I received an email from Christina in Michigan, who asked lots of questions that people new to my extreme form of couponing often have.  She has given me permission to quote parts of her email and my responses.  This, I hope, should help those who are just starting out and feel their heads start to spin.

I stumbled onto couponing recently.  It’s been about 3 months.  I found your website and thought it was in a different language to begin with.  NOW… I wanna be just like you!  I live over in Michigan and realize some of these deals are different, but still check your site daily, as several are similar.

As I continue to learn by trial and error, I have some questions for you.  I have several stores within a 5 mile radius and are learning each style. I have a Meijers, Walmart, Target, Staples, and a Walgreens. There is also two grocery stores, local, and with horrible prices. (No Jewels or Dominicks damnit!) The questions begin… how far do you drive for your deals?  How do you deal with bitchy people staring at you while you hand over a zillion coupons or/and have several people in line after you?  (Am I just shopping at the wrong times?  Is there etiquette? Although, Meijer’s is never slow over here.)

And on coupons… do you order or pick up a certain number of papers a week? I receive 3 weekly sets of press coupons, none of which I pay for currently. I have also been printing. (I even figured out how to make the coupons smaller to save on ink.)  I am starting to see the value in more ‘stock’ coupons, but you have made such a impact for so little investment (financially-wise) definitely not your time, gas, blog, etc… And you are my IDOL, so I wondered.  I know you can purchase coupons too.  As I said I am still learning, so trying to figure out the systems before I ‘invest’ more money. (Oh wait! I have NONE invested yet!)

How much space do you have dedicated to back stock?  And do you really USE all that stuff?

I appreciate any input, as I am taking you away from your real job/life!

OK, then, lots of intelligent questions, so I chose not to be a total bitch!  Here’s my response:

1.  I normally stay local in driving, certainly within 10 miles.  The distance is part of the reason I don’t push the Meijer deals.  Meijers is known for having very poor stock-ups during sales, or having their stupid temporary price cuts, which mean they don’t hand out rain checks.  Why keep on driving to find out if they have stuff in stock? Even calling ahead does not work (trust me on this one).

2.  Staples is good for paper and ink for printing coupons.  Last fall/winter they carried the single roll Marcal tp and paper towels as a special order, but no longer so the Free Marcal coupons can only be redeemed at Ultra one or two at a time.  Also a crappy store with stock and rain checks.

3.  I love Wags.  Having said that, it’s important to know how they treat people who use coupons as extensively as we do.  The most important thing is to develop a strong relationship with your store’s management and/or staff – they are your best buddies.  If they’re not on your side, you will not be able to do much.  Special orders, advance notice, etc.  nothing.

4.  Let me know what chains are available within maybe 5 or 10 miles.  Many local stores are actually part of a co op or chain and you can learn what’s going on with them that way.  For example, the Butera food stores are a “chain” of maybe 3 or 4 stores in the Chicago suburbs, but last year became affiliated with the Pig (Piggly Wiggly), so the cats, etc. mostly run the same.

5.  Coupons…..I usually have 6 Sunday Tribs delivered and get inserts given me by family, friends, etc.  On occasion I have purchased coupons on eBay and through coupondede (right sidebar on my site).  I like coupondede the best because she’s very fast and you get points on all your purchases which can be applied to future purchases.  That said, sometimes the deals are so hot in the Midwest, she is completely sold out and I hit the eBay sellers who are in different parts of the US.  The Sinex deals from, I think, November was one of those times where only the east coast sellers had stock and reasonable prices.  If you do use eBay, be very careful.  I’ve heard of buyers who were stuck with counterfeit coupons – make sure the feedback is very high and 100%.

6.  I, personally, do not clip coupons and put them in a binder to transfer into smaller binders when I shop.  I just don’t want to look like a big doofas.  I only have with me the coupons for the deals I’m running.  It helps that Jewel allows you to return with coupons and receipts within 60 days to get your cash returned (even if the coupon has since expired).  Checking the clearance section with a smart phone and coupon database allows you to keep a tight rein on those prices.  I mark all the weekly inserts on the front with the date and a T if they’re from the Tribune (it carries the best and most coupons in this area), then place in a Pendaflex folder and hang in one of several totes (from Target), which stay stacked in a corner; there is also a small basket on top in which I toss the stuff that has yet to be filed.  If you slog through the whole site, I know I’ve posted pictures of part of my basement and my filing system.  Coupon booklets are now being stored in the little cardboard Cuties boxes.  Since you have a Wags near you, make sure you always pick up one or two of their Diabetes and You magazines (back by the Pharmacy section).  They’re free and ALWAYS contain useful coupons, both mfr and store, which you can stack for the best prices – FREE w/ OVERAGE!  Wags usually comes out with a children’s activity book for .99 which has a whole section of coupons in the front couple of pages (store coupons), which are wonderful for RRs when stacked.

