Reader Spotlight – Food or Gas?

Today’s Reader Spotlight comes to us from Kathleen. Kathleen was in about the toughest financial situation that we can imagine, and couponing helped her through it. I love a happy ending…sniff, sniff!!

Take it away, Kathleen!

My couponing adventure began out of the need to figure out how I was going to feed my family. My ex husband quit paying his alimony and child support and due to governmental cuts my job was cut from full time to part time..ALL AT ONCE!

So, for many weeks I would have the hard choice of buy food or put gas in my vehicle to get to work. Fortunately for myself I could eat at work for free so I only had to worry about my child. I had couponed in the past, but only had used them for cosmetics or hair products and I knew there had to be a way to maximize my savings on groceries.

In the beginning I would scan the Publix ad and then compare the sale items to the weekly coupon inserts, it was a bit tedious to say the least, I would be going back and forth between the two and I knew there had to be a better way. Then one day at Target I learned they had their own coupons and you could stack them with a manufacture coupon, I was able to get about $50 woth of toilet paper and toiletries for $6.00, I was estatic!! Then I started thinking, what other stores do this, and began to read all the stores coupon policies and was pleasantly surprised Publix also stacked coupons.

Through all my investigative work I came across I Heart Publix website and it TOTALLY changed my life. Within a few months I was able to feed both of us and had a small stockpile beginning, that took such a load of my chest. I had felt like such a failure as a parent for not being able to provide the basic neccesities for my son. Since I began couponing two years ago I have not had to worry about where our next meal is going to come from and have been able to give food to my friends and neighbors who have fallen on hard times and donate items to my local food bank.

I cant thank you enough for all your hard work that goes into this website, it has made such a major impact on my life!

Thanks for sharing your story, Kathleen! 

I could really use a few new volunteers for the Reader Spotlight – so pretty please with a cherry on top…please write in if you have a story to tell! Your post can be about almost anything to do with couponing. You can tell us about a particularly good or bad situation you’ve dealt with as a couponer, about how you got into couponing or how couponing has impacted the rest of your life, you can make a list of things every new couponer should know…just about anything, really! If you think it’s interesting and it has to do with couponing, email me with your idea at contactiheartpublix @ gmail.com.

This is one of my favorite features on the site! Be sure and check out all the past Reader Spotlights HERE.