my obsession

Some people are obsessed with various things such as shopping, cleaning (I am a "smidge" obsessed about this), eating, exercising, working, sleeping, facebooking, football season, tv, etc.  I think you get the idea.  The point is that people are obsessed with many things ranging in different categories.  My latest obsession is saving money....otherwise known as couponing.

I might think about saving money at least several hours or more in a single day.  It gets REALLY bad when it is time for my weekly grocery list.  I spend about 2 or more hours just making my grocery list for the week, which doesn't seem that bad when I am saving more than I spend.  I have tried to quickly go through the list without obsessing over every single dollar that might/could be saved.  It doesn't work.  I have to go through my list of known websites.

Here is my routine for each week's grocery list (in a brief nutshell):
-I start by looking through the Publix's ad to see exactly what is on sale and what we need.  I try to think about coupons that I already have cut and filed in my coupon binder.
-Next I got to I Heart Publix and Southern Savers to look at the weekly Publix ad with coupon match-ups.  They are both really good websites tell you item by item what coupons to use for each.  Some coupons can be printed from another website!  AWESOME!
-Keep in mind I am making my list and printing/searching for coupons from my binder as I am on each website.
-The next websites I go to really "seal the deal" as far as couponing goes.  Coupons.com, Money Saving Mom, and Target (store coupons) are all great places to find additional coupons for your weekly list!  And another thing:  Money Saving Mom is great about listing free samples of products that can be mailed right to your door!  I get roughly 3 samples (or more) each week on various items:  shampoo, conditioner, hair styling products, cereal, Hamburger Helper, toilet paper, deodorant, granola bars, feminine products, lotion, shaving cream, laundry detergent, just to name a few.
-And when making the grocery list I can't forget that Publix doubles coupons (up to 50 cents if in AL) and take other store coupons including $X off a $XX purchase.  Even more savings! 

Now you can see where I come from every week in making my grocery list.  It takes time, but time is money in trying to save via couponing.  For example, this past Sunday we spent $55.33 and saved $97 (savings of 63%)!  I am not going to list every single item, but we got a lot of stuff including popcorn, a frozen CPK pizza, cheesecake, produce, fish fillets, bread, 2 bottles of Complete contact cleaner, TP, shampoo, shaving gel, sandwich meat, and 6 bags of Halloween candy.

Speaking of Halloween candy, it has been my goal to not spend a dime for any candy this year.  Considering Publix has had the good candy (Nestle's Crunch, Reeses, Hershey's Kisses, and Yorks) BOGO, it has been hard to stick to my goal.  So far we have 9 total bags of candy (no small bags, but decent sized bags) and have spent less than $8 total.  Not too shabby; less than $1 a bag.  You can't even that good of candy at the Dollar Store for that price!