No Spend June and First Coupon Post

Hello! I hope that your holiday weekend went well and you are ready for the summer! My family is kicking off the summer in a different way than most, we are designating June a "No Spend Month." What that means is that other than bills (mortgage, utilities, and insurance) we are not going to be spending any money. We will set aside a small amount in cash for milk and produce. So this means I will be digging out all my cookbooks and cleaning out the pantry over the next month, we also will be doing projects around the house that do not require us to spend money, such as power washing the deck, cleaning out closets, and yard work. We are doing this for a few reasons

1. To save money! This will allow us to save a whole month of pay checks, that will help our savings out a lot.
2. We want to think more about what we are spending our money on. Why are we buying things? Because we need them or want them? Can we spend smarter?
3.  It’s a challenge! This will give us an opportunity to find free things to do and explore where we live looking through different lenses.
4. Clean out the pantry. Everyone has food in the pantry that you just don’t want to eat. If you can go look at a whole closet of food but say “I can’t find anything to make for dinner, let’s go out” you are at that point! This will force me to use all that food I bought but didn’t need or really want.

Because I will not be doing any shopping over the next month I am going to take advantage of the time I will have not shopping to do price comparing.

This leads me right into the first part of my couponing guide!

Know when to use your coupons. Just because you have a coupon does not mean you use it. Every product is on a 6ish week rotation. You need to know when the product you want to buy will be at its cheapest price and then you use your coupons.

This is probably the most time consuming part of the coupon process but I think that it is the most valuable. The way I figured out when products are at their lowest price was to write down the prices of the products that we use the most every week. I did this for six weeks so that I could track the trends. The first time I did this, I only tracked Kroger because that is where I did the most shopping. This time I will be doing it at Kroger and Meijer.

If you happen to shop at one or both of those places you are in luck because I will be posting my price guide each week! This will not be a complete list for your family, as I'm sure you buy different things then I do every week, but this will get you started. If you do not shop at those two stores here are some tips to get you started.

1. Go on a shopping trip but don’t buy anything! Take paper and write down the prices of everything that you would have bought. I have found that this is easier then making the list first from memory then going to the store to hunt out prices. If you make your list as you walk thought the store the items will be in the right order and you will be less likely to forget something.
2. Go home and then put that list in a spread sheet. This will help make the tracking easier. After your list is entered, you can just print it out each time you go to the store to add the next week's prices.
3. If you have older kids let them help find the prices - turn it into a scavenger hunt.
4. If you shop at a busy store, try to go at an off time for the first trip so you are not stopping in traffic to write notes. 
5. Use a clipboard; it will make writing the prices a lot easier!

This sound like a lot of work but it really goes quickly. It will take about an hour and a half to make your first list, and then after you know what you are looking for each week after that should only take about half an hour to walk around and find prices. You can look at the weekly advertisement for prices on meat and some other items but you will not be able to get prices for everything that way.

I will be posting my list on Friday; feel free to use it as a template if you would like! I know this sounds like a lot of work but it makes a huge difference in the money you save!