Coupon Town Hall Recap

Last night at the Coupon Town Hall, I got to meet Jenny, the face behind Southern Savers. She has impacted our family’s grocery budget so much through her coupon lists on her blog, that I had to go meet her and say thank you and see if there was anything new for me to learn. I will admit, I was a little bit of a “groupie” and had a picture taken…but I promise I wasn’t the only “groupie” there! Here is the picture of Jenny, me, Ruth, and Chrystal (left to right). Ruth and Chrystal were my biggest skeptics at the first coupon class I taught and now they have transformed into crazy coupon ladies with a stockpile started, too! Although Ruth admitted to me that last week she actually paid for toothbrushes last week when her kids were sick so she wouldn’t have to give up the 2 ”good” toothbrushes in her stockpile…shame, shame, shame!

It was an interesting night, to say the least…

We got stuck in traffic on the way there, probably because I ran a little late and we left later. Oops, sorry girls!
We got evacuated to the basement for an “intermission” during a tornado warning.
Everywhere we wanted to eat was closed afterwards…we ended up at Chili’s which was fine, but I had a gift card for Panera that I was wanting to use instead of real money.
We got stuck in traffic on the way back.

Although I already knew most of the basic things she talked about, there were a few things that she said that made me think about things in a different way…

Often times I will be discouraged if I don’t have the coupon listed and will skip the item. What I hadn’t really thought about was that when it is on the list, it is the lowest price during the sales cycle. So even if I don’t have the coupon, I should atleast be taking advantage of the sales cycle. This was probably my biggest “Well, duh!” moment I had.
I learned about some of the security measures that internet printable coupons have built in them. This was really interesting to me. Did you know that every time you print your internet coupons they can find you if they need to? It is somehow connected to your IP address, which means they can find you if you abuse internet coupons by scanning, copying, etc. Not that I would ever do that sort of thing, but it was interesting to me…those coupon people are pretty smart!
Jenny plays a game with herself to see how long she can make a $5 gift card last at CVS….Once she made it last for 8 months!!! This was amazing to me! I roll my Extra Care Bucks from week to week, but had never thought about seeing how long I could make things last! I’ll definitely be trying this to see how long I can go!

It was such a great evening, even with the traffic & tornadoes. I feel refreshed in my coupon quest to save my family money. A special thanks to First Baptist Church of Cleveland for hosting the Coupon Town Hall! An even bigger thank you to Jenny of Southern Savers for coming from South Carolina and having a FREE Coupon Talk! Jenny, if you ever read this, you have helped our family more than you will ever know with your blog. It has enabled me to cut our budget so much that I was able to resign from teaching in the middle of a recession and be a full-time stay-at-home-mommy to my sweet little guy, Jonah. For this, I truly thank you! God is using you greatly in the lives of so many! Thanks for sharing your gifts!