About Mom Is Crazy

Sunday, January 25, 2009

2009 Budget Goals

My Goal is $300 per month for everything I buy at retail. The only things I am not including in this are gas or one time big purchases. This will work out to $3600 for the year.

What is included?
Groceries, HBA, RX's, Paper/Plastic/Cleaning/Household needs, Cat items, toys, eating out. EVERYTHING at this point.

Why am I including things like toys, clothes etc?
Well I shop and buy these at huge discounts so I think it is fair to include it in the totals. I know others do not include these type of items but it is part of the reason why my monthly budget is a bit higher than some you may see. It is what works best for me. :) Also I am including RX's because typically I get a gift card for transferring it so, again, I think it is only fair to include that in my total spent.

DISCLAIMER: I reserve the right to adjust my budget as needed as this is a new venture for me and I might find that $300 per month is too much or too little for our family.

My Couponing Formula
There are a ton of blogs and websites out there that explain how to coupon and do it much better that I can so I am not going to do that on this blog.
But..Just an FYI for how I calculate savings and money spent.

1. I do not count gift cards received from RX transfers or special store promotions until I actually use them. I may list that I received one in the daily breakdown but do not count them towards savings or spent until they are used in store.

2. In the same way, I do not count ECB's or Register Rewards etc until they are acutally used in a transaction. I will list what I earned but do not count them in the money totals until they are used.

3. I list a few blogs and forums under my links section that will send you to sites that explain how all of this works and how to make the best deals!

Where do I get my Coupons?

I buy the Sunday Paper. The inserts are a huge part of my couponing.
I use the internet! Internet Printables (IP) are another huge resource.
That is basically it.
I do a bit of buying through Coupon Clippers.
I am interested in trying out the trading coupons thing this year as well. Never done it but I know others do and love it!

What it means!

Wondering what all those abbreviations mean?

First, you will see coupons value amounts listed as $$/number of items, as in $1/2 or .75/1. This just means dollar amount off number of items required to purchase to use the coupon as in $1.00 off 2 or .75 off 1.

FL= Food Lion
HT= Harris Teeter
LF= Lowes Foods
WAGS= Walgreens

BOGO= Buy One Get One free, most stores actually ring these up at 1/2 price each meaning you CAN buy just one and get the discounted price.

B2G3= Harris Teeter does these sales periodically. Buy 2 and Get 3 free. MUST buy the 2 at full price and the other 3 will ring up at 0.00. This means that you can now only use 2 coupons in these deals. (or one if it is a coupon for $$ off 2.

FLIP= Food Lion Internet Printable coupons. These are received in an email each Wednesday from Food Lion. You can sign up for this email at the Food Lion website. OR you can go to Southern Savers and she keeps an up to date listing of the current FLIPS available. You can only print from the link in the email ONCE but you CAN change the amount of copies to print from 1 to 100 (if you choose to) and that is how most of us get our multiple copies.

YMMV= Your Mileage May Vary, meaning that the deal/coupon is sometimes open to interpertation of the individual stores coupon policy or how they decide to implement it. For example, HT has the official policy of only one Q per pair of BOGO items even though the items ring at 1/2 price. Most stores will allow one Q per item but some stores/cashiers will not.

MM= Money Maker, meaning this deal/coupon deal will acutally make you money overall.

ONYO= Off Your Next Order, these are typically CAT coupons that print off dollar amounts that can be used on your next purchase at that store.

CAT= Catalina coupon. These are the little strips of coupons that print out in the small machines sitting beside the registers. Sometimes they are advertisements for upcoming deals or new products coming out. Sometimes they will print coupons off a specific item. Sometimes they will print out coupons that are for specific dollar amounts off of any purchase made at that store the next visit.

RR= Register Rewards. These are what Walgreens calls the CAT coupons that print out. The trick at Walgreens is that you can not use the same RR to buy the same products again and get another RR. As in, buy Crest Toothpaste and get $1 RR. You cannot turn around and use that $1 RR to buy another Crest Toothpaste and get another $1 RR. You CAN however use that $1 RR towards a different RR deal and get the RR printed for the second deal.

ECB= Extra Care Bucks. These are bascially CVS cash that expire one month from the print date and can be used towards any purchase in the store (some exclusions are listed on the ECB.) Unlike RR from Walgreens, you CAN use one ECB to immediately purchase the exact same item again and you will get another ECB UNTIL the limit has been reached for that particular deal. Limits are typically listed in the ad and sometimes on the shelf tag.

Rite Aid is currently the only drug store that still does an actual cash back rebate program. Go to their website for all of the details about it.

Hope this helps! Please let me know if you see any other ones I use that you are unsure of and I will add them to this list!