If you know my blog and me, you know that we have a large family. A large growing family that loves to eat! Our oldest is only 8 but I swear all nine of my kids are going through growth spurts at the same time and require large amounts of food. Friends tell me to wait until they hit puberty! I'm not sure if I want to think about that right now, not just because at some point I will have at least eight teenagers at the same time but also because of the horror stories of how much food teenage boys and girls can consume.
So, when I got the chance to review Couponing Made Simple from Christi the Coupon Coach I knew I needed this book! I had to have this review and find ways to save money, because if I start doing it now it will be second habit by the time the kids are all older and consuming more food.
We do have some things that make it hard to save money on food. First, we have to work around food allergies. We have allergies in our house to soy, dairy, and gluten(wheat, barley, rye, etc) which means a lot of the foods you find coupons for, I can't use. I also tend to buy almost everything all natural or organic which means even less that I can use coupons for!
As you can imagine the above made me a bit dissapointed before even trying to coupon. But I soon learned after reading the book that even I can save money using coupons! I can find coupons for non food items such as toilet paper, shampoo, etc to use. I can even find some coupons for meat products, condiments, and sugar that I can use. You actually can find some coupons for organic items too if you look in the right places!
In her book she shares certain websites that also will help you find great deals. I find that I save lots more than normal simply by checking the weekly sales ads for the stores I normally go to the week I do my monthly grocery shopping trip. I buy those things in bulk and freeze them. Or if it's something you can't freeze on it's own I use it up quickly in things that you can freeze. I'm a huge fan of freezer meals which saves you money since you can buy in bulk and prepare ahead of time saving you from buying something "quick" from the store.
No she does say on the book cover(above) that you can learn to save 80%. I do not save that much. I do have a very low monthly grocery and household budget so I am not spending as much as a lot of people with my family size(or even smaller do) but I'm still not saving 80% of what I was spending before reading the book. I don't know the actual percentage, but I'd say I save around 25% off what I used to spend. This to me is still a huge amount considering the size of our family and our allergies/lifestyle choices.
My personal opinion is that this is a very well written guide to saving money. If you take the time to read the book you will find ways to save money. If you have a more "normal" family(is there such a thing as normal) you will be able to save more if you apply yourself! I promise you will at least learn something from this book that can help you save!'
Make sure you check out her book on her website today and read other testimonials. You can also visit the main Crew blog post to see what other Crew members though of the book when they reviewed it. The book comes in two forms: Paperback and Kindle. The paperback is currently selling for $18.00 while the Kindle version is currently $4.99.
I definitely think this book would be worth the price. It's a great deal for Kindle! If I had not received it for review and heard about this book I would probably get the Kindle version for myself. Don't have a Kindle? Well the good news is there is also an application you can download for your computer so you can read Kindle books there as well!
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