2011 New Years Resolution

I am not one for making New Years resolutions, but this year I broke that and decided that I needed to make one and be sure to stick with it.
Economy is tight, jobs are hard to get and the one that you have, your lucky if you get to keep the hours you have. My husband and I both work and we both have gotten our hours cut and have learned to live with very little money coming in. How have we done that? Well, my resolution this year was to save more money and the way we are doing that is by using coupons and we switched to Magic Jack and got rid of our phone company.
Since we have been using coupons we have saved $200.00 in groceries so far and that is just for 3 weeks! I'm thrilled!
Many people have seen the show Extreme Couponing on TLC and I am one of those people that said "hey if they can do that so can I!"  So I decided to research this whole coupon thing and take advantage of all of the websites out there to help me learn just how to save my family more money in groceries and drug store items. I have learned alot and having the best time doing it.
I used to absolutely hate grocery shopping but couponing has changed that for me, I actually look forward to my grocery trips just to see what deals I can come home with for the littlest money possible. CVS, Walgreens and our local grocery store are the best I have found but I have yet to try Target and Walmart. Walmart does price matching, so I really think that I wold be able to get some great deals there. CVS and Walgreens both give out "bucks" to spend when you buy certain items and those "bucks" can be used on anything with your next shopping trip. My sister was telling me that my niece just bought a pack of diapers only using the "bucks" from CVS that she earned with no out of pocket expense!  Now tell me that is not exciting?
To be quite frank, when I firrt starting watch "Extreme couponing" I thought the people were insane to stockpile but when you think about it, if you find great deals, match them up with your coupons and stock up on certain items, those are things that do not need to be bought for awhile. Then when something happens, like a job loss or even just cut in hours, that is something you do not need to worry about spending your money on, you already have it! Its just like planning a fire escape ahead of time before it is even needed, because if you plan it when it happens, it maybe too late.
The way the economy is and the way our jobs are going, we need to take the time out to plan for the times when money is tight and the best way to do that is by using coupons.
You can print them right from your computer  from coupons.com and its like printing money, then you watch the local ads, see what coupons you have, match up with the ads and walla! see how much you can get for free or very little money.
For those of you that are interested in keeping track of how well I do in my coupon endeavor, go ahead and follow my blog. I will be posting how much I saved, what stores I went too and exactly how  I did it. Anybody that wants to give advice, I am more than willing to take it.
Keep in mind I am still learning how to maximize my savings with coupons but anybody that wants to learn with me, lets take the journey together and stretch our money as far as we can!!

Thanks for reading and lets save some money together!!
Money saving mom in 2011!