Thursday, December 16, 2010

Savings Angel

Bad news...I haven't won a THING!  And something must have went wrong with my attempt to get free Shutterfly photos, because I never heard back from them on the deal...bummer.


Good news...Savings Angel is still working for me to save lots of money every week on my grocery bill.  Here's a sample of my Meijer receipts from November and December:


What do you think? I really like how Meijer breaks down the savings.  From what I can gather, Meijer promotions are the store coupons, the Meijer Meal Box coupons that I print on my own computer.  The non-coupon savings are from buying items on sale.  The coupon savings are from the manufacturers coupons that I print or buy in the Grand Rapids Press.  Anyway, you can see that on average, I save about 50% of my grocery bill by using coupons.  I could never, Never, NEVER!!! manage this on my own.  The farther down the mothering trail I blaze, the less my can remember.  So, I subscribe to the Savings Angel service.  I get many questions about this service and many think that it's just beyond them to subscribe and use coupons.  Let me explain the process.

Every Sunday morning, early (actually 5 am) my husband goes out and buys 3 GR press papers.  They offer the best coupons for West Michigan.  We're outside of delivery range, so it costs $6 to buy from the gas station.  I don't cut coupons.  I barely look at them.  I file the coupons as is in my coupon bin by date.  Early in the week, I go to the Savings Angel site to look at weekly sales.  I typically shop at Meijer and once in a while at Walgreens.  However the site also offers several other stores that are good nation wide--Target, Rite Aid, CVS, Walmart, and more.  Just imagine me shopping, especially in the winter, with a 5 yr old, 3 yr old, and 1 yr old, and you'll understand why I limit the number of stops I make.

On the site, I click on Meijer for West Michigan (sales change slightly from area to area), and I simply click on any item that I'd like to purchase.  The products are arranged by the best deal to the least, according to the sales flyer.  Next to each item, it tells me every coupon available for that item, including Meijer Mealbox, on line coupons, and newspaper coupons by date of release.  I just then go to my coupon file box, clip out only the ones I need.  On my Savings Angel grocery list that I'm making I get to click how many of each product that I want to buy, and it adds up my whole purchase as I go.  It's quite neat to see my savings add up.  I've been a member for 2 1/2 years, and I'm glad I joined when I did.  It costs $20 a month, which is a turn off to many, but as that breaks down to $5 a week, I more than save that in coupons.  If I add in my cost of coupons, it's $11 a week, which I always save more than that. I'm getting quality items, and I have bulging cupboards full of good food for my family.  In fact, I save enough that I can give back to those in need--buying low-cost items to share with family members, and using the extra money to give to missions and needy people around the world.

Please check out Savings Angel, and if you decide to join, use my referral number.  I know you'll instantly start saving money and it's worth the extra time--maybe 15 minutes to a half hour longer to plan your grocery trip.

2 comments:

Anna said...

Jen - Love this post! You describe how to use SavingsAngel VERY well!

Aemi Tucker said...

I did SavingsAngel for a while. Was able to stock up, save a bunch of money. It got hard for me, though. I'm not sure how you can prepare in 30 minutes using SA. I would spend a good 2-3 hours getting the lists together, finding the coupons. Then I would get upset because I realized that a good coupon expired that was never listed on SA, but would have been great to use. So I stopped SA and went back to clipping and organizing my coupons. I'm still saving a ton of money using coupons. I just look in the weekly mailers for the deals. And I save $20 a month. I'm in no way saying SA is bad- it's a fantastic program, if you have the time for it.

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I love Jesus with all my heart and a truth & Grace seeker. I married the love of my life in 2000 and I've been blessed with 5 lovies that I homeschool. Join me as I blog about my interests.

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