7.  Bitchy people.  I could just say fuck ’em, but that wouldn’t help you.  You could also practice the stink eye.  If you are running a bunch of transactions, it’s best to allow others to cut in front of you if they have a few items. It’s only common courtesy and the store staff will definitely appreciate it.  Also, don’t get up to the register and THEN start looking for your coupons, sorting them out, etc.  The store staff will definitely hate you.  If you’re organized and know what you’re doing, MOST people behind you will be fascinated by the fact you’re getting all this for tax (the Extreme Couponers show has helped).  If you think there was a mistake on your bill and there’s a line behind you, pay up and take the receipt up to customer service.  Again, it’s all about making things painless for the store.  Do that and I predict many, many happy hours looking at your stockpile.

8.  I have a full basement and other storage space for the paper goods.  Some stuff, like Sinex, I never use.  I will probably have a garage sale in spring or early summer (my food pantry does not accept OTC products).  I “sell” to various people who have too much pride to go to food pantries (selling stuff to them for very little money allows them to keep their dignity, but puhleez, I am no saint).  Having a large stockpile allows you to cherry-pick the deals.  If I see tp for 6.99 I don’t fall on the ground salivating, trust me.  We finally finished the 168 4 packs of Cottonelle I got at a Wags clearance sale for less than 12 bucks.  it was a sad day…

Hope the above helps in some ways.  Other questions you don’t want to post or just don’t fit into a certain category?  Click the tab marked Contact the Goddess.  ’cause i am…

Just saw this on Hip2save.  It’s a $1/1 Great Day All Natural or Omega-3 carton of eggs.  Like them on FB, print one, back, back and print another.  Expiration date is 3/21/2011 on the ones I just printed.

I can’t claim the credit for this idea:  I saw it at Rachel’s house a few weeks ago and was patiently waiting on another sale, cursing myself for having tossed those valuable boxes into the recycling bins.  These Cuties boxes are the perfect size for all those coupon booklets that just make a mess of your filing system:  where do they go?  They have to be easily accessible, but still removed enough that you don’t have to keep moving them when you start pulling inserts.

and in case you’re wondering, i only have slightly over 40 of the Dominicks Joy of Football coupon booklets:  i stopped picking them up weeks ago.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 – and so we wait for failure…rock solid so far (since yesterday morning – no fluctuations) at about 5.15 Mbps, so I’m taking the sticky off  and we’ll see what happens.  Any more nonsense and it’s back up on top.

The Tech-0f-the-Day just left.  He replaced the “card” in the vault with a new card.  and now we wait … and so it goes…

Another news flash:  AT&T does not want my business!  quel surprise!  So now I’ve been transferred, disconnected, transferred, disconnected – each time going through the same “who are you” protocol the trained monkeys use in whatever country the call centers are located.  After the final disconnect, I realized that not only was I not going to get satisfaction from AT&T (and guess who has never been sent that customer satisfaction survey?), the only way I was going to make an impact was to call and have the DSL tech come to the house – EVERY DAY.  We’re gonna be BFF.  stay tuned.  grr and out…

I’m putting this out as a sticky just cause I’m so damned pissed.  Sunday morning the AT&T guy came and checked everything out 6 ways to Sunday. The only thing he could find that hadn’t been done was to reset some switches at the Ameritech offices, which weren’t open on Sunday… so that call was supposed to be made and a follow-up call given us.  you can bet that call wasn’t made…

So Sunday evening we’re running .2, .3, at one point jumping up to 1.3 (but that was only temporary). Too slow for Netflix. This afternoon husband wants to know what our speed is: oooh, great, it’s too slow to run the speed test.  That’s my favorite speed.  Started with the round of calls.  Each office says the same thing:  Oh, I’m sorry, I apologize.  I’ll be able to help you.  Until push comes to shove and they can’t and transfer you to the wrong office.  where you wait on hold hell.   After being on the phone for just over one hour, I was disconnected.  Apparently it was because, after complaining for years (their tickets go back to 2005) about shitty DSL speeds when I am being billed for the fastest service, the fact that I want some service credit is too much for them to handle.  They think that if they all ignore me, I’ll go away.  I think not.

