So your clipping your coupons, watching the sales, and  saving money on your grocery budget. Now What? This was the question I had to answer when I originally started noticing a difference in our grocery budget. We budget a certain amount of money for groceries every paycheck and relied on those groceries to last until the next paycheck. Before I started couponing, and watching sales there was rarely ever any money left over. Not only that, but I did not have a stocked pantry, and my refrigerator and freezer were always dangerously on the low side of things as far as groceries were concerned.

The first thing I did with the tiny bit of extra money I saved from couponing and watching sales was to start my stockpile. It was an extremely slow start. I have learned to be patient since we are a want it now society, so I resisted the urge to increase my stockpile with overpriced items that weren’t on sale. I vowed to be patient and wait for the sale to happen. As with any grocery sale cycle, you have to be patient, and you have to learn when an item has hit its rock bottom price as far as sales are concerned. I did begin to notice that my extra money was really coming in handy to purchase the items we would need at these rock bottom prices. My stockpile slowly began to grow.

Now I have a stockpile. What’s next? I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with my extra money after my stockpile began to grow. Mainly the extra money was just a waste, buying frivolous items at the grocery store that we rarely purchased, and that definitely weren’t on sale. After a few months of mindless spending with my extra money that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t started couponing, I started a new trend at our house. We purchased compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL’s) for the light fixtures in our house that would warrant having that type of bulb. At the time, I didn’t have a clear understanding about CFL’s and didn’t know that CFL’s don’t offer a lot of savings in fixtures that are turned off and on frequently. I know now more about light bulbs than I ever wanted to know. Oh the joys of saving money!

I have a stockpile, and I’m saving money on my electric bill by purchasing CFL’s. Now what? Here’s where things probably change for a lot of people. Everyone’s financial situation is different, and every family has different needs. This is where you will need to evaluate your spending and see where you need to make changes to see a difference. All of the changes I made were small and insignificant in the short run. It was hard to see the savings I would have in the long run by making those small changes. After all this time, nearly four years now, I really can see a difference in our quality of life. Make the little changes first, to see the big changes in the end. Like Dave Ramsey says, baby steps.

I would like to say that our life is more exciting than it is, but it’s just not most of the time. We’ve simplified what we do so much that it seems quite routine now to have a slow and uneventful day. I am not complaining about our simplicity, and I know that it does make life very boring for our teenagers, but I enjoy the simplicity, with as few bumps in the road as possible. Saturday we had already planned on attending the Lowe’s Kids Workshop to make the tic-tac-toe board. We spent a little time in the store making the project, and then browsed through the seeds that were available in the garden section to start thinking about what we would plant in our garden. Target was right across the road and we had convinced our daughters to make the trip to Lowe’s on the pretense that we would also make a stop at Target so that they could spend some of their Christmas money there.

It was nearing lunch time, and we were finished shopping at Target, so we drove back across the road to Chick-Fil-A. We had already planned on lunch at Chick-Fil-A since we had a couple of coupons to use, and made our purchase in two transactions so that we would be able to use both coupons. My husband and I shared a drink to continue keeping costs down as well. In addition to having my favorite fast food, our now four year old could take advantage of the playground so we stayed awhile so that he could play. I had two bags of items that needed to be donated so we drove those to our local thrift store as well. I searched through the thrift store to see if there was anything that I could absolutely not live without. I didn’t find a single thing, but I was fine leaving empty handed with my two bags dropped off.

We returned home and prepared lunch for Sunday. A simple lunch, beans. We cooked these on the stove top for most of the day so that they would be ready when returned home from church. I then spent some time on my health and beauty stockpile getting rid of some items that I had an excess of and knew that I would not use. I was able to find a grocery bag full of items that I knew my family wouldn’t use, but my extended family would probably be able to use. It really made me look back on my purchases for the previous year, and some from the year before that and see the things that I purchased for free or next to nothing, but I simply was not using. At Christmas I had even made baskets to give away to some of my family and still had an excess of items. More than anything this year, I am trying to simplify my purchases and only buy things that I know my family needs.