it is to have the self-control to wait for those things we want. Of course, some of the things that I want are quite expensive (one being a remodeled kitchen). I know that not all of us have the time to coupon. You may have children and a full schedule, I get that. However, you can still be a good steward. Here are a few ideas that come to mind to help you stretch your dollar:

(1) Make a monthly shopping budget and stick with it. For you that might mean using the envelope system. It's proven that if you shop with cash that you'll spend less money. Place your grocery allowance in an envelope. Once the envelope is empty, you'll have to wait until you get paid again to go shopping. I can promise you that it will make you think about what you're getting.

(2) Refrain from going to the grocery store more than twice a week. I know people who go to the grocery store every day. They don't necessarily enjoy grocery shopping, they just don't plan ahead for what they're going to have for dinner. For you this may require making a weekly game plan of what you're going to have for dinner/meals. You may decide to have something different for one of your meals. If you don't have all of your ingredients, wait until next week to have that particular dish. I bet you'll enjoy it even more because you've been looking forward to it for so long.

(3) Shop the sale ads at your grocery store. As you know, many of the stores run great sales. Kroger has their mega events and 10/$10, and Publix has their buy one get one items. Even if you don't use coupons, you can get great prices and stock up from items that are on sale. The stores have these items at such a good price to get you in the door. So, when they're on special, grab a couple extra so that you don't have to get it at full price later.

These are just a few ways that you can be a good steward with your grocery budget. I challenge you to give this a try for six months. It will definitely change the way you think about groceries; it has for me. Once you know how much you can save, it makes it hard to go back to your old way of thinking. As I walk down the aisles of the grocery store and peer into other people's carts, I think of all the money they could be saving. Trust me, I was on the other side of the spectrum not long ago. I hope that this is an encouragement to you and not a discouragement. I'm not asking you to do something that I'm not willing to do myself.

This is great advice from a fellow couponer :) In my household we need to practice #2, refraining from going to the grocery store more than twice a week. To read the complete post by Tshanina click here. She also wrote a great post about making your money work for you, make sure you check that out too :)

Blogger Spotlight - Brandi

This week's Blogger Spotlight is Brandi from Savvy Student Shopper. This week Brandi talks about Coupon Trading and more! Check out her blog post and questions below. Head on over to "Blogger Spotlight" for more info on being featured on Student Saving Bucks.

"Hi, I’m Brandi! I am college student and a savvy shopper. I can’t get enough of a good deal, freebies, and coupons! Check out my website at Savvy Student Shopper for great deals, coupons and more."

Coupon Trading

I joined a coupon trading forum this summer out of curiosity and I could have never imagined it being as great as it is. I started posting early this Fall and soon met many friends to trade with. I am able to send people coupons they are asking for that I don't have a use for and they send me coupons I need back! It really has been helpful when I need multiples of the same coupon. I love being able to help people score great deals by sending them some coupons and in turn, they have enabled me to score amazing deals as well! It has become so habitual now that I know who needs certain coupons and set them aside when cutting my inserts. I send people coupons not just because they sent me an envelope, but because I know they have better use of them than I do. On the forum I use, coupon trading isn't a business, it's a place of help, support, and friendship. It turns trading into friends helping each other out. People post their deals and trips, ask questions, get advice, complain about cashiers, and simply chat on coupon trading forums. I have met some wonderful ladies on there and it is amazing how much we can all help each other out.

If you are hesitant about coupon trading, I say give it a try! You really don't know how helpful our fellow couponers are; they want you to get good deals! Picking the right forum is very important as well. Just sign up and and read some of their posts and see if you would like to join in! I've found such a supportive group of women and they love having a savvy student shopper around!

As a Freshman in college, is couponing, searching and getting deals time consuming for you?

I started super-couponing this summer when I had some free time on my hands. My mom is an avid coupon so I have been clipping and sorting coupons since I was very young, so it was something I was already familiar with. When I started college this year, it was a big struggle for me be a student and super-couponer. I leave all of my coupons at home for my mom to use during the week so the only time I get to pick out the coupons I need and sort them is when I come home every once in awhile. Luckily, I am able to come home at least every other week to go shopping and when I can't be home, my mom will do my deals for me. Couponing does take up a lot of my time, especially when I am home, but when I am at school, I don't have my coupons so I can only print coupons and plan trips. I check out deals every single day, but my studies do come first. Checking blogs and forums has been a great way to take a break from the college stress also.

