Here's the deal.

I'm on a diet.

Yep.

I'll be going back to the place of my birth on February 14th and part of that trip involves picking out bridesmaids dresses for my sissy's upcoming wedding. This is a fabulous thing as I love shopping and I love her and it's glorious all around! The issue is that when I was at my ideal weight of 132lbs at my 5'5" frame, I was twenty-three. Two years later and I am at 149.4lbs and I have to be picking out bridesmaids dresses

Not only that but I no longer fit in a good 2/3 of my wardrobe. This, of course, irritates the living bejeesus out of me - I don't want to spend all that money on new jeans and bras and shirts! Eff that! Along for the ride is the fact that my doctor says my vitals are all awesome except for cholesterol.

Yooou heard me right.

Twenty-five.
High Cholesterol.

I was as flip-shit as you are right now, I promise you.

So this is vanity, monetary needs, and health all mixed into one.

What does this matter to us, you may be asking yourselves. Coupie Newbie, this is a blog about coupons! One that you haven't updated in too long of time, may we add!

Well, dearest readers, you're right. I have neglected you and this blog and for that I apologize. It was very cruel of me. I will wholeheartedly admit that the holidays dampened the soul somewhat, with two weeks of no coupons and then missing possibly the biggest haul of the year. Never mind that! Let us forget my betrayal!

Instead, this will become my diet blog and, with that, how I coupon in order to remain healthy.

That's right: healthy couponing.

It's slightly more difficult but entirely possible. I will be doing this.

As a word of warning: my ideas on what consists of 'healthy' may differ from yours, readers. The things I eat or how I exercise may be seen as extreme or not extreme enough. This is perfectly okay; our bodies are all different and our dietary needs are far from uniform.

With that warning I will add that I went from 190.5 lbs before to 132 within a year doing exactly what I will be doing now. This works for me, from the food down to the exercise regime. I won't be starving myself nor will I be working out two or three hours a day. I cut out many things and exercise portion control along with daily exercise, no matter how little. This is my method, it's what I will be doing, so if you see I am adding, Gods forbid, real sugar to my coffee, stuff it.

You don't want me without my sugar.

This started yesterday, O Readers Of Loyalty. This is a month long endeavor that will hopefully continue past my trip. I know it is highly unlikely I will reach my goal, but as long as I can fit into those damned sparkly jeans, I am alright with that.

Also, I'm going to start swearing a little. Can't lose weight properly without swearing.

Until next time, readers!

I promise I'm not THAT broke.

Okay, so there were some concerns about one of my statements in the first post - the comment about being shampoo-free.

I promise, I can afford shampoo. It's around five bucks for a bottle without coupons or a sale and my hair is short but truth is, I've been looking into using alternatives for a long time now. I googled "shampoo alternatives" and up popped How to "No-Poo" Shampoo Alternatives. I decided to try it because why not - I lived by myself and I live at work, so if it turned out to be super gross, no one would see and it wasn't something a five minute shower couldn't fix.

Well - turns out I love it. My hair was all soft and lovely and long story short, I like it. I've been doing it for about two and a half months now. Even my sister reacted in something like horror when I told her (and promptly ate her words after I dried off my hair to reveal awesomeness). Disbelievers: 0, Coupon Newbie: 1. Ha!

That out of the way, I did the first shopping trip with coupons thing yesterday. I'm sorry to say I didn't look at the screen while it was being rung up so my POM coupons didn't go through (despite me double-checking with the cashier verbally) and didn't notice until I got home. That said, I still saved almost twenty-eight dollars.

Not all of it was couponing! Some of it was, others were from in-store sales. I'm still new and am totally expecting these mistakes, so I'm not too put out by it. Serves me right and I'll be triple-checking everything as they ring it up. Even with that, I still consider the trip a success.

Giant was having a sale on new Bailey Creamers, two for three dollars. I like Baileys, I needed creamer, and I had none of those illusive .75cent off International Delight coupons that are apparently crawling over the internet somewhere. (If anyone has some, send them my way, please.) So even without coupons, they were the cheapest (and hopefully the most tasty!) even if they were the smaller size.

On a fifth, closer, look, it appears as if she missed three of my coupons and I was too worried about being a pain in the ass to pay attention to the screen. Well - now I know. Pain in the ass is better than not getting the four dollars off. Sigh.

Either way I made it out with ten boxes of Pasta-Roni, twelve cans of soup**, two boxes of Super Pretzals, two Chavrie Goat Cheeses, two POM drinks, and four Baileys Creamers for under thirty-five dollars from the 63.20$ it would have been before sales and what coupons were scanned. Also, I got 2.50$ coupon for my next shopping trip, so that's cool.

Walgreens or CVS is tomorrow, I'm not sure which. Maybe both. Maybe neither. It's very possible I'll feel too lazy after work to bother going. Either way, I'm doing my best to make a list, check it twice, all of that good cliche stuff.

The coupons will rise again!



**Apparently 'condensed' means 'add water, stupid' and it's very possible to burn tomato soup. The story is less hilarious than it sounds.