So here I sit, waiting for the AT&T guy/gal (although it’s never been the latter) to show up and FIX MY DAMNED LINE!  but let’s go back to the beginning – about two years ago:

Started getting weird speeds.  We pay for the fastest DSL speed (currently between 5 and 6 Mbps) but the speed test was showing download times of .2, .416, 5.15, .2.  You get the picture.  Make the call to voice prompt hell and go through the “It’s your modem/wireless router that’s going bad.  You should replace it.  Your line checks out.”  Well it’s not, but we have.  In point of fact, we installed another one yesterday morning.  Instead of the 2-wire ones we’ve been using, we switched to Motorola.  It was a total pain to install, necessitating extremely long conversations with tech support.  At one point, we had the computers that were hard-wired up and running but the wireless ones (Macs and phones and laptops, oh my) were not.  Again the calls.  This time Nincompoop Broad wants me to check what operating system I’m running before doing anything.  Lady, did you even read the Cliff’s Notes in front of you?  Then she wanted me to move my desktop to a cable and see if that worked.  I said you must be kidding and she asked if the wire wasn’t long enough…Again, LADY DON’T YOU HEAR ME GOING UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS WITH EVERY ONE OF YOUR STUPID QUESTIONS?  Let me have level two support.  Starts up with all the reasons why she can fix the problem.  Hand over phone to husband before I pull this ignorant bitch out through the handset and choke her to death.  justifiable homicide…

Husband asks for level two support.  Does not get it.  Another 45 minutes to an hour of bullshit and gets it all to work, but at that point I don’t care because Elvis has left the building!  DH calls about a half hour later with the news that AT&T is going to send out a technician Sunday, sometime between 8 am and 5 pm.   So, after all these years of my telling them that there is a problem with the buried phone wire, they are finally admitting it?

Oddly enough, I haven’t gotten one of those survey calls asking me to rate the quality of their service… hehehehehehe… Oh, I’m sorry, but you don’t seem have anything less than 1 and there’s a missing spot where nincompoop should be inserted – preferably without lube.

This oddity comes under the things I did not know and odd feeds to which I subscribe category.

February 13th is Mistress Day, since, obviously, you are required to spend Valentine’s Day with your wife and/or husband.  So the day before is the big one for the married folks who stray.  Is there even a Hallmark section for this?  And funny how you don’t hear promos for Jareds…

Newbies always want to know just what price they should consider to be a “stock up” price.  Obviously, this depends on the product, how brand-dependent you are, shelf-life and, most of all, the size of your stockpile.  In other words, if you have tons of body wash, then a deal where you only get it free won’t work – you want the overage to pay down the tax!  We’re spoiled that way…

The following is a list of household items and the highest prices I would consider acceptable. Remember that if it’s free, I buy it in bulk for the stockpile. The best way to get “stuff” outside of a catalina promotion, is to stack mfr and store coupons at places like Meijer and Target

Brownie mixes – up to $.20/box(usually free with cat)
Cake mixes – up to $.50/box (usually free with cat)
Chocolate chips – up to $1 per bag

Canned fruits – $.50-.75/can
Canned vegetables – $.25-.40/can
Chef Boyardee – up to $.50/can (free quite often)
Soup – $.50/can

Cooking oil – up to $1.50 48 oz/bottle (cats usually bring this down to .50)
Cereal – up to $1 per box
Cookies – $1/package
Crackers – $.50-$1 per box
Fruit snacks – up to $.25 per box (10 snacks)
Granola bars –  up to $.50 per box for Nature Valley; slightly more for Quaker
Juice – up to $1/bottle (Juicy Juice or Mott’s )
Pasta – up to $.50 per package
Pasta sauce – up to $1/jar
Peanut butter – up to $.75/jar
Pop Tarts – up to $.50/box for 8 ct

Cheese – up to$1/package
Cream cheese – $.99/package
Sour cream – up to $1
Yogurt – up to $.25 per cup

Beef roasts – $.99/lb
Beef round steak – $.99/lb
Ground beef – $1.99/lb (90% or higher)
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts – $.99/lb
Pork chops (boneless) – $1.39/lb
Pork spare ribs – $.99/lb
Pork roasts – $.99/lb
Ground turkey – $1.99/lb

Bathroom cleaners/toilet cleaners – up to $1
Dish soap (liquid) – up to $.50
Dishwasher tabs – up to $1
Hand soap – up to $.50
Kleenex –  up to $.50/box
Laundry detergent – up to $2 (All or Tide – liquid, 32 loads)
Multi-purpose cleaners – up to $1
Paper towels – up to $.50/roll
Toilet paper – up to $.25/roll