To be a well-rounded coupon trader, is it essential to have a huge pile of coupon inserts?

Absolutely not. I get about 2-3 inserts a week (which is NOTHING for a super couponer). I am able to be a well-rounded coupon trader with only 2-3 inserts a week. I trade coupons that I won't use and also trade with people when they need tons of the same coupon for a hot deal. If I can send them 2-3 of the coupons they really need, they are very satisfied!

What is the best shopping trip you've had so far? How much did you save and spend?

This is an extremely difficult question! I do the drugstore deals, so every week I'm usually only paying tax and slightly more for a bunch of stuff. Doing drugstore deals can give you awesome results and they are always great trips. I have one trip to Dollar General that is always a favorite of mine. I purchased: 24 toothbrushes, 4 pack of Charmin Toilet Paper, 2 Hot Sauces, Olay Body Wash, Olay Lotion, and Gain dish detergent. My subtotal was $0!

I'll also admit that I love Target to death and love to plan big, cheap trips there. My last trip's subtotal was $1.62 for: 15 Beneful Dog Food, 3 bags of Friskies dry food, 2 packages of Goodlife cat food, 2 Sobe Life Waters, 3 Cottenelle Wipes, 3 Suave Shampoos, 3 packs of Up & Up liners, 2 small Tums, 9 packs of AA batteries, 1 pack of Energizer Rechargeable batteries, 1 Barilla pasta, 1 Pace salsa, 2 French's mustard, 1 Tide Stain Release, 7 travel size Tides, 1 NYC nail polish, and lastly, a frozen turkey! I saved $98 on that trip. There is a picture on my blog.

Has couponing helped you with college costs?

Couponing allows me to save money for my family even when I don't live there most of the time. I get tons of items for free or cheap, which is less money that my mom has to spend for things and more money for us to put towards college. By super-couponing, you can stock up on items when you can get them at a great price, this way, my family doesn't have to put out money for those items. Cutting our household expenses every month by couponing will hopefully make college easier to afford. Using coupons and doing deals even helped cut down the cost of our Christmas spending last year!

Another thing that couponing has allowed me to do was help out those who are in need. I am able to donate tons of items that I can get for free or cheap that my family doesn't need

All this is great advice from Brandi. For all of you looking for some good places to start coupon trading check out Totally Target Forum and Hot Coupon World.

Blogger Spotlight - Crystal

This week's Blogger Spotlight is Crystal from Surviving  a Teachers Salary. Head on over to "Blogger Spotlight" for more info on being featured on Student Saving Bucks.

My name is Crystal, and I host Surviving a Teachers Salary- a fun educational blog for parents & teachers! 

Ok, so I admit-I am was coupon obsessed for a while. Can you actually "coupon" too much? Yes (don't shoot me!), I think you can! Keep reading to hear my story!

After the birth of my second son we just couldn't pay all of our bills. Our insurance isn't the best and I had had a c-section. I had to start looking for a job away from home. That's when I learned how to coupon. Between couponing and watching another child during the day, that is the absolute only reason that I am able to stay home with my children. When I first learned how to coupon, I went nuts. How in the world had I not known how to do this before?! LOOK AT ALL THAT FREE STUFF just BEGGING me to take it!!! :) I hit up Walgreens, CVS, Target, & Publix every week like clockwork, but after a few months I was SO sick of drugstores and shopping- even if it was free! I felt like I was at the grocery & drugstores more than I was home! I had certainly learned how to stretch my budget very quickly, but I had also learned how to overspend when I shouldn't have- just because it was cheap!

