I mean if you’re going to be a goddess…it might as well involve coupons.  Right?

How many of you have crossed through the blogosphere and called a blogger?  Huh?  Huh?  Yeah, it’s weird.  That’s why I did it.  I picked up my phone and called Melanie from The Coupon Goddess, but only after I suggested we chat on Facebook.  However, Melanie didn’t want to mess around, she had 30 minutes of being alone in her house without her four kids, so I might as well call and ask her some very important questions.

Fist let me admit that I’m a coupon drop-out.  I know we’ve talked about couponing several times here and some of us agree that it is just too time consuming and we just don’t get it.  Then I read about how The Coupon Goddess saved $52,000 last year using coupons and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

The woman saved $52,000….because of coupons.  What the what…what the freaking what is she doing to save that much money?

So, I gave her a call and it went a little something like this:

Me~  Melanie?

Her~ April?

And with that we got our introductions out of the way and I told her to please excuse me while I hacked up a lung, because I’m dying of Consumption.  My funeral will be a week from Tuesday.  I’ve been using this little coughing joke for about three weeks now and even I have stopped laughing.  Thank you for reading the state of my health, now on with this crazy coupon business.

Melanie, like many of us was a young stay at home mom with a baby and it doesn’t take long to realize that diapers are not cheap so she decided she would help contribute to her family by trying to save as much at  the store as possible.  That was twelve years ago and now she’s a pro.

I had to ask Melanie a few burning question:

Me~ Okay, so what about us crazy folk that want to eat more natural foods and avoid high fructose corn syrup?  It seems like a lot of the coupons in my paper are for stuff I won’t buy.

The Coupon Goddess suggested that I go straight to the websites of the snack foods I prefer and search for discounts there.  The coupons are out there, we just have to do some searching.  So, I did some searching…

First I tried to find Kashi cereal or cookie coupons and I was led to the website, but they were currently out of coupons.  I could sign up to get email alerts when they had more, I decided not to.  My next search was for True North snacks coupons, again  I struck out with anything on their website.  Um…Goddess, please help me.  I decided to try one last time with Newman’s Own products.  And finally, Old Blue Eyes didn’t let us down!  Newman’s Own has an entire page dedicated to coupons.  Okay, so I’m seeing how a few minutes of searching could save me some money.

Next question…

Me~ What do you say to people like me that really don’t want to go to several different stores to shop for the deals?  I mean…it just sounds really…..hard and labor intensive.

The Coupon Goddess paused for a moment and said, “Suck it up!”  I knew I liked this girl and she’s right, we all know she is.  She led me to really think about it.  Yeah, we have to drive ten or fifteen minutes to the next store, but what if we save $50 at that store?  What if we save $150?  I think that might be worth the ten minutes and the gallon of gas.  She also said she dedicates certain days and times to her shopping and she’s a serious shopper, so she doesn’t linger in the store, she gets what she’s wants and then she’s out the door.  Unless she’s on one of her epic-savings trips, then she might spend significant time in one store.  But, my goodness, does the woman know how to get a deal.

Which reminds me of a slight problem I’ve had…

Me~ What do you say to those cashiers that think you’re stealing from their store by using coupons?

Melanie has a nice little letter written to one of those cashiers.  I’m telling you, she’s a Goddess of the highest rank.

Want to ask her about storing the excess that you buy when you’re saving?  She’s got that answer too.

I really like that she has resources listed on her site that are unfamiliar to me.  Like a clipping service and a site for Target.  This is the kind of stuff I love to find when I need a new kick in the pants to keep saving money.  And one more think that I really loved about Melanie….she gives a lot of her excess to charity.  Melanie has helped stock some very empty food pantries and she supports the troops.  Melanie is saving her family thousands of dollars and also helping feed people with her smart shopping.  Looking at couponing with the ability to be able to help other people makes the time it takes for me to learn how to do this more worth it to me.

Thanks Melanie, you really are The Coupon Goddess.

Go check out the $100 Carrabba’s Italian Grill give away that The Coupon Goddess is hosting on her site today.