(Note to regular readers: I will leave this post at the top for today and will put my regular daily posts underneath it.)

I feel so honored that Deborah Ferguson at NBC 5 wanted to do a story on me and Surviving The Stores! If you are here because of that news segment, WELCOME! It is my goal to help you learn how to cut your costs and save BIG both on your online purchases and on your monthly grocery bills!

How can Surviving The Stores help you?

Each day I post the deals and freebies (yes, there are tons of free items out there to grab, like the coupon each Friday through September for FREE Mars chocolate!) that are available online or in the stores. I also post coupon matchups (these tell which coupons to use for the items that are on sale) for the grocery stores and the drug stores (like CVS and Walgreens) in my area. I have had my BIGGEST savings here!

If you are just starting out, my number one piece of advice is DON’T GET DISCOURAGED! It can feel overwhelming at first, but if you stick with it, it REALLY pays off! Read the “Where To Begin” section on the left sidebar and also read “Surviving CVS” and “Surviving Walgreens.”

My second piece of advice is to just take one step at a time. Don’t try to start couponing at Walgreens, CVS, Target, and the grocery stores all in one week! Learn one store, then move to another, and then another. Keep reading the deals and scenarios and ask questions! You can click on the “comments” link that’s under each post and either I or other readers will help you along.

What if you don’t want or don’t have time to use coupons at the store? How can Surviving The Stores help you? I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t get excited at getting 75% off their Christmas gifts, or getting a store coupon for 30% off items they were already going to buy! If you don’t want to “coupon” then you can skip over the couponing posts and just read the posts with Amazon deals, great online buys, and freebies!

What should you do from here?

1) Sign up HERE to receive a daily email with all of the deals and freebies I posted that day. When you enter your email address, you will get an email to verify. Make sure to click on the link in the verification email or you will not be added to the email list. If you currently use a blog reader (such as google reader) then you can add Surviving The Stores to your list by clicking HERE.

2) Look around the website and get familiar with the layout. If you are new to reading blogs then you will see that it is a different format than other websites. Posts are organized by day and by topic. You can look for specific topics under the section on the right (about half way down) titled “Find A Topic.”

3) Come back to Surviving The Stores throughout the day because some deals and printable coupons are time sensitive and can’t wait until the end of the day email.

What are some great deals and freebies you can take advantage of right now? (Just click on the sentence or where it says HERE to get more information.)

This upcoming Wednesday you can get a FREE Salon Treatment at Kerastase Salons!

Monday morning the first 100,000 to sign up get a coupon for a FREE DiGiorno Melt!

Save BIG on your monthly phone bill (we now pay $20 a YEAR instead of $30 a month!)

With newspaper costs rising, many people are turning to printable coupons to maximize their grocery savings. You can print out LOTS of coupons for free from your own computer! Click HERE to choose the coupons you want to print. There are TONS of Kraft coupons right now that can be used for some pretty sweet deals!

Get 2 pounds (4 bags) of coffee for only $4.95 from Boca Java!

Do you search the web? Why not get gift cards from doing it?? Sign up for Swagbucks HERE to start earning gift cards to places like Amazon, Starbucks and Target!

Also, you can read through ALL of my Freebies posts by clicking on the “Freebies” tab on the left or by clicking HERE. Many of the deals are still available!

Thank you for visiting! I hope that this website can be of great help in your journey to greatly lower your grocery expenses and Survive The Stores!

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****Be sure to sign up to receive free updates from Surviving The Stores in your inbox or your blog reader

Welcome to Surviving The Stores!

NBC Dallas originally aired a story about saving money by using blogs and now that story is being aired across the nation!

What you saw in the segment on couponing can happen for you too! It might seem overwhelming at first, but after a few weeks of practice, you too can be getting groceries for next to nothing (and with the economic times as they are, that is VERY helpful!)

I began Surviving The Stores in September 2008 as a way to keep myself accountable in grocery budgeting. I was not raised in a couponing family, so the whole couponing world was very new to me. I mistakenly thought that people who used coupons ended up paying more for items than those who bought the off brands.

After getting the hang of it and saving us literally THOUSANDS of dollars I thought that maybe my experiences and finds could be helpful to others. With the economic times as they are, more and more people are trying to cut back and figure out ways to “Survive The Stores.” I am here to help!

How can Surviving The Stores help you save $$? (and LOTS of it!)

The first place to start is by clicking on “Where To Begin” on my left sidebar at the top. That will give you all of the information you need to get started couponing!

Then, click on the store(s) that you have near you to find the deals and coupon match-ups for that store. I find the weekly deals for:

Tom Thumb (which generally the ad is the same for all Safeway stores including Randalls)
Texas Albertsons
Texas/Louisiana Kroger
CVS (nationwide)
Walgreens(nationwide)

Couponing at CVS and Walgreens has a strategy all of its own. To be honest, it took me a little while to get the hang of it. But now I don’t pay for make-up, toiletries, over the counter medicine, diapers, some food items, CHOCOLATE , and the list keeps going! I recommend reading my CVS and Walgreens weekly posts for a couple of weeks until you feel comfortable with how it works.

If your local grocery store is not one of the ones listed above, make sure to head over to The Grocery Gathering to find a blog that does the coupon match-ups for a store near you!

I also post about Target and Walmart when you can get a really great deal there! (Most of the free items generally come from CVS, Walgreens and the grocery stores, though).

Although there tends to be multiple posts each day here at Surviving The Stores, these are the weekly staples:

Monday: Menu Plan Monday – We have saved SOO much money by me just sitting down once a week and planning out what we will be having. I provide links to the recipes that I use as well as reviews of some of the recipes that we have had previously

Tuesday: Helpful money-saving articles

Wednesday: Grocery store coupon match-ups

Thursday: CVS and Walgeens weekly deals posted

Friday: Fun Friday Freebies! – Each week I post a list of all of the freebies that I have found online the previous week. I have gotten lots of really neat stuff for free including DVDs, TONS of magazines and food! You can check out all of the freebies from previous weeks HERE.

Saturday: Super Savings Saturday – What did I find at my local stores and how much did I spend?

Sunday: CVS and Walgreens trips

If you are already a blog reader, I recommend adding Surviving The Stores to your blog reader (such as google reader) so that you don’t miss out on any great deals!

You can also subscribe to Surviving The Stores for free through email and you will get an email at the end of each day with the posts for that day.

Please feel free to email me or leave a comment with any questions you may have!

Want an easy way to start earning a little extra now? See my post HERE about a neat opportunity called Swagbucks!