I’m reorganizing my coupons this week so I thought it would be a good idea to show you my system. When friends would encourage me to use coupons, I’d grudgingly agree, buy a paper, go through and clip the 3 or 4 I thought I might use and head to the grocery store. Usually I’d be frustrated because either A) they wouldn’t have the brand that matched my coupon, or B) it was cheaper to buy something else even WITH my coupon. I was doing it ALL WRONG. 

First of all, I rarely buy what I NEED at that very moment. Think of it like this. I have 2 tubes of toothpaste on the shelf in my bathroom. I don’t NEED anymore, right this second. But last week, Target had an online coupon for 1.00 off Aquafresh. Publix, who matches competitors coupons, had Aquafresh on sale for 1.00. So I was able to purchase 10 boxes FREE. Did I need it just then, no. But now when I do, I’ll have a stockpile. If I waited until I needed it, I’d have paid much more. Make sense?

Okay, I buy at least 6 of the largest newspaper available to me – the AJC. I also have a Sunday subscription to my local paper, so every week begins with at least 7. I take out the inserts and discard the rest. YES, I recycle.

There are usually 2-3 inserts in my Sunday paper – Smartsource (SS) Redplum (RP) and P&G (PG). I put them in stacks, then choose one to begin. 

 

I’m starting with P&G. First I collate them. I take off all the covers and lay them inside each other. 

Once I’ve got all the like pages together, I staple them.

This may seem like a unnecessary step, but you will be glad later when you’re flipping through and trying to find your coupons in a hurry.

I do this with all of the pages, and all three inserts, making essentially three big books of coupons.

This whole process took me about 40 minutes, but I was stopping to take photos. I usually do it while sitting in front of the tv. Now that the books are done, it’s time to file them by date of issue. Some people just drop them into a manilla envelope with the date on the outside, you can put them anywhere you like. When I first started, I used pocket separaters and filed them in a ring binder. We quickly grew into FOUR books. It doesn’t take long to accumulate a ton. I have books from early March that still have unexpired coupons in them. 

Now I just use a file box. I put the date on a post-it, and separate the inserts from each other with the pocket separaters I had on hand. You can use regular file folders, or whatever floats your boat. But it’s important to separate them by DATE. 

The final step is checking coupon blogs. About twice a week I go to www.SouthernSavers.com or www.Dealseekingmom.com or any of the bazillion on the web and look for the new grocery store sales. They will post a list that says something like this –

SAMPLE -Publix, BOG1 (buy one, get one) Kelloggs Pop-Tarts for $2.60 Use $1/1 SS 4/15 for 30 cents each!

See, I can use the 1.00 off of 1 in the Smart Source 4/15 insert and because you can use one coupon per item, in this case 2, it makes it 2 dollars off. Now I just flip to 4/15 in my file box, find the Smartsource and I’m ready to go! TOO easy.

You can buy tons of stuff, very cheaply, and give what you don’t want to your local food pantry or homeless shelter.

One more interesting thing…OCCASIONALLY I do have to buy something that’s not on sale. So I go to www.thecouponmom.com and click the Search Coupon Database link. I can put in what I’m looking for, and it will tell me if there are any coupons available.

There are lots of freebies and good deals available, and you will be amazed how much you save. I will try to post deals when I see them here, but google around for your area. We don’t have Harris Teeter, but they sometimes TRIPLE coupons. I may consider moving.

Feel free to email me at zgirl@zolligirl.com with questions. Happy Shopping!

I went to my brother’s house last night for dinner. Normal people bring a side dish, maybe dessert, but I have a blog to write so I took my camera. I’ve been keeping it handy lately,  just in case someone does something interesting. For instance –

Okay, this didn’t actually happen LAST night, but you get the idea.

But this time, I was looking for something more. I was stalking a much more elusive animal…the “friend”. After months of living here, Ashleigh brought a FRIEND to have dinner with us. And it was a BOY.  At first I played it cool.

I took pictures of Ashleigh and Ellery –

I took pictures of Ashleigh and JD –

Is my husband cute or what???

I’ll just take a few casual pictures of the men.

Oh, were you eating? I’m sorry.

Hey, here’s an idea. You two stand together. Do you think I was obvious? I’m sure I wasn’t obvious.

I very discreetly found out a few things, like what brought him to Georgia, how many siblings he has, what he thought of his time in Iraq, where he goes to church, if he had any tattoos, you know…small talk.