One of my best shopping trips at Publix I spent $13.52 & saved $268.62. That's a 95% savings on my grocery bill! (Although as you will notice this was definitely an 'extras' week!) Here is what I bought: ‎12 tubs of butter, 16 jars baby food, apples, bananas, milk, 2 Emory boards, envelope, 5 boxes sugar packets, 6 boxes gelatin, bread, oreos, formula, 24 pk water, 2 mega packs GoodNites (this by itself would have cost $30!!), 22 bags cat food (not all pictured), 4 tubs Huggies wipes, 4 boxes Kotex, chips, pretzels. And check out that receipt!!! I was SO proud of it! It was almost from ceiling to floor! My husband was so proud he actually hung it up at work in his teacher's lounge where I had offered a coupon class for the employees!

I would come home elated, and exhausted! I knew how much I spent at the grocery store every week, but when I started going to the drugstores especially because I was so busy squeezing in trips I wouldn't remember how much I spent where. So I decided to have a cash envelope in my house for a few weeks and whenever that money was gone during the week it was gone. I started to realize very quickly that getting that great deal at Target, or at Walgreens/CVS added up! Putting $5 here to get that gift card deal, then rolling it later in the week with another new deal, and heading over to get my register rewards with a couple dollars out of pocket, but then paying the tax later to roll it over....it soon went from a great deal to money overspent that we didn't have! Soon I started buying fillers that weren't so cheap, and the tax for "free" products became $8 a week! (Our grocery budget for a while was $20 a week, so $8 was A LOT!) Most of the stuff I was buying I really didn't need- I just had the "freebie bug"! When I started realizing that I had a lot less money for groceries because I was rolling all these free or cheap products everywhere else, I had to take a step back and think about what I really needed. I had so much deodorant I was set for a couple years- and if I did happen to run out and not catch a sale, my world would not come crashing down because I had to buy a stick of deodorant! I started learning how to be more choosy. Just because it's free- I don't get it anymore. I have friends that coupon, that get so much free stuff they have to keep buying new deep freezers and shelving systems. All the money they saved they have bought 8 new bookshelves with! Does a small family REALLY need quite that much? Is it really saving money if you have to spend money to make your house more storage-friendly? (to a certain degree yes, but be careful of extremes!)

In fact, I hardly ever go anywhere other than my grocery store to be honest! Occasionally once or twice a year when my toothpaste/deodorant/shampoo stock pile runs low I start the rolling rewards madness, but I have saved a lot more money and enjoyed the time staying home with my kids more than getting up early every week to run out and get that great deal! (although I can't always pass up Black Fridays!) Now I'm certainly NOT saying don't grab a good deal- but take a step back and look at just how much you are really spending every week-both time, gas, & energy- to go out shopping. I have realized that the deals will always be there-some more than others. To me, it wasn't worth being exhausted just to go out and get the free stuff that was always free to couponers anyways. :)

So the next time you start feeling run down and stressed out because you can't find a coupon or that the store might be out of stock if you don't go right this second- step back and take a breather! Couponing is supposed to be fun and help you save money-not stress you out! :)

This is a great spotlight post by Crystal. She mentions the topic of overindulgent spending. I, myself, have been and still am guilty of this. After we lose our "newbie couponer" stash and become "regulars" we tend to try and out-do our last shopping trip. Sure, baby wipes are $0.25 a box, but I DON'T have kids, many deals come up that seem to good to pass up. However, when you take into consideration the tax, gas and effort you made just to get those cheap items, you spent more than you wanted. This is the reason why a lot of my shopping trips don't compare to the ones I had back in June/July when I was starting out.

What are your opinions on over-spending while couponing? Are you guilty too?

Blogger Spotlight - *Looking For Bloggers!*

Hey guys! I'm looking for a blogger to spotlight on Student Saving Bucks! I want to find someone who can do a guest blog to post on here and maybe answer a few questions. I want to feature someone familiar with the couponing world, especially to who are fairly-new and who is gradually learning the ropes to grab the best deals!

Looking For Bloggers...

★ who have had a huge-savings trips to whatever store (doesn't matter how long ago),

★ have advice for others, especially those starting out,

★ are willing to answers some questions and/or write a guest blog,

★ looking to be featured on Student Saving Bucks

So if any of you are interested and have further questions, email me or fill out my contact form. 

Thanks guys! Looking forward to doing this more often. I'd love to build great friendships with other bloggers who have much in common with me :) I don't really come across too many people who are around my age (early 20s), coupon-savvy, are college students and not married in the blogging world.