Hobbies that make me smile

In the couponing world people talk about "price points, "seasons, and "stock-up sales." After following my favorite website for a couple years I wondered what I was really paying for things. I knew I was getting a good deal on many things, but I didn't have my own record of price points, seasons and sales. At the beginning of last year I decided I was going to keep track of what I spent on every item I purchased. I dutifully plugged into a spreadsheet what I bought and how many, what size it was, where I bought it and on what date, and also noted the value of the coupon I used, if any, and the final price paid per item. Tonight Gabe helped me organize my data, sort it by category, and write out the blasted excel equations. Looking through my record was sure telling (I bought a lot of milk last year and a lot of candy and snacks). It made me smile though to see that I had used $2270.00 of manufacturers coupons. That's a lot of money. My final total spent on all groceries (including cleaning supplies, health and beauty, diapers, medicines, etc) was $4394.39 (average of $366.19 a month). Granted, had I not had the coupons I wouldn't have purchased a lot of the items, but if you saw my spreadsheet you would see that I got rocking deals on things. My food storage is also pretty awesome. It is full of a year supply of many health and beauty items, cereals, soups, oatmeal, and medicines.

I'll post my price point sheet on my savings blog in the next day or so. For now, I'll sleep well knowing that my coupon clipping is a darn good hobby.