Addicted To $aving!!

Confession:
I am a stay at home mom who feels like I don't contribute to my family financially! Jon makes the money. I spend it.

I have been feeling kind of bad about that lately. I really don't want to go to work, but I do want to feel like I am contributing. (It wouldn't make sense anyway since I have Luke still at home and would have to pay for daycare!) I know, as a stay at home mom, I am contributing to my family in other ways, but there's that whole money thing! Jon and I had discussed this and he came home from work really excited one day with a way for me to help out! He didn't ask me to get a job. He didn't ask me to not spend any money. He asked me to start using coupons. He had been listening to one of those women on the radio that uses coupons for grocery shopping. You know those ladies that say, "My total was $300 and then they scanned my coupons and I only paid $57!" Ok, I may be exaggerating a little bit, but you know what I'm talking about! This is definitely a way that I can help my family out financially! I am on a mission! I am learning a lot right now and I am really excited about it! A friend sent me a link to this blog that has been really helpful in knowing where to find coupons, how to organize coupons, how to get the biggest bang for your buck, etc. (I really love the webcasts! So helpful!) This whole "couponing" thing can be a little bit overwhelming, but I am going to learn! And I am going to save our family some money!!

I haven't built up a huge stash of coupons yet and haven't had one of those awesome shopping trips yet, but I am really excited about this one: I looked at the ad for one of our local grocery stores and saw that Kashi bars were on sale for 2/$4. We really like those, but they are so expensive! I thought the price was great!
After going through some coupons online I found this coupon. $1.50 off of two boxes! Awesome! That brought the price down to 2/$2.50! That's even more amazing! But wait, it gets even better!! Each box of bars had a $1 coupon on it! That means I got two boxes of Kashi bars for 50 cents!!
I forgot to mention that the regular price of these things was $3.89 each!! Insane!

I have also discovered restaurant coupons! There are coupons for everywhere!! I bought the Subway card above ($10 value) for $5!! Exciting!!! This weekend I used one of the Qdoba coupons above for a free entree with the purchase of a drink. Well, I got a drink, burrito and an order of chips and guacamole (which was just WAY too much food!) and it cost me about $4.50!

I love to eat out and feeding a family of five isn't cheap! If I can find great deals, I won't feel so bad going out!
I can't wait to build up a huge stash of coupons and get busy saving some money!!! If anything spectacular happens, I will be sure to let you know!

Here are some sites that have been helpful to me lately:
(Most of these are on Facebook too! If you are as addicted to Facebook as I am, it's a great way to know what each of these places has going on!)
The Coupon Project
redplum.com
Money Saving Mom
coupons.com
Coupon Cravings
Steals & Deals
Bargain Briana
Where do you find amazing deals? Please feel free to share!!