Planning is Half the Battle

There is a movie entitled A Bridge Too Far that depicts the failed WWII military engagement that was intended to turn the tide of the war.  It failed because of poor planning--plain and simple.  Everything that could go wrong, went wrong and there were no contingencies that allowed for the failures.  I have found that my coupon trips are much the same.  Planning truly is half the battle.  When I am organized and have properly planned, my trips are fantastic!  Even if there are a few computer/cashier errors, I am calm and cool and sometimes even catch them before I pore over my receipt in my car.  How do I plan?  Simple.  

1. Gathering Intelligence - In Google Reader, I follow several blogs and websites that detail the hottest deals coming up in the stores in which I shop.  All week long, as I check my email, I email myself those blog posts that pertain to the upcoming week.  Then, when I am ready to plan, I pull up all of those emails and compile a list of potential deals that I may want to do.  

2.  Mapping Out The Battle - I use a planning spreadsheet in Excel that figures out my OOP expense after sale and coupons and the eventual cost of each item once rebates have been given.  My CVS spreadsheet even helps me to plan for each transaction.  My stockpile is extensive enough at this point that I only do the deals that are too good to pass up, produce completely free items, make me money, or are for items that I may be getting low on.  So, my spreadsheets help me to do the math quickly without too much brain work to determine whether or not a particular deal is worth it.

3.  Staging the Battle- Then, once I have printed out my spreadsheets, I gather the coupons for that store and that week.  These coupons are placed in a special pocket within my binder (I have one pocket per store).

4.  Executing the Plan - As I walk through the store, I have my spreadsheet in front of me and as I grab the item and place it in my cart I pull out the accompanying coupon and set it aside.  If I have more than one transaction that I plan on doing then I place the coupons in separate piles.  

So there you have it.  Planning is everything.  This upcoming week is a pretty big week at both CVS and Walgreens.  I will spend most of my time at CVS because I ended up using some of my ECBs a bit frivolously this week so I need to build them up again.  I have about $12 in ECBs and I am hoping by the end of the week to be back up to around $30.  We shall see.  Wish me luck!  TTFN!