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A few weeks ago I just happened to stream an episode of Extreme Couponing. For those in the dark, Extreme Couponing is the practice of aligning your manufacturer coupon with the store ad resulting in a very small output of cash at the register. On the show, people routinely pay nothing or less than ten dollars for hundreds of dollars worth of grocery items. We were smitten. Bradley is already pretty incredible with the coupons, but this show invigorated our whole family, and before we knew it Bradley was up in the office hollering around the house about different products we might want “FOR ONLY .35 CENTS?” And there was Gigi with her safety scissors diligently cutting out coupons. The problem we see is even if it is free, how much mustard and toothpaste do you really need? On the show people collect myriads of things they don’t need or can’t use. We won’t do that. Don’t worry.
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We decided to play around with coupons Lj style then. We embraced the couponing, but only for things we needed or could use. And no piles of candy bars and chips. Ever.

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This Spring Break we decided to put our EXTREME Couponing prowess to the test with a family date. How inexpensive could we make a trip to the mall? It started with a trip to Jamba where two smoothies totaled 5.00. Not exactly a barn burner, but it was a sale. From there, we went to Sbarro, where a coupon got us each a piece of pizza for a dollar. Gigi had to rock, paper, scissors for the big slice.

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We window shopped through the mall- which we NEVER do- and found this little Zelda game for .50 cents. SOLD! We headed to Aunt Annie’s Pretzels where, again, it was a dollar coupon for the four of us, and we spent another $4.00.

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We hit Starbucks before we headed outside, using gift cards from my students (free coffee) and sat down to enjoy coffee and pretzels.

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We ended our trip with a stop at Red Mango for some natural and delicious frozen yogurt. If you create an account with the company, you earn 5.00 just for signing up. Our frozen yogurt was free!

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If we hadn’t stopped at Ross (I love me some Ross, I’m telling you. I have the best one!) then our day would have totaled $13.50! Yes, $13.50 for two coffees, a new game, two smoothies, four pretzels, four slices of pizza and two frozen yogurts!
EXTREME!!!

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But mostly it was just a really fun family date.


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