Less than Extreme Couponing

First let me start out with commenting how blessed I am to have been able to find a good paying job right out of college. With that said, and that fact that I like it when I get to keep my money and spend it on things I choose, or even save it for whatever endeavor I'd like to use it on in the future, I hate spending money on boring stuff. For example, Amanda and I were still short one thermometer. Not the most glorious purchase, but in our opinions something that we'd have to bite the bullet on. At my parents house, they have one of those cool thermometers that you just swipe across the forehead and it tells you if you have a fever or not, so naturally I wanted one too. So far this seems like I'm rambling which i partially am, but I wanted to have a good introduction to the main topic of this post, which is saving your money so that you can buy fun things, or save it for the future. Either one to me is more enjoyable than buying thermometers. Now since we have established I like to save my money, Amanda and I have decided that we really don't need cable tv. With Netflix and Hulu, we can pay a lot less and still get some entertainment. The reason I bring this up is because I was surprised about the show Extreme Couponing. The fact that they managed to turn coupon into a verb was reason enough to get me interested. Somehow i came across a sample of the show, and became enamored with the couponing. I know that when they say extreme, they definitely mean it, but I felt that with some patience and some use of Google, that I myself would be able to save some scratch.

So here are what Amanda and I did to save a little money, get some freebies, and actually have a little fun while shopping this past Sunday. Most of these deals are still available until this next Saturday, so if you need any of the items we needed, you could save some money like we did.

Walgreen's: Walgreen's has these promos called Register Rewards. Basically when you buy a certain product they give you register rewards which is basically Walgreen's money good on your next purchase. The catch is, say you get register rewards for three or four products, they'll print you that many rewards. When you make your next purchase, you are not able to use four rewards on one thing, you need to buy as many products as you have reward printouts. So you can do like we did and find cheap fillers to make up the item requirements.

What we got were,
Omega Smart DHA Kids vitamins, $10 with 10 register rewards = Free
Tom's Deodorant, $4 with 3 register rewards = $1
Tylenol Precise Pain (basically heating pads or Icy Hot) $6 - $3 coupon found online, and 3 register rewards = Free
Syntha 6 energy bar, $1.89 with 2 register rewards = More than Free!!
Colgate toothpaste/Toothbrush, 2 for $6, with 2 $0.75 coupons and 4 register rewards= $0.50
Palmolive dish soap, $0.99 with Walgreen's coupon, and $0.50 off one with manufacture coupons= $0.50
We had a grand total of $22 in register rewards. Right after we got the rewards, we continued to shop and look for the thermometer. Luckily it was usually $60 but on sale for $40, and we used the register rewards to only pay $18. I'm smart enough to know that we really didn't get it for $18. We essentially paid the full $40, but we got the rest of our stuff for $2. Not too shabby, we got something we needed, and were able to get other essentials for a relatively cheap price.

Target: While at Target, we bought 3 1.5L bottle of Listerine for $5.74 each, but the good thing was that if you purchased three, you would get a $5 target gift card. We also had manufacturer coupons, 3 $1, and one Target one for $0.75. So basically we got three big bottles of Listerine mouth washes for $2.82 each. We also were able to get some face wash as well. We had 2 Clean and Clear coupons for $2 off one product, and one Target coupon for $.75 off one. So we purchased two face washes for $5 each, used $4.75 in coupons so basically 2 face washes for the price of one.

Fred Meyers: Fred Meyers was our last stop. While at Fred's we had 2 $1 off three Trident gum packs, and conveniently FM's had a store coupon for Trident gum $0.69 each with a max of 6. That worked out for us, so we got 6 packs of gum for $0.36 each. We were also able to get 2 Odwalla drinks at a nice discount. FM's had select Odwallas on sale buy one get one free, and we also had 2 manufacturer coupons for $0.55 of one. So we got 2 Odwallas for $1.55. Luckily for us they had Superfood in the sale, which is the kind both Amanda and I like.
obviously
The way we get our manufacturer coupons is that we have two Sunday only subscriptions (purchased at a discount of course, - Thanks Groupon, and Thanks Dad), one for the Seattle Times and one for the Everett Herald. We also go to some of the manufacturer's website and usually a lot of companies have coupons right on their websites. We are not extreme couponing, but it is nice to save a little money for other uses. Speaking of other uses-- paying of Student Loan Debt!! One of my next few posts will be the method I am using to pay of my student loan debt, which I believe to be the most practical way to pay the least amount of interest. I'll also review other theories  that come in to play when paying debt. Thanks for reading-- J

Out with the Old, In with the New...Years that is!

It's pretty amazing that another year has passed. Well, amazing on how you look at it. From the big picture, it really isn't too incredible. The only thing that was accomplished was that we, the inhabitants of planet earth, took a ride around the sun. Once. Not to impressive, but generally we do not look at things, especially our lives, in such an enormous perspective. When I take time myself to look back at what I accomplished in the past 365 days, it's pretty impressive to me, but that's because my accomplishments before have not been of the greatest magnitude. I will however remember 2011 as a year of new beginnings. But you know what they say, every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end. Which I know is a lyrics from Closing Time, but it felt appropriate to swipe that from them. I finally graduated college. It wasn't exactly a linear route from straight from high school, but really, who gradates in 4 years now? I'm not trying to put you down if you did do that, I actually applaud you for staying on track. Graduating college was pretty big, but lets face it, in today's world, a bachelors is becoming the new high school degree. So it's an accomplishment I can now check off the to do list, but it really doesn't set me that far apart from my peers. A bigger accomplishment in my mind was finding a job that actually required my degree. This was exciting, and it made me feel that the past 5 years of sitting in classes and paying my instructors and institutions $36,000 I didn't have actually worth my while. Of all my 2011 accomplishments, I'd really have to say that jobs come and go, and you can go get your education when it fits in your life, but when you find that special person that you know you want to spend the rest of your life with the, and hopefully the feeling is mutual, that marrying them is without a doubt the biggest accomplishment of the year. 2011 was a year of endings, I ended my formal education... for now, was fortunate to finish being on the job search before it even started, and ended my life as a single man. It's my hope that when I look at 2011, that I'll be proud of my accomplishments, but realize that they are only the first steps to my ascension to greatness that I hope I am capable of. Only time will tell. Oh yeah, and remember the next time you're buying an airline ticket, remember to tell them "If it's not Boeing, I'm not Going!"