Remember my post about my new venture into coupons?  The one where I showed off my brand new coupon binder?   Well...yesterday, Jerry and I went on our first big coupon shopping trip.  I was a NERVOUS wreck.  I'm not sure what it is exactly that makes me the most nervous but I know there are a lot of contributing factors:

Now, none of the above things happened last night.  In fact, everyone that I encountered was SUPER nice.  The manager at Walgreens patiently rang my orders up 3 different ways until we found the way that would work how I had initially planned for it to work!

The wonderful cashier at Giant Eagle even gave me the cash for a coupon that the register wouldn't take because she saw the items on the coupon and that I bought enough of them for the coupon to work!

I even met someone else with a coupon binder when I was getting my free toothpaste - she was doing the same thing!  I also had a conversation with the lady behind me in line who told me she admired me for putting so much work into saving money for my family.  It was a huge confidence booster for me!  Plus, I had Jerry with me who kept telling me that I needed to quit apologizing to everyone because I wasn't doing anything wrong.  He was also happy with our final outcome - so it was an all around success!


Here's a breakdown of what we ended up doing last night:

Walgreen's - OOP (out of pocket) was $39.22
                    Total Savings was $68.16

We walked out of there with:

     3 packages of Pampers (31 count)
     2 Gillette Fusion Razors
     4 Gillette Body Washes
     4 Gillette Deodorants
     2 Kabang Candies (did you know that you can't use a RR with a MC?  Therefore a .59 piece of candy.)

We ended up saving about 64%.

Then we went to Giant Eagle...the list for what we bought is WAY too long but I can give you the OOP and total savings.

OOP was $168.24 (which is a little above average for a week of shopping for us - but we got SO much more this week!)

Total Savings was $94.67!

It's only about 36% but I'm still pretty excited about it!

Some of the highlights included free milk, free toothpaste and 6 bags of Sargento Shredded Cheese for a buck a piece, Purex (which is really one of the only kind of laundry soaps we can use with Danika's sensitive skin) for only $1.49 each!

I know that I'll get better.  I know that I will be able to avoid the deals for things we don't need once we get a little stock pile built up.  Right now, though, I'm just working on my confidence and learning all of those coupon policies!