Frugal Dandies

Let me start of by saying I am  in no way am a pro at couponing, but I think of it like an adventure or a sport, and try to improve every time I go. I've had allot of friends ask how I get the deals I get so I thought I'd try to set down and take the time to explain.

Clothing
As for clothing there's really not allot of  money saving printable coupons etc.I'll give an example od my recent shopping trip for Reagan and explain how I did it. I went shopping in Chattanooga at Hamilton place and spent $166.49 and got  $483.14 worth of clothes. With that $166.49 I got 9 everyday outfits,2 bathing suits,6 pais of flipflops,3 Sunday dresses/1 shirt/2 skorts/ad two outfits for my neice. The trick is shop out of season as much as possible. I know you may say I'm not sure what size my child will be next winter etc. Guess if your child seems to grow allot go up a size or size and a half. My daughter doesnt seem to grow quickly so I go up a size every year but buy the same size for summer and winter. If your child can't wear everything you bought the season before sell it a a consignment sale.You get it so cheap shopping out of season you easily can resale it for the same price if not more. My rule of thumb is never spend more than 10.00 per outfit, no more than 15.00 for shoe, and no more than 10.00 on sunday clothes. I try to stay under 6.00 an outfit and most times do but  the 10.00 is my max I will spend. I always check the online the stores im going to visit for printable coupons and only look in the clearance section.


Food




Getting Coupons ready for shopping
There's no right or wrong way to organize your coupons as long as you can fid the coupon you need when you need it. Here's how  I do it. I have Two large three prong folders. The first one is full of clear protector sheets and I put the sunday coupon booklets in it( smartsource  P&G etc) I write the date of the sunday I got the coupons on the front of them and organize them by date.Placing each week in a different protector. The rule of thumb is buy 1 paper for every person in your household.I have three in mine but I usually just purchase a double paper .The Second folder is for all your printable and misc coupons. I fill that folder with clear collector card inserts.( got mine at staples) and you can organize them by categories (cleaning,drinks,etc) or by ABC whichever you  choose will be fine.The Beginning of every month the following websites loads new coupons. I suggest you check them at the beginning of the month ad print any coupons that look like anything you might use( they disapear quickly) If you print them and press the back button it should print anoter one. Mos coupon sites allow a max of two prints per computer. I print two from our computer than hook my laptop up to the printer and print two more :). Here's a few sites that you should check at the beginning of every month
Coupons.com
SmartSource
Redplum
coupon cabin
organic coupons
organic coupons 2


The following website has a database to search so before you go shopping go to this website and anything your going shopping for type the name in the database ( you search database by state) and this website will tell you if there is a coupon anywhere to match your item
coupon mom


Grocery stores rules
Publix
publix will double any coupon $.50 or under.
You can stack a publix coupon and a manufacturers coupon ( you can print publix coupons from the web or their saving booklets)
At my publix I can use a target coupon like and a manufacturers coupon because they consider them a competitor( ask the store manager of your publix who they consider competitors)
My publix even lets me stack a publix coupon a targt coupon and a manufactorers coupon
B1G1 deals  doesnt mean you have to buy two items you can bu one item and it rings up half off.
Always check there spinning racks as you go in the door if they have a coupon booklet grab atleast 2
Publix allows overage ..which means if you buy an item on sale for 1.50 and you have a manufacturers coupon for 1.00 off and a publix coupon for 1.00 of your saving 2.00 which is more than the items worth.They apply that extra  $.50 off to the total purchase making an item you dont have coupons for cheaper.( not many stores do this)

Kroger
I have to admit I don't really shop anywhere but publix but I really dont have a kroger near me
Kroger will double 3 coupons $.50 or less for every 10 you spend
Kroger tends not to take anyone elses coupons but there own
10 for 10 deals you can buy just one item and get it for a dollar

All other grocery stores you can look on the following website and she has a list of their store rules
Southern Savers

speaking of southern savers that is the website I use to prepare to go grocery shopping.This website has a link to about every store you can think of's weekly add ad matches up all the coupons to go along with the sells.The best part is its printable so your list with matching coupons is ready to go.

Here's a few other good  match up websites
Iheart publix
ihearttarget
they both post the adds extra early so you can get your coupons ready ahead of time

you may say it's going to take me forever to build up my stockpile of sunday papers. There are website that sale the sunday coupons. I suppest if your just starting by two of every weeks for the past month so if your starting today and its Feb 22 I say buy atleast back to jan 22nd and that should give you a good head start.
Heres the website where you can buy clipped coupons or whole coupon booklets
coupondede
there are others but shes the one I use .she has a 5.00 flat rate shipping for whole adds which is helpful.


The rule of thumb with grocerys is buy what you need not on sale.If its a good sale and you have coupons buy as many as possible.I have 8 bottles of dishwashing detergent I payed $.29 a piece for and  5 packets of dishwashing machine tablets I got for free setting in our hall closet. I also have free toothpaste,Excedrin,etc. You may think its obsessive but for the price an the fact you never know what tommorrow holds job wise its security .


