MUMMY TO THE MAX

My dream started in January when I suddenly had the urge to do a huge coupon shop that would feed my family and help us save money. I had used all my coupons up at Christmas where I had managed to get a £80 shop for just £13. I felt it was the time to come back bigger and better so I set about trying to gather coupons up.

Over the past 3 months I have emailed companies sending them praise, I have put effort in to make companies smile and I have even allowed Maxwell to get creative. I have searched the internet for coupons and I have entered competitions to win coupons. I have also contacted companies when I feel a product is not up to a certain standard and complained about why and how I did not feel it was up to a certain standard, however all these complaints have been genuine and have also included praise when contacting the company.

Last week I sat counting my coupons and I found that I had reached the £100 mark value. I was extremely impressed and thought it was time to go and do a coupon shop however last week I felt there were not enough deals on at Tesco that would make full use of the coupons which I had kept so I decided that I would hold out.

This week after looking at Tesco online, I found that the deals had changed over and I would be able to get more for the value of my coupons so I started planning the big shop.
I first went on to the Tesco grocery website and sat for 4 hours planning the big shop. I gathered all my coupons and set them out to see what products I could buy with them and was there anything in the terms and conditions that would stop me using any of the coupons together. I worked out the best deals and added them to my online grocery account. I selected click and collect delivery and this enabled me to see if the item was in stock at the store. I also searched my emails and found a 55p Tesco price promise. I once again searched a few websites and printed further coupons and went to bed at around 12am.

This morning I got up, took Maxwell to preschool and hit Tesco to do my "Extreme couponing shop". I took a print out of the items I had selected online with me so I was able to match the items up in store and put them in the basket. This saved me time in the store as I did not have to sit and work out how I could get the best items for the value of my coupons. Once at Tesco we did find that a few items were out of stock however this did not affect my shop at all.

We were in the shop for around a hour and we stuck to our printed list. Nothing else went in our basket and we were very strict with ourselves. We were not tempted by any other offers and when items were out of stock we kept hold of our coupons in case the items became available again.

Normally I dread the checkout stage. A few weeks ago I had a awful experience at the checkout which involved coupons and a checkout operator rifling through my bags but today the checkout lady could not have been any more helpful than what she was. She simply scanned all our products through and slowly but surely scanned all the coupons through.

The shop started off at £118.33 however after coupons I paid just £2.78. I would have paid £0 however I forgot a £3 Tesco gift card which was in another purse. I was ecstatic and could not believe I had done so well.

Although there was no fruit, veg and there was very little meat in my shop, I had a £10 Morrisons voucher and £8 Co op vouchers to buy these products which meant in total I managed to buy a whole week's shop. I bought items for lunchboxes, meals for 3 of us, cleaning products, nappies and wipes, flowers as a treat to myself, a large amount of Easter eggs and I even managed to pick up items which we can take on holiday.

From shopping at Tesco I managed to gain 109 Clubcard points which means I have the option to double these points up near Christmas time or I could use them towards a meal out which means they are worth around £4. I also managed to get 4p off every litre of fuel in April which is great for us as this also saves us money.

I am looking forward to doing further coupon shops. What would you like to learn about coupons? Please drop me a comment below and  I will write further post's with additional information.