Couponing

I have a confession to make. Sigh...this is hard........ I don't coupon. I don't enjoy couponing. I cut out all these coupons and then forget them at home or in the van. Whenever they pass the coupon notebook around during MOPS I get rid of it quickly before I get sucked into it. I don't get the thrill of buying a cart full of cat food when you don't have a cat, just because you got it for 1 cent. It just doesn't compute with my "hate clutter" brain. I know some people donate the stuff they buy but where do they put it until they do that? It would drive me insane to have 12 bags of cat food in my house or van. I would have to immediately get rid of it. And what if I drove all the way over there and they said they couldn't take it?!?! The horror!!!! Do I really have time as a wife, mom of three, teacher, maid, MOPS coordinator, etc, to buy a million cans of cat food and drive it all the way to the shelter?


Yesterday I was on Facebook and I saw a link to a page called "Couponing to Disney." I was intrigued so I clicked on it. It had a link to this woman's blog. Her family of four goes to Disney every year by saving money she gets from rebate offers, money she saved from couponing, gift cards, etc. Last year they needed $3,200 to go and she ended up with $3,500 saved up by doing this! She was able to put the leftover into the fund for next year.  It has inspired me to give it a try.  She has a video link on her blog of their "stockpile." I couldn't watch it because if it looked like an episode of Hoarders I would've called the whole thing off. I want to coupon responsibly. I told Brett about it and his thought was let's just try to do it to save money in general. I would love if I could figure out how to do it and get the stuff we actually need. That seems to be the biggest problem. Coupons are always for things we don't buy. I don't want to buy stuff just because I have a coupon.We usually do store brand or cheaper alternatives to what we need.


So, to my couponing friends: help me! How do I do this and just get things we'll actually use? What are some other money saving tips you know of? We don't have a cat so no cat food coupons please. :)