Give, Give, Give!!

Once you get the hang of using coupons to maximize your savings, you will be amazed at how you can drastically reduce your grocery budget and at the same time buy more than you ever have before!! This might take several weeks to a couple of months, but I promise that if you stick with it you will get there. Once you have a good stockpile of groceries, toiletries, and cleaning supplies what should you do? I encourage you to GIVE!! Yes, it is wonderful to be able to have a stockpile for your own family (and I am in no way discouraging that), but it is also wonderful to be able to bless another family!! I started using coupons seriously in December, and since then I have been able to go through my pantry several different times to help a struggling family. This is what I pulled out of my stockpile this afternoon:



This is probably around $60 to $70 worth of groceries, but of course with coupons and sales I spent a fraction of that. I am not showing you this to say "Look what I did," but to really encourage you to think about doing the same. Can you imagine if every one of you was able to go through your pantry every 6 weeks/2 months and donate also? Don't you think we could make a HUGE impact on our city?

I have had people tell me that they don't have any idea where to donate. Here are some ideas:
-Call up your local churches and ask...I am sure that they have requests ALL the time for assistance. They would probably be more than happy to take donations
-Salvation Army
-Local Soup Kitchens
-Pregnancy Help Center (the women/families that they help are probably in need of foods/toiletries as well as baby supplies. For those of you who no longer have children in diapers, go ahead and print those diaper coupons out...if you can use them to buy a pack of diapers for a couple of dollars, think of how much that would bless a single mom who doesn't have money for diapers!)
-Think of families in your neighborhood. If you hear of someone struggling and you don't feel comfortable knocking on their door with groceries, put the bags of groceries there to surprise them...They might never know who blessed them, but you can be sure that the blessing will be tremendous in their lives!!
-People on street corners. I know that there is some controversy over this...I don't feel comfortable giving out money to people that I don't know, but a bag of grocery staples could go a long way in showing people that someone cares

Those are just a few ideas. I know that there are so many more. Look through your local phone book; talk to people at your local church; pray and see what happens.

I began using coupons so that our family would be able to stretch our one income and save more money. Not only are we able to save, but I think just as importantly, we are now able to GIVE!! I really encourage all of you to think about doing the same!!