The Cha-Ching Challenge: $1012.17 YTD and My Eye-Opening Experience




Welcome to the weekly Cha-Ching Challenge!

Did you find a HOT deal this week that you just want to share?  You’ve come to the right place!  Every week I post the Cha-Ching Challenge, sharing my savings for the week.    Add a link to your post detailing your savings for the week OR your favorite deal of the week. I’ll choose one participating blog to highlight next week right here on Cha-Ching on a Shoestring.

Add your links to Mr. Linky at any time.  In order to be considered for the Cha-Ching Challenge Highlight, just be sure to add your link no later than Tuesday at midnight EST.

Check out my savings for the week below:

I had an eye-opening experience this week that I wanted to share with you all.

I was almost on Nightline.  Yep.  That Nightline. They were going to give me and a few other extreme couponers $50 and film us getting as many deals as we could.  At the last minute, it fell through.

I was disappointed at first.  (I mean–for the rest of my life, when someone asked me to share one interesting thing about myself, I could have said, “I was on Nightline.”  But no, I’m going to have stick with the old faithful, “I won the Spelling Bee in 8th Grade.”)

But what has come out of my experience is a realization that I am not an extreme couponer. I coupon to get great deals for my family and to be wise with our money.  I don’t clear shelves.  My stockpile is enough, but it’s nothing to write home about. (Although it does contain EIGHT boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats now!)  I do not have plans to stock up enough Jello to build a Jello tower anytime soon.

I’m just a girl who has learned the value of those pretty papers that I used to throw away with the rest of my Sunday paper.

Don’t get me wrong.  I could have scored a sweet stash with that $50.  Oh the deals I could have gotten…

But, that’s not what I am about.  To put that much effort into couponing each week would take away from what I truly value in life.  And for me, couponing is all about putting value on what is important to me–not detracting from it.

And so, if I miss a deal or actually have to pay full-price for something from time to time {gasp!}, it’s ok.  I’m not in this couponing game for the title extreme couponer.

There’s SO much more to living large on a limited budget than that.

Savings from coupons and store sales: $41.43

• Landis: Spent $7.81.  Saved $11.11.

• Target: Spent $2.89.  Saved $30.32.
  

Savings from ‘Free Money’: $7.77

• Wes and I made around $.77 this week from YouData–are you all checking your accounts?

• Redeemed a $5 Amazon gift card with my Swag Bucks!

• Got a $2 SCR check from Rite Aid!

TOTAL SAVINGS:$49.20

TOTAL SAVINGS THIS YEAR: $1012.17

Click below to check out my favorite find of the week:

Have you made your album yet?!

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HOW DID YOU DO? Did you find any great deals? Leave a linky and let us know!  Be sure to link directly to your weekly savings or great deal post.

Feel free to copy and paste the button above into your post and link back here so that others can join in the fun!