Coupon Crazy

Can I just tell y'all that I am SO excited?!?! I'll start at the very beginning-

My mom has a client and good friend who is a dedicated coupon shopper. She is always getting good deals. SOMEHOW, she got like a YEAR worth of free Folgers coffee and brings it to my mom weekly because she doesn't drink it. Um...hello!!! I want free coffee! So I decided that with summer quickly approaching and having MUCH more time on my hands, I would give this coupon thing a try. Why not right? So Saturday I sat on the couch, clipping and web surfing, for about an hour or two. I cut nearly every coupon that was in the Sunday paper from last week and searching for manufacturer coupons on products we needed. I don't have a good system in place yet so I just threw all the coupons I knew I was going to use this week in a little plastic baggie and skipped (literally because I was SO excited to save money!) to Kroger. The only things I did not have coupons for that I bought were ingredients for a dessert I made for a party last night, bread, meat, and veggies. Everything else I bought because I had a coupon. I will say it took a little extra time looking for EXACTLY the right brand, product, etc. but it was ultimately worth it. When I finally got up to the register, the lady rang me up and scanned my 50 gazillion coupons, I was practically jumping up and down. I watched my total go from $203.11 to $156.89!! I saved $46.22. Here's how the break down went-$24.89 on manufacturer's coupons, $4.10 on bonus coupon savings (Kroger matches coupons under $.50), and $17.23 from my Kroger card which equals $46.22. It was TOTALLY worth looking like a 90 year old lady rummaging through coupons down every aisle :)

Just to warn you, when you use 25 coupons in one trip, your receipt will look a little like this

I also just want to state that I searched my entire keyboard for a "cents" key (when I wrote $.50) and just realized that it doesn't exist. Is it that way on all computers? What's up with that? I am using our little laptop so maybe it's on bigger, better computers? Just thought that was pretty weird....