Ashleigh SWEARS they’re just friends. Sigh. It’s probably true. After all, he’s cute, ex-military, Christian, nice, friendly and funny. You can’t have THAT around. Not when there’s all those cute Virginia boys to date, like THIS.

Did I mention he likes dogs? I may cry.

Me: You can see atoms, right?

JD: Right. Not with the naked eye, but if you use an electron microscope.

Me: Ohhh. They had one of those at Rachel’s school.

JD: Uh..that was an electric microscope dear.

Me: I’m guessing there’s a difference.

JD: About a million dollars worth.

A little over two months ago, Rachel decided to give herself a haircut. If you haven’t read the story, you can see it by clicking HERE. Right afterward, I took these pictures –

Today, I took a few more for comparison.

Before  and after..

She ALMOST has bangs. And she’s learned how to use mousse. I’m not sure how fast her hair is growing, but the photo’s prove one thing – she’s cute at any length.

We established earlier that when my mother was a child, she used to sit out in a field and play with onion blades. I’m not sure why, but I have a mental picture of a group of children driving an outcast to the edge of town with sticks and rocks.  When I was young, I had two choices when it came to playing – outside or inside. Usually I’d choose “outside” and then go play with my friends, Dirt Pile and Mr. Pebble, while my mother did who knows what. I’m guessing it involved chocolate and soap operas.

My daughter has a slightly different routine. Here’s a glimpse into her day – today.

6 a.m. MUST GET UP NOW and play with friend who spent the night. It cannot wait.

6:05  Wake mom and let her know we’re up and we’re going to play. She NEEDS to know.

8:00 Cousin Brooke arrives, more playing follows.

10:00 Go see  children’s production of The Princess and the Pea.

10:05 Try not to look overjoyed.

12:00 Swim with friends.

12:00 – 3:00 Eat and swim and eat and swim. Repeat.

3:30 – Horseback riding

4:30 Did I mention swimming?

Play exhaustively until dinner.

6:30 p.m. Dinner and a movie in bed.

MY day went something like this – drive, pick up towels, fix lunch, pick up towels, drive, pick up towels.

It is a sad, sad day when you realize you MAY not be smarter than your mother after all.

A New Design – Zolligirl is getting a new look. I’m this close to having a new design ready, but I’m being extra particular. My FAT partner is building it and I only get one shot. I have to get it right the first time, because she hates making changes. She’s not a fan. It was probably that photo of her in a dumpster that I posted.

Zolligirl has email! If you would like to contact me, send me photos, give me cooking tips, talk about my mother, etc. you can send it to zgirl@zolligirl.com. I’m official.

P90X Update- I’m on my 3rd week of the crazy, P90X, ninety day torture routine. I’ll post my results at the 30 day mark but for now I’ll just say that Tony Horton may not be the devil, but they run in the same circles. And Yoga is evil. It’s true.

Free Stuff – Participating AMF bowling alleys are letting kids under the age of fifteen bowl two free games per day. You need to register at kidsbowlfree.com

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays participating Regal cinemas are offering free kids movies. They start at 10 a.m. and run through the summer. You can check which movie is playing on their website. We  went to see Kit Kittredge today and it wasn’t bad. Of course we got there at 9:15, a full FORTY-FIVE minutes before it started, but the seats were great.

And Fulton county(GA)  residents can enjoy a free day at the zoo by checking out a free family pass at their Fulton County Public Library.

Web Traffic – I finally put code on Zolligirl to monitor the traffic. Last week I received an email with the information and it said THREE people had visited. In one week. I’m not going to lie, I was a little ill. I mean my OWN MOTHER swears she reads it every day, but OBVIOUSLY she’s  TOO BUSY.  So I was aggravated for about ten minutes until I realized those were stats for my BUSINESS website. Whew, what a RELIEF. Zolligirl had over ONE HUNDRED unique visitors. Who knew I had so many family members checking to see if I’d written a snarky post about them? Don’t worry…your time is coming!

Me: Does Daddy still have a boat?

Mother: No, why?

Me: Because it really bothers me that Rachel’s never been camping. When we were kids, we lived at the lake. I was skiing at her age!

Mother: You’re going to have to face it that her experiences will be different from yours. YOU never sat in a field and played with onion leaves like I did.

Me: Umm. Okay…..but I don’t think…

Mother: Well, we’re NOT buying a boat.