I've finally finished updating our checkbook, Microsoft Money, and the spreadsheet I tally each week to see my coupon savings for groceries, hba & pet food. I was over 2 weeks behind.

Week 1 (ending 1/3) wasn't all that impressive. Total spending was $157.69, after just $9.58 of coupons. Blah! There were two big purchases of dog food, so that explains the expensive week.

Last week was much better. Before coupons I would have spent $131.49. I saved $58.87, leaving a total of just $72.62. That's a 45% savings! My average for the 2 weeks then is just over $115. I'd like to keep the average that low all year. I know I've been posting about freebies lately, but I also had a few aces in the hole. I had close to $18 in CVS extra bucks. Since I paid once to get those, I count them as coupons when I use them. Also, I got in a batch of Purina checks that I count as coupons. Those are from sending in the weight circles and redeeming them for checks to use on future purchases. I had $21 worth of those that I used. I've got more to use this week too, and I'll try to hit up Target where you get a $5 gift card on the big bags of Purina dog chow.

Other things that I tallied up for the year are rebates, cash from ebates and bigcrumbs, surveys, Walgreens rebates, cash back checks, and anything else like that. I don't include CVS extra bucks, Walgreens register rewards, or points redeemed for gift cards, so it's a little inconsistent. Anyhow, of the things I did keep track of, I earned a whopping $1438!!! (If anyone wants a referral link to either bigcrumbs or ebates, see my sidebar.)

I'm in the process of updating my sidebar too. I updated the ticker, but it's a little disappointing. I'm not sure how I thought I paid off $1791 since Nov 1 on credit cards (that's what it used to say), but I really only paid off $891. I guess in two months that's not horrible, but considering the balances we have, I won't be done until I'm old & gray unless we step it up a notch. It's much better if I look back at the whole year which is not posted on the sidebar. In 2008, we reduced the cc debt by $12,918. Now THAT's more like it!!