I have been couponing for about a month now and today I did my first BIG shop. I spent $256.28 and saved $233.25. I purchased 120 items including $20 in diapers, two DVD's (Kung Fu Panda and Tinkerbell), six units of laundry detergent, 15 cans of Progresso soup, 24 boxes of cold cereal (General Mills and Kellogg's), ten boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix, and a lot of other items. My total also includes our weekly staples (two gallons of milk, two gallons of OJ, two loaves of bread, fresh veggies, etc.). I am not nearly as coupon savvy as these two women but I am learning and am loving the thrill of saving major bucks while feeding my family good food and building my food storage. It took me two hours to prep for my shopping trip and an hour and a half at the grocery store. I filled two carts and was a little embarrassed but when I checked out the person behind me was amazed at my savings and complemented me on my coupon savviness.
So once I got home I had to figure out where to put all this stuff (my pantry is full because I have been stocking up with little shops for the past couple of weeks) and decided it was high time I organize the storage room. One of the things that I LOVE about my house is the amount of storage space we have. I have a huge storage room (the unfinished kind) and then a smaller room that is also designed for storage (tile and drywall in this one). I call both of them "the storage room" and it is really confusing when I am trying to tell someone where something is and can't distinguish between the two rooms. I tell you this because I am hoping you can educate me on the proper name for each of these rooms. Anyway, even though I have an amazing amount of storage space every nook and cranny is disorganized and overflowing with stuff (most of which needs to be sorted and probably tossed). So today I tackled the smaller of the two storage rooms and decided to make it our food storage (which it kind of already was) and holiday decor storage room (pending another name). I am still wondering if I made the right decision here with regard to what to put where. I felt like I should do research first to determine the best way to organize your storage room if you have more than one. And then I decided to just go for it and change it later if it doesn't work.
This is what the storage room looked like at 8:00pm tonight.
And this is what it looks like now.
Food storage on one side...
and holiday decor on the other side.
This is what happens when your storage space is so cluttered that you can't find anything and you are about to host a party so you send your husband to Costco to buy paper dinnerware and then you clean your storage space and discover you have two of everything.
I anchored screws to the wall and now have a handy place to hang my wreaths and Halloween witch when they aren't in use.Now I must confess that I took a lot of stuff out of this room that I didn't put back in because it didn't fit into one of my two categories (food storage or holiday decor) and it is now piled outside the door of the other storage room. It seems that in order to clean up one mess I have to create another.
12 comments:
I am in awe. Do you think you can teach classes on organization and using coupons? I have a lot to learn.
None the less very impressive and it took less than three hours. You are a maniac. I am excited for the coupon class this weekend. Now you just have to clean your other storage room and get all the stuff in the hall to fit in there. :)
Great job on the organization! It looks fabulous!
Great job on the coupons as well - it's always a 'high' to see how much you can save/spend. Keep it up, you'll be doing the same as us in no time at all!
Awesome, I am so jealous of all your storage space. Isn't it fun when it starts looking like a grocery store? And for so cheap too!
I am so curious how you saved all that money! Did you clip a bunch of coupons? I would love to learn how you saved that much, especially when you bought really good food.
I am so impressed with your organization! Every room in my house is on my "to organize" list and it seems so overwhelming!!
Beautiful!! I love the saving money it is so super fun!!! Good work.
You need to see the "Gardner Store" (aka Gil and Rhonda's food storage). It is immaculate. Good job on saving money like that! So impressive.
Thanks for the pictures, I bet you are feeling SO GOOD right now. Thanks to you I organized all of my kitchen cabinets today, went through my kids clothes bins, and did some food storage organization. It is like a foggy place in my brain has gone away now that its done. Coupons rock.....and now I will go start clipping.
Glad you liked the apron, it was my very first attempt so maybe I can send you an extra-cool one next year when I have a little more know-how. Go make some chocolate PB cookies or London broil steak with it on. (Those are the only two things I remember you making.......except for mac and cheese in college)
I am so excited to learn about saving money through clipping coupons. You are amazing and yes, you do sometimes have to make a mess to clean up another mess.
Holy moly. I am so impressed. I've just started looking into couponing and I've realized you have to be an idiot not to do it! Saving nearly $300! That's like 10 extra pedicures added to your lifetime. I've gotta get started with this.
Sadly, I blew all the savings on a top hat I've had my eye on...
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