Newspapers, newspapers

I must first admit that I stole this blog post idea from my friend Kim, so thanks Kim!

Kim and I, along with our friend Sherri have been seriously couponing for about eight months now. We had made several connections with people at our church who did not use their coupons and had ended up being able to snag four or fives sets of coupons each week in addition to any that we purchased for ourselves.

Kim is quite resourceful (I envy her-really) and was able to go to a local gas station late on Sunday nights to be given any and all newspapers that were left over for the day. This meant that we would have about 10-15 sets of coupons between us.

We came up with this elaborate and labor intensive coupon box. The coupons were cut and organized in this old diaper box into folders. The box was kept at our church so that we each had access to it. It quickly became overbearing!

Well. La, la, la and several months later, the coupons that we had been receiving ceased and the store where Kim got so many extra papers had to quit giving them away free. So what did Kim do (I won't even dare try to take credit for it)? She got her resourceful self on the phone to the newspaper and set a bulk delivery to her house everyweek. It turns out that for $7.50 a week, 25 papers will magically appear on her front door step each Sunday morning. This price is a savings of $30 a week off of the news stand price!

So, if you do the math, in a four week month, we are getting 100 papers for a grand sum of $30.00. The actual retail price is $150.00 so we are saving $120.00 a month in papers! There are four of us that each contribute $7.50 to the price and we each get 6 papers weekly. We each cut out the coupons that we ourselves will use and organize them our own way. We cut out the remaining coupons and store them in ziplock bags by date so that when a good sale comes along, we can put our hands on them quickly and easily. And we share them. This sharing has come in so handy on CVS purchases and double couponing at Kroger.

So, my hat is tipped to you Kim for figuring out a way to keep those coupons coming and savings in our pockets. Oh, and by the way...my friend Kim-you are amazing in many ways and God is definitely growing you girl! Go with the flow baby-He won't let you down or give you more than you can handle (*wink*). Love ya!

Now if only I knew what to do with the part of the papers that I don't use each week....any thoughts?