Just one tip for the clean up: You can do all the oil smearing-mixing-dressing-stirring plus roasting on a foil lined cookie sheet. When they’re done, just throw away the foil and your clean up should be very minimal.

With your current list of ingredients can I recommend two dishes? One, Egg Drop Soup with some shredded carrot and onion, Two, Cajun Dirty Rice: browned ground meat (you don’t need too much meat, mostly for flavor and fat), cooked rice, onion (or onion powder) and garlic powder. Salt and pepper to taste.

I would find out what the corporate coupon policy is for the stores you shop at. Often stores have “rules” that aren’t in sinc with what the corporate policy is and you need to educate the managers of what is allowed. It is not always fun, but not only will you be helping yourself, but many others that shop there save money.

I have a question — how are you able to use so many coupons at once? My local SoCal markets usually have a limit of 2 -3 coupons per person/transaction. It looks, from your receipts, as though you are able use as many multiples as you have. I have had cashiers prevent me from using more than 2 . . . Thanks for this fabulous reading and inspiration!

I don’t think that I am being more efficient – in fact, I am probably getting a bit lazy in the sense that I can afford to get things now that I would have never considered the first month.

There are a number of factors for this. The biggest is probably that my restrictions are a lot less severe than they were that first month (looking back on it, I’m surprised that I managed as well as I did). Being able to use more than coupons from 2 inserts makes a huge difference. Being able to forage has also meant that I haven’t needed to buy as much fruit.

I also started the second month with a bit of a base rather than with nothing which is another huge benefit. I’m trying to build up a cushion because there are times when there are no real good deals and I want to make sure I can still get needed items when that happens.