Budget Freak

After talking about the most awesome cell phone deal last week, it’s gotten a little better. I read over at My Money Blog that you can get another $50 off coupon applied to your bill. I wrote up my email just like Jonathan did, asked them to apply the ‘SAVE50′ coupon, and sure enough, got the same response, that the customer service agent would be “happy to assist me” with my credit. A two minute email saved me another $50.

I just got back from grocery shopping. I just realized it had been over a month since my last major shopping trip (I made two small trips in between). It would be great if I could keep up this once a month grocery shopping trend. One trip to stock up for the month, then one or two quick trips during the month to pickup milk or break (the stuff that goes bad quickly), or if there are any amazing sales I can’t pass up. I think I’ll try and do that for now on.

There was some great sales on meat today, so I bought four pounds each of ground beef and chicken. I split up the packages into meal sized portions, clearly label the contents, put today’s date, and then put them in the freezer until they’re ready to be used.

Now I can stock up on a good deal, and I don’t have to worry about them going bad before I get a chance to use them.

My favorite part of the shopping trip is waiting for the checker to ring up all my items before handing over my club card and coupons. Today, before discounts, the total was $201.80. Once she scanned my club card, it went down to $167.12, and then after coupons, I saved another $21.60. Total bill for today’s groceries was $144.62. That’s a little high, but I really stocked up. I’ll probably only have to take one more shopping trip for the rest of the month, and spend no more than $30. Hooray coupons!

On Thursday’s newspaper, there were coupons for Chevy’s Restaurant: buy one entree, get one for $3.99. My girlfriend and I went there last night to take advantage of the offer. I always feel a little weird using coupons at a restaurant, or anywhere for that matter. I’m afraid we’ll get some strange looks or people will think we’re cheap, and I feel a little ashamed. Hopefully I’ll get over that someday. In the mean time, our total was only $21 and change last night, and with the coupon, we saved $7! It makes dining out a little more reasonable.

Just a quick coupon update for y’all. Had to buy some groceries for a special Valentine’s Dinner. It was just a quick trip to the store, so I could only use 2 coupons. Still, with Ralph’s double coupons, I saved $2, or about 5% off my total bill. Better than nothing I suppose.

Also, quick note about the dinner. I found a FANTASTIC website for recipes. Recipe Zaar has over 200,000 recipes all searchable and categorized. I ended up making a Spinach Artichoke Dip for an appetizer, and a Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta for the main course. Both were excellent.

Part of my new budget is to clip and use coupons. I got a weekend (Thur-Sun) subscription to the LA Times for $1.50/week for the first 6 months, and now every Sunday morning, I spend about an hour clipping and organizing my coupons. It’s been a month now, so how am I doing?
I’ve been shopping twice since I started. The first trip, after only one week of coupons, I saved $13. The second trip, three weeks later, I saved $24 using coupons. Not too shabby. For $6 in subscription fees, I saved $37 using coupons, for a net savings of $31/month. If nothing else, it’ll alleviate some of the pain of my bills. Still, it’s hard not to smile when you see this at the bottom of your receipt: