If your household is like mine, you probably run to the store for milk and bread at least once a week. I know dairy laws differ state to state but I always wondered why there were no coupons for milk since it's something almost every household buys in multiple quantities. Maybe I'm just behind the coupon times, but there are coupons for milk! I found this out during an event Real California Milk held last year.

Example of Real California Dairy coupon

On the Real California Milk site, you can print coupons for milk brands that have the Real California Milk seal. This comes in handy when the store brand has the seal since most store brands are almost always cheaper than name brands. I see this at WalMart and Sprouts Marketplace.

WalMart brand milk carries the Real California Milk seal

Using a coupon, this half gallon goes down to $1.33. The really cool thing is, because the coupon is offered as a PDF, you can download it and print as many as you like* (just be aware of the expiration dates). I have several of these in my coupon binder at all times. It's nice to be able to save on a fridge staple!

What other staple items do you always try to have

 coupons on hand for?

*As with all coupons, read the fine print and make sure the coupon is valid in your area. Only use coupons from trusted sources. Do not abuse, alter or use coupons fraudulently!

Slashing Our Grocery Budget | Frugal Friday

My husband has given me a challenge: slash our monthly grocery budget by $40-$50. We're behind in meeting our financial goals so it's crunch time. We're trimming wherever we can and grocery shopping is my domain. I'm definitely up for the challenge and I've been doing my research.

I'm ready to try meal planning, I've signed up for every grocery loyalty program for the stores I shop in, I've organized my Google Reader so that the frugal blogs I read most are at the top, we got rid of our ink sucking printer (more on that later) and my coupon binder is finally complete. The only thing that's going to suck is how much time I'll be spending in the stores.

I got a start on re-building our stockpile a few days ago. We needed cereal and the deal at Vons was great. But, with the way so many So Cal stores have changed their coupon policies, I can't walk in and use all the coupons I have in one transaction. In most stores, I can only use 4 at a time, only one will double and sometime there's a specific dollar amount I need to purchase. All the rules will mean more trips to the stores. Case in point, the cereal.

This is three trips to two different Vons stores* plus Target for the coffee creamer (the meat was a happy accident). The in store coupon only for the cereal only allowed me to buy 4 boxes at a time. Between the paper and e-coupons I had 10 to use. Fortunately, I live in an area where almost all the stores I shop in are close enough that I can combine errands.

But, I think that, in order to make the absolute most of my coupons, I'm going to have to commit to scheduling more trips to the stores. Which means staying organized and getting my hand on more coupons so I can take advantage of more deals. If I'm going to go to a store three times, I might as well get all of the deals**! It seems I'm closer to becoming an 'extreme' couponer than I thought.

So, let me ask you: how willing are you to run multiple errands to take advantage of a great grocery deal? What types of deals do you consider too good to pass up?

*Pictured: 16 boxes of cereal, six creamers and 6 packages of ground beef.
*I don't buy things we don't eat or don't have room for just because they're on sale. You will not find pallets of soda in my garage.

Extreme Couponing Requires Extreme Organization: The Search for a Coupon Binder

I heard a lot of buzz about the TLC show Extreme Couponing before it aired last night. I started following the Twitter chatter when the east coast feed was on. It seemed people had mixed reactions about how the show portrayed people who take 'extreme' measures to save money. Watch the teaser clip aired on ABC to see how TLC defined extreme. So much of TLC's programming is designed to be attention getting so I took the show with a grain of a salt but here's my quick two cents on the show:

*Some of the people featured have hoarding issues. Period.

*Junk is still junk no matter how good the deal was (who needs 150 Butterfingers?!).

*Saving money is important but it shouldn't be your life. Blowing off the people in your life to clip coupons and shop is unhealthy.

*Having such a large stockpile you feel the need to insure it is also unhealthy (seriously, watch the clip) 

*If you have 30 year's worth of toiletries in your garage, please donate some to a shelter, food bank or to foster families. Look at it this way: you probably got it for free so with the tax write off it will be a money maker!
*Not being able to enjoy the rooms in your home because they are full of groceries is unhealthy.

*Spending 70 hours a week on something you are not earning a salary to do is silly.

*The 40 jars of spaghetti sauce you just had to have might have been someone other family's affordable dinner.

Despite TLC's ratings ploys I was still inspired. I thought I was doing a good job with our grocery budget but those people made me feel like a total amateur! I've had Tyler grab coupon inserts from  recycling bins, but only on our street. One woman on the show, Joyce, puts on her toning shoes and walks her neighborhood every week gathering unused inserts. I wonder if my other neighbors would label me crazy if I started doing the same.

This is just a small part of my stash

While I was watching, I Tweeted that I'm in search of a coupon binder. I use two accordion files now and it's not convenient anymore. A few of my followers chimed in that they were looking for a coupon system too so I went through the frugal blogs in my reader and pulled links for post where the authors have given detailed info on how they organize their coupons. Here's what I found:

Erin of 5 Dollar Dinners
Frugal Coupon Living
A Thrifty Mom
Couponing 101 (vlog)
Keeping the Kingdom First (vlog)
Life as Mom 
Money Saving Mom
Save at Home Mommy (Charlene sells a complete binder system on her site)
Savings Lifestyle
Stretching a Buck 

The binder method seems to be the most popular and I think it's the one I'll go with. I looked at some supplies during back to school and I should have pulled the trigger.

I'm spending too much time flipping through my coupons and I don't have a good system in place for my extra inserts. The last time I went shopping I saw laundry detergent on sale and remembered seeing a coupon in my inserts. I had pages spread out all over the store shelves while I was looking. It was messy (but I found two!).

One of my goals for 2011 is to do even better with cutting our grocery budget. Getting organized with my coupons is definitely a good first step.

Do you have a good system I can follow? Did you watch Extreme Couponing? What did you think?