I love a deal!

I have always been a coupon user, but the last few months I have been making a more pointed effort at using coupons and using them effectively. I have found a few blogs that have been helpful in matching store sales to the coupons available and I try to check in on them daily to see what they have found (Deal Detecting Diva and Penny Pinchin Mom are the ones I use the most.) I will say that it is very time consuming, and since I work full-time I have found that using these blogs to be most helpful in cutting out a lot of the research that is necessary.

As much as I love saving money on groceries and other necessities it is really fun to go out shopping and spend next to nothing on something for myself. JCPenney sent me 2 different "Save $10 on a $10 purchase" coupons over the last 2 weeks. So I made a couple of shopping trips and treated myself to a few goodies.

Shopping trip #1:
3 lace trimmed cami's - Regularly $18 each, on clearance for $3.57. I used my $10 coupon and paid, with tax, a total of 77 cents!! (The lady in line behind me was pretty impressed with the total, and I won't lie, I was pretty impressed too!)

Shopping trip #2:
Relic Handbag - Regularly $54, on clearance for $4.97, Liz Claborne Wallet - Regulary $36, on clearance for $4.97, and a reusable shoppping bag (since I had to make my total more than $10) $1.49. I used my $10 coupon and paid, with tax, a total of $1.55!! (Basically, I bought the reusable shopping bag and got the purse and wallet free!)