I wanted to blog about my friend, mentor, Esther Philips. Esther was my youth leader when I was a teenager in high school. She and I hung out at her husbands parents house and ate fudge in the green house that her in-laws owned and sold plants from. She and her husband, Bob taught me a lot about the Bible, life and corny jokes. :) Esther and her husband were co-leaders with Jay and Kathy Stephenson. I love them so much too.
After I graduated from youth group and became an adult myself, my youth leaders became my good friends that I went to for advice or just friendship. I love them a lot of I always hold them close in my thoughts and prayers.
Esther recently got into couponing and saving her family money every week with her savvy shopping skills. She would post about it on her face book page and that got me thinking about trying this myself. I asked her how she did it and she gave me a TON of advice. I read over her advice but got frustrated when I went to the store with a few coupons in hand and realized I no longer get double coupons where I live and that the stuff on my list were still too expensive after the coupons. I didn't think about it again until recently. I have another friend who also loves to use coupons and she told me about hip2save. I realized that there are more ways than one to learn something. The Internet is a wonderful tool if you use it right. I re-read what my Friend Esther wrote to me and then I went to YouTube and watched videos on couponing and I learned so much that I was excited about going shopping and could not wait to see how much I could save. That shopping day was a few posts down and I think I have gotten progressively better every week. The hip2save site has a cute series of videos called "follow Me Monday" and that is where I realized that "Oh my, I can watch videos on this stuff too!" You see, I am a visual learner as well as a hands-on learner. I need both. I can read something but them I need to do it and watch it being done before it clicks sometimes. I was a 4.0 GPA student in nursing school but I give a lot of credit to my professors who taught us visually as well as tactically. (I did, of course study really hard too.)
Anyway, I wanted to say that my friends have really supported me in a lot of things in my life and I am so thankful for them. My friend Esther wants to start a business giving live seminars on how to do the coupon game and win big at it. I think she will do a wonderful job!!
One thing that Esther taught me that really helped me to start out right that first week I did well, was that I should not go into the store with a list made out of what I have chosen to eat that week. I need to first look at and study the fliers and see what is on sale, gather coupons for only things on sale and then plan my menu around that. When I was planning a menu first I was limiting myself. I find it much easier to plan my shopping now if I wait to plan a menu till last. :)
You do not need a store that doubles coupons to do well at this 'game'. It is fun to see how much you can get for so little every week. I think while so many people have been suffering a little financially, this is a wonderful thing to learn. I was never really a thrifty person. Drives my husband a little batty. My husband now waits for me to tell him what I have saved every week and I think he may even be a little proud of me. ;P
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