First forray into Extreme Couponing. How did I do?

[gabbyraja]

So, I'm trying to figure out how that junk works. I mean, the basics are 1. Wait until the item goes on its lowest sale price 2. get a really great coupon for it, or 3. get an ok coupon and use it at a store that doubles. Right? But I don't understand how some of those people can use more than one coupon or something in order to get all kinds of things for free...? All the coupons I ever get say only one coupon per item, no more than X per transaction, etc.

Anyway, I use tide powder for my cloth diapers. It's the only thing I've ever tried that keeps the stink away. I've tried everything else. So, I usually wait 'til it goes on sale and buy a few. So, this week it was going on sale at my usual grocery store for 6.99 (usually 9.99). So, since i don't get the paper or know of any other way to get the paper inserts, I bought 10 $2.00 coupon on ebay for $5.00. I also had 2 $1.00 coupons, and a store coupon that was: Save $1.00 off your next order where you spend $7.00 on laundry detergent. This seems like the best I could do, so I bought 11 of them (all they had at the store).

11*9.99 =             109.89

11*6.99 =               76.89

10*2.00 coupons    -20.00

2*1.00 coupons       -2.00

Total                       54.89 (before tax)

Total Saved             55.00

Bummer is, I felt pretty good about it when I got home, so I checked out couponmom.com to see if I might be able to get razors or toothbrushes, etc (I don't buy food that has coupons, or most OTC drugs, etc, so those were the only things I could think of) and they had the same detergent at Walgreens for 5.99. So, I could have saved another $10 there. Doh! Maybe I'll use my last couple coupons there. But hey, it was a start.

So, how do you think I did? 11 Tide will do 440 loads of laundry. We do about 2-3 loads/day, so that's 4-7 months worth of laundry detergent...

[gabbyraja]

Oops, forgot the cost of the coupons, so $50.00 saved.

[laura163]

I am not an expert but that sounds pretty good!  When I have watched the show, the stock piles usually are filled with cheaper laundry soap, not usually Tide. So maybe that is how they have so much.  Cheap stuff +on sale that week+ coupons = super low price.