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But that's what's great about coupons: I discover things I've never heard of before and get to try them out for a little less money than what they'd normally cost.

Until I got laid off from my job, I never really paid much attention to coupons and I kind of regret it now (I found expired coupons for cat treats in my car's trunk, and that's stuff we're always buying now). But you have to develop a sort of "Coupon-Fu" for shopping with them, otherwise you won't really end up saving anything.

What I do is save just about any coupon I get that's for something we use regularly or semi-regularly, or something I might want to try. When it's time to shop, I look through all my coupons, and I take any that are for things we need right away, regardless of expiration date. Then I look at the expiration dates of the remaining coupons and determine if I want to buy any of the products that have coupons that are expiring soon.

If it's something we're running low on, I'll probably end up buying it, especially if I have no other coupons for the same or similar product. I noticed today we were down to 2 unopened bar soaps, and I had an expiring coupon for bar soap (same type we've been using), and I had no other bar soap coupons, so I went ahead and got 6 more. Now, we won't have to buy bar soap for a long time.

If it's something we're not running low on and takes us awhile to use up, I'll probably pass. I had an expiring coupon for dishwashing soap (not the kind you can use in a dishwasher), but I still have over half a bottle of that left and we don't use it that quickly since we mostly wash dishes in the dishwasher. By the time we run out, I'll likely have another coupon for it anyway.

I also seem to get a ridiculous amount of deodorant coupons, so I only bother using those when we actually run out and need more. It's nice, though, because despite what this video says, I think deodorant is too expensive without coupons. It costs anywhere from $3 to $5 for one stick, and that's pretty annoying. Didn't it used to only cost 99 cents?

I also sometimes dispose of a coupon if the product is too expensive even with its savings. I had a coupon for $1 off Atkins diet bars and thought maybe I'd try them...until I saw it was almost $10 for a box of five bars. WTF??

Anyway, today I had a bunch of coupons for cleaning products that were expiring, and I decided to use them all up (kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, wetnaps, and air freshener spray). I have some cleaning products left, but not that much of any of them (downstairs air freshener was running especially low because I have to use it anytime a kitty goes poo), and I know I'm going to need more both to clean this house before we leave it (I don't want to leave it filthy in some glimmer of hope that we could get at least part of our security deposit back) and in case the new house will need to be cleaned, which I imagine it will (even if it was left in good condition, dust and dirt can accumulate). And if I had waited until I was completely out of the cleaning stuff to buy it, the coupons would have been expired, and all that stuff would have added immensely to our bill. As it was today, even with all of that added on, our bill was about the same amount it usually is because of the coupon savings.

The great thing about the coupons this week is that I have a lot for cookout items. Something like a $1.00 off two half gallons of Turkey Hill Iced Tea, a free bottle of BBQ sauce if you buy a bag of Kingston charcoals (yeah, we did just get one bottle of BBQ sauce for 25 cents, but it doesn't hurt to get another one, especially if it's free), $2 off A1 Steak Sauce, and several coupons for snack items and salsa/picante sauce.

A lot of times, I never know what to get for a snack item and usually just end up getting the same thing (Tostitos or Doritos), but I have a coupon for these chips called "Riceworks" or something like that. I've never heard of them nor eaten them before, but we might as well give them a try.

Grocery Bill was about $83 this week. It was over $100 before the coupons took off almost $20 in savings. It seems like they double some coupons. I noticed on the receipt it will say "Vendor Coupon", and then underneath "EXTRA Coupon" with the same amount being taken off both times.

However, the store we went to was missing a couple of items (the Riceworks chips and the Turkey Hill Iced Tea), so I'll have to pick that up tomorrow at a different store (I need to go out again for a Sunday paper anyway, so that's no big deal.)

I was looking up information and videos about the "Coupon Mom" (a person who is famous for having a website that teaches you how to save hundreds of dollars on your grocery bill), and holy crap!! This is like "Underdog Syndrome" taken to a whole new epic low. There are people complaining that you shouldn't use coupons because, OMG!, the poor cashier has to spend all that time scanning them!

I should start a blog or website section called "Fuck You of the Week", and that's the first group of people I'd dedicate an entry to.

Whoah! When I put the item in my cart, I noticed my cart total was almost $60, and I thought that clicking the add button must have caused it to count twice for some reason. I scroll down to delete the extra litterbox from the cart and see there's actually a harmonica there.

I don't know how that got there, but don't ever put something in your shopping cart on Amazon if you don't intend to buy it. I've heard stories from people that sometimes (for whatever reason) Amazon might ship the items in your shopping cart to you and charge you for them, even if you didn't go through the checkout process.

The bill was over $80 today and the coupons took it down to about $70.

There was one $5 item I had a $4 coupon for. That was probably the best deal of the day.