I hope I haven't confused or overwhelmed you to much.Start small with small trips and small goals and work yourself up. Im a stay at home mom and my husbands a landscaper so with a tight budget its nice to have a closet full of clothes and fridge full of food. You can do it too!!

Last night i got the amazing oppurtunity to hear grace Taylor (uga gymdog) share her testimony and it spoke to me to see her using what God had given her to share her faith, so God layed it on my heart for me to share mine with whoever chooses to read this today.

I'll start at Birth  I was born without the ability to suck. For three days doctors tried night and day to get me to suck and nothing worked they were about to put a feeding tube in me when my daddy( a southern baptist preacher) hit the floor and started praying and we all know how powerful prayer is well now that i'm a parent I understand the prayer from a parent is a mighty mighty prayer, anyways back to my dad on his knees. The Lord layed it on his heart to go get a goat bottle ( i know crazy right those nipples are huge ) well he got the bottle and filled it with formula stuck it down my thoat till i gagged a little then i went to town on that baby!!! Skip forward a few years to age 5. I was swimming in our pool and  got this really wierd feeling and ended up throwing up over the side of the pool , little did we know that this incident was the beginning of a long nightmare. After that incident I started having this problem to where my salavatory glands would overact for an hour and at the end of the hour I would throw up. this happened every other hour. We traveled all over the u.s I was poked proded looked at like a lab rat, taken out of school( obviously) and  pretty much lived in my room with a nintendo and  puke pan) when i wasnt on 1 and two week hiatuses in hospitals. By age 8 I barely weighed thirty pounds and was having to take trips to the hospital to get iv's of pure fat lipids . We made one last stich effort to get into a clinic to see a doctor in atlanta we'd heard great storied about. The only problem was he was strictly an adult doctor and had never made any acceptions to take kids, that was untill me, It turned out he was a christian and he said God told him to take my case. We tried a few meds with no result then he put me on a med called dialantin( i think i spelled that right) and it helped but didnt fix the problem so he decided to add tegretol and  it worked!!!! God had brought me through yet another hurdle in my young life. A couple weeks after we had found the cure!! I was laying in my bed next to my parents bed( i still slept in there for a few months just incase there was a  return seizure) anyways I was laying in bed  and what comes next you'd only understand if your raised in a small southern church that preaches hell brimstone and fire but I sware its what happened. I was laying in bed and started picturing devils and Hell on the back of the couch and I knew in my heart it was Jesus speaking to me. I felt him saying Now Tara I have rought you through so much in your little life already and you still dont trust in me. I ddint bring you through all this so you could spend eternity in hell. That was all I needed to hear I yelled for momma and daddy and they came running thinking I was having a seizure and instead they were met by i need Jesus help me Daddy So my momma and daddy knelt beside my bed and I prayed a prayer something like this " Lord I know I've done allota bad things in my life  and I want you to forgive me for that I believe you dided on the cross for me and your alive and in heaven today . your so amazing to have brought me through what you have please come into my heart and be my lord and savior" thats was it as simple as that I was a child of the king bound for heaven.....needless to say I don't live a perfect live ... I stumble and fall with the best of em', but I know my Lord and Savior is there by my side in the Good and the Bad and he loves me through and through

If someone today reads this as misspelled and unpunctuated as it is and  it touches their heart  know this GOd doesnt care what you've done,where you've been or how unworthy you think you are. He loves you and he wants you to accept him as your Lord and Savior so he can be with you in heaven.There is no sin to big for God to forgive!!!!!!   

 In christ,
Tara

As I'm sitting here in the sunroom looking out the window watching Reagan play on the backporch all these little things she does started to flood my memory and I wanted to write them down so I'll never forget.

At age 2 -she called strawberry shortcake -Fried Coop Cake
At age 3 - she called an octopus- popopuss
At age 3 - She was obssessed with Strawberry shortcake she still loves her to this day
At age 4 - She got her first swingset ( we'll technically it's 4 her 5th birthday but we're letting her have it early so she can play with it this summer)
At age 4- she got her first boyfriend- Jackson Van Nus
At age 4- We figured out how to treat her Reflux without medicine (juice plus was the cure)
At age 3,4- She called home depot- Hungry Hippo
At age 3,4- She loved Dora the explorer
At age 4- She tried ballet and hated it-boring
At age 4- She stayed with Mimi and Pops for 3 days and two night - the longest shes ever gone without both of us
At age 4 - she could talk the ears of a horse
At age 4- She started gettign a little of a attitude- i dont wanna. I'm not gonna,cry if i dont get my way

Everyday I have with My beautiful Princess is such a blessing from God. I strive everyday to tell her she's a Princess and How Beautiful and Smart and Talented she is , because this world seems to think differently about girls this day and age and tear down more then they lift up, but my child is a child of the king and that makes her a royal Princess. She may not act like a princess a 100% of the time but shes still my princess.