After watching extreme couponing, I have began reasarching the world of couponing. My favorite resource is Money Saving Mom. You subscribe and daily receive a newsletter detailing the best deals.Often specific savings are shown for a store and have clickable coupons allowing you to replicate the deal, sometimes for free or mere pennies. I wasn't able to take a screenshot but below is an example of what it looks like.
SUPER COUPONS
Breyers Ice Cream, Magnum Ice Cream Bars, Starbucks Ice Cream – $2.49 (Limit 10)
-Use $.75/1 Breyers Blasts printable coupon OR
-Use $1/1 Magnum printable coupon (or RP 6/26) OR
-Use $1.25/1 Starbucks Ice Cream printable coupon
Final Price = As low as $1.24
Red Baron Singles – $1.99 (Limit 10)
-Use $1/1 Red Baron coupon (SS 6/5)
Final Price = $.99
Tide Detergent – $5.99 (Limit 2)
-Use $1/2 Tide Detergent coupon (PG 7/3)
Final Price = $10.98 for 2 ($5.49 each)
Herbal Essences Haircare – $2.49 (Limit 4)
-Use $3/1 Styler WYB Herbal Essences coupon (PG 7/3)
Final Price = $2.49 for 2 ($1.25 each)
Ziploc Food Bags – $1.49 (Limit 2)
-Use $1/2 Ziploc printable coupon (Recyclebank)
Final Price = $1.98 for 2 ($.99 each)
Minute Maid Pomegranate Blueberry – $2.99 (Limit 2)
-Use $.75/1 Minute Maid printable coupon
Final Price = $2.24

On my shopping experience I choose to go to target for some household items. Target.com has printable coupons updated frequently. If you are lucky AND smart you will find manufacturer coupons for the same items that you can use with the target coupon. I also compare prices and quantities. Targets brand up and up has similar products to the name brands, often with the same ingredients, for significantly less.
I got all of these products on my shopping trip:

up and up cleaning wipes $3.99-$0.50 coupon=$3.49 

scrubbing bubbles on sale for $2.50

up and up brand swiffer wet jet refill pads 16 for $6.19

20 Method dish tabs $4.99-$1 coupon=$3.99

2 sour patch candies at $1.99 each-$1 coupon for 2=$2.98

2 packages Johnsonville hot dogs $2.54 each-$1 off=$4.08

3 vitamin waters $1 each - buy two get one free coupon =$2

up and up hand soap $0.89

Old spice deoderant ($4.49) (with trial size body wash) and body wash ($3.49)used buy one get one free coupon and $1 off=$3.29 for everything

Colgate Max $2.74-$1off (target coupon) and $1 off manufacturer=$0.74

Excedrin 20 count $4.24-$1 target coupon and $1 manufacturer=$2.24

2 boxes of kellog protein bars (6) $5.44 each (no deal here but I eat these every morning)

2 different sizes of heft one zip bags with $1 off each=$2 for both

Angel soft toilet paper 12 pk $5.99 (no coupons)

Ball point pens$1.44-$1 taget coupon=$0.44 for two pens

up and up printer paper $3.14

Total $52.25

Total savings 19.49

Its nothing amazing like on extreme couponing but overall I saved $20 on things I needed. If I can continue shopping this way I will save a lot of money over time! Do you coupon? 

Create your own mercury glass and how to get things for cheap!

The Nate Berkus Show is amazing! I had always heard it was a great show but was never home when it was on. Today I got to watch it and let me tell you I loved it. There were two segments I absolutely loved and thought I must share with you.

1. Creating your own mercury glass and mirrors
This how to is starring Erica from http://psimadethis.com/ (love her blog!)



I am definitely going to be trying this out soon! 

2. Ways to drastically cut your bill at the grocery store










Have fun saving money!
PS If you are reading this through a reader open it up so you can see the videos :)

   

The Joy of Budgeting

I intend to move out very soon, living at home after college has lasted a little two long (about a year and a half).In order to do this I really need to start managing my money better. Currently I do not have a lot of bills, but I have realized I spend a lot of money without even realizing it. I tried to get mint.com to work and had so many problems with it and they would not help fix it (many people were having the same problems). Then I tried using Quicken and had issues. So I kept putting off the budgeting. Finally I decided I was just going to start tracking it in an excel document. There are quite a few pre-made budgeting spreadsheets available on Microsoft. In the end I decided to take the ideas from several templates and create my own.  I made individual pages for 

• Income
• Food/drinks
• Gas
• Cell
• Car insurance
• Student loan
• Clothes
• Household items
• Entertainment and fun
• Health
• Credit Card
• Gifts

The last one is for everything. Once I have a month done I will add each category and the total amount spent into this everything list so I can see how much I am actually spending on each of these things.

Here is an image of one page of my excel sheet with all the pages below.

At this point I have almost made it a month tracking my expenses. I feel more in control by being able to actually see and analyze the expenses. I can easily go on to my banks website and see all my expenses ( I pretty much only use my debit card). However, oftentimes I don't bother looking at it and many times you don't know what the expenses were for. I have actually been keeping all my receipts and try to enter them into my spreadsheet at least every few days. I cross check these with my online account data. It has made me a lot more conscious of my spending habits and makes me not want to spend money on things I don't need.There are several things I have been focusing on to limit my spending:

• Cutting back on my coffee fix - this has not been successful yet :(
• Limiting eating out and getting $8 drinks! What a waste!
• Avoiding stores even Target- those are the worst for me I always spend money on things I really don't need but think I do

I am actually + $30 in my clothes budget. How you say? Well I had to return two items from Christmas and I was still able to buy a few things! Pretty cool. Even though mom says I need to use it on things actually for me :)

I really enjoyed this article about a woman with a shopping problem. Our society has become so obsessed with the value of objects. The car you drive, the phone you text on, the outfit, shoes and accessories you strut yourself in, the place you live and what you have. Do any of these things really mean anything? Do they bring any value to our life? Everyone needs clothes and a phone and a place to live but we need to learn to be less focused on these things as they should not be a value of who you are as a person.

What do you guys do to limit/control your spending?