I’m on month #2 of my couponing vs. frugal shopping, and so far I’m really surprised by my findings.  I’ll bring you up to speed on my little project… Over the Summer I got really into couponing. I tracked every paper purchased, shopping trip, coupon used, and of course the total. For the next three months I’m backing off of the coupons, shopping less, making more from scratch, and still keeping track of it all. I’m trying to see which method of shopping really saves my family the most.

So far I’ve had a lot of these…

But I’ve spent a lot less time here…

And to be perfectly honest I was really surprised when June’s month of mega shopping trips and  multitude of papers purchased, beat September’s frugal numbers. I’m still looking over the spreadsheets just to make sure I’ve got my math right, but so far in this little battle Coupons are winning.

We’ll see what October brings. It is a long month, with a holiday and two birthdays too. My budget is whimpering in the corner…