Money - COUPONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like coupons.

Coupons are an excellent way to put back a little dough in your pockets. Sometimes I watch that extreme couponing show and I get a bit jealous. I'm in Canada and there isn't half the amount of coupons they get in the United States. But there are still good savings to be made.

So I started couponing seriously a couple of weeks ago. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work. My sister recently discovered the joy of using coupons as well, so we kind of share the work. We stay on the look out for good deals the other one might like, we run errands for each other when it's convenient, things like that. We also coupon for our mom who cannot be trusted to remember to use the coupons she has. Mom has a super good memory, but she hates shopping so much that the goal is always get in / get out in 3 minutes flat. Coupons don't have a place in that strategy.

Thankfully you can now find super great resources on the web to cut your work in half. There are Facebook pages and web sites dedicated to coupons that will keep you updated almost in real time of all the good deals you can make.

www.smartsource.ca (in Canada) and www.smartsource.com (in the US) always have super coupons to be printed.

http://extremecanadiancoupons.com/:  This site keeps us Canadian Coupon freaks updated on offers from all over the country. You can go back months in their archive and find coupons you have missed that are still valid. Not all of them are, so you have to be careful.

www.save.ca (CA) and www.save.com (US): They have coupons, and promo codes and offers.

http://www.savealoonie.com/: This one is strictly for us Canucks, it's a super great site with offers and coupons and stuffs.

There are probably plenty of other sites that I don't know about but you'll find them easily with a little Google search.

Don't forget about the newspaper inserts. There are a few different that come to you every month, you'll learn the rotation order pretty quickly.

Now that you have coupons, you have to find a way be efficient at using them . I'll show you my way, but there are plenty of other methods. You just have to find the one that works best for you.

Keeping your coupons:

Some people use big binders with pockets, but it's not for me. It's just not convenient enough. So I choose to use this instead:

Ok, the picture is not that obvious, but that's a mini photo-album. I like it because of the size, it fits my purse which means that I can have it with me all the time. Of course I don't have a pocket for every different coupons, that's why I have this:

That's my master list. I write in every coupon, the quantity I have, the amount of the coupon, the expiration date and the type of coupon (in store or mail in).

I update it as needed and keep a copy in my album.

It's not hard, but it's a little but labor intensive.

So you're probably going to ask if it's worth the work.

If you do it correctly it is. I'll give you just one example:

Last week a drugstore had Mr Clean for sale at 3 for 5$ (regular price 2.99$ each). That means 1.66$ per bottle.

I had a coupon for 2.50$ off on 2 bottles. That means the first 2 bottles cost me .41$ each.

I had another coupon for 1$ off on 1 bottle, so that 3rd bottle cost me .66$

That means that if I had paid the regular price those bottles would have cost me 10.31$ (with taxes)

If I had bought them with just the sale, I would have paid 5.74$ (taxes again)

But I only paid 2.25$ (I paid the total amount of the taxes of the sale price)

Now if that's not enough, I had another coupon for a free air freshener with the purchase of 3 Mr Clean. That thing retails for 5$ and I go it for nothing.

If that's not worth it for you, I sincerely don't know what you need.

Couponing is a good thing, but you have to do it responsibly. Don't just pile up stuff because you can get them for nothing or almost nothing.

If you have more than you know you can use, give it to family, friends or even charity. If you have an absolutely amazing deal you can't pass up on something you don't use yourself, charity is always a great option.

One of the things I like about couponing is knowing that I won't have to pay full price for something because it will already be in my stockpile when I need it. For example, as we speak I have 5 deodorant on hand that I only paid a grand total of 1.95$ for. Next time I need a new one I won't have to pay 4$ for one.

I call that peace of mind.

So I woke up one morning...

Have you ever felt like everything in your life is a mess. 

I have, actually I am feeling it right now. I don't want to sit there and wallow so I have decided to take the steps necessary to get out of my funk. 

 

So I got down to the easy part first. "snag identification" or identifying the little (and not so little ones) that are breaking down my spirit. 

So here goes nothing:

1- My weight. I don't like to admit it, but I am severely obese. I weight about 300 lbs for my 5'4" frame. Now, my rather stocky frames means that I will never be a tiny size 2 thing. No, I'm not making excuses for myself this has been confirmed my numerous doctors and personal trainers that have forbidden me to get below 200 lbs. I'll always be plus size and I can live with that but right now it's just a little too much. 

I should say that thought some of the extra weight is entirely my fault, some of it is related to anti-anxiety and anti-depressants I am taking. (I'll tell you a lot more about it later). After I started taking medication 5 years ago I gained about 100 pounds, I had already managed to lose a lot of that weight before. You can imagine how much of a drag this is. 

So now I have to loose about 100 pounds. 

2 - My social life, or lack thereof. God I feel pathetic. When I got really sick with depression and anxiety a few years ago I isolated myself. It wasn't a voluntary thing, but it did happen for a couple of reason. First of all, I eliminated all the negative influences in my life. Now those people weren't bad people, they just sucked all the energy right out of me. Second, I didn't really have the energy for social interaction.  Even after I got better and was able to work again it took a lot of energy to get through the day so friendly evenings were a bit too much. 

Now it's time to rebuild. 

3 - Money. Now I know I'm not the only one here. Most of us would prefer (or need really) to have a little more. I live alone on a 24 k gross salary. Between everything, there is not all that much left. But I have plans and projects that require funding. A new car (that is a need that is becoming more and more urgent as I have already spent close to 1000$ in repairs on my 13 year old car in the first 6 months of 2013), and traveling and the general concept of retirement one day... So of course I'm trying to find a new job, and I'm even working on starting my own business but I also have to find short term creative solutions to my problem. I already have a few tricks up my sleeve that I will be happy to share with you.

4 - My apartment is a freaking mess. I have OCD, problem is cleaning is not one of my compulsions. Now I don't mean that there is 1 foot of junk on the floor and everything but I don't feel organised, and not being organized means that things get messy fast. It's like my place is an extension of my brain that is all messy as well. Do you believe that. So as I clean up my life I hope to find a place for everything around me as well. 

I will try to post often as I make things happen in each of my categories. I would appreciate it if you shared your own stories and trick. 

See ya soon.