Adventures in Couponing

I used to coupon back before we had any kids. We lived nearby a commissary, and I LOVED the thill of scoring products for free just because I took 5 minutes to print and cut a coupon! A friend of mine recently reigninted my couponing passion after posting about her amazing extreme couponing adventures, so I decided I needed to get back into it. Less money on groceries = more money for other bills, right lol?
 
I started by checking out the Krazy Coupon Lady and downloaded her app, then I added the Target Cartwheel app, and Ibotta app. The Krazy Coupon Lady organizes all the deals at a variety of stores and matches sales, coupons, and rebates so you can get the best deals. She recommended starting couponing with Target so I decided it would be simple enough! 
 
Target had a great deal on sunscreen where you spend $15 and get a $5 target card, and if you’ve purchased sunscreen in the last few years, then you know that’s pretty easy to do. To make the sunscreen deal sweeter, it was paired with a Coppertone $2 coupon and an Aveeno $3 leading to final prices being $1.33 (factoring in the earned gift card). Unfortunately, the link to the Aveeno coupon didn't work. So I purchased a Coppertone and Target brand sunscreen, saved $2, and got the gift card.

Two bottles of sunscreen: $8.98

In that same Target trip, we spent $15 on a variety of drinks and received another $5 gift card. I was hoping to score an amazing deal on Magnum Ice Cream, according to a deal from the Krazy Coupon Lady, but the ice cream wasn’t on sale at my Target… so that was a bummer, but all in all, I left Target a happy mama!
 
I decided to hit up Wal-Mart the next day and soak up some more coupon savings. According to the Krazy Coupon Lady, Bick Soleil Razors were $0.27 after a $3 coupon, pasta was $0.38 after a rebate, shampoo was $0.98 and I would earn $0.03 by buying command strips.  Woo-woo!
It took me about an hour to get the coupons I needed because I had to download different software and wait on emails from companies with the coupons, but I was excited nonetheless. Unfortunately, we got to Wal-Mart and the razors were $2 more than what the Krazy Coupon Lady App had said, so it wasn't an amazing deal… and the command strips were $0.60 more than reported… and the rebate for the pasta couldn’t be found.  The only deal that was accurate was for the shampoo…. And guess who printed out the WRONG coupon in my morning rush? So, that Wal-Mart trip was a total coupon BUST.

I’ve loaded on receipts into my Ibotta App, and earned an additional $5 in cash back that I can redeem once I reach $20- and because I’m a new Ibotta member, I’ll receive a $20 bonus once I redeem 10 offers, which should be in the next few days.  I can’t believe I didn’t start using Ibotta years ago, I’m anticipating receiving about $20 per month in rebates and will update on how that’s going in a few months! If you want to try out Ibotta and see how much you can save, please put me down for your referral friend- my code is:

rojqsja

I'm a bit disappointed with the Krazy Coupon Lady App. I do plan to keep printing and using coupons, but it’s not worth making special trips to the store based on reported deals aren't as sweet, or there just not there. 
 
Have you couponed before? Any tips or tricks to share?
 
Have a good one!