Jill Cataldo

I've been doing this for only a couple months but what works for me is reading this forum/blog and others (like Mashupmom-blog, afullcup-messageboard, couponmom-messageboard, etc.) all week, make notes on what deals are coming up or currently running and get most of my papers Saturday from Menards. That way I can cut all my coupons Saturday when I have more time. I usually don't do my grocery shopping until Monday but will do Walgreens and CVS Sunday because it's more likely they'll be the first to run out of the good deals. Plus I like to use Walgreens RR at Jewel the next day!

Matchup sites like Savings Angel, Coupon Mom (Grocery Game is another one) are spreadsheeting the entire ad, and in some cases, the entire store, or many of the unadvertised/clearance sales. They will do matchups on everything, even what might not be the "hottest" deals of the week. I blog what I believe are the "best of the best," but let's say you want to buy pasta sauce this week - you "need" it. If it isn't super-cheap, I will probably not blog it. But the spreadsheets are going to blog everything and match it up for you, even if it isn't the "hottest" deal.

Make sense? Their shopping lists are often up by Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening.

Coupon Mom only blogs what's IN the ad (no unadvertised sales) and only matches up the insert coupons and major printables, not All You magazine or the individual manufacturers' sites, so she's a little different than Grocery Game or Savings Angel, which are going beyond that. Savings Angel is really the best of the three at scouring the web and all of the manufacturers' sites for individual printables, etc so that you don't have to. It really depends how in-depth you want your planning to be.

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As far as your statement that I have "better deals listed and more coupon options" -- I try! :) Thanks for the compliment.

I think that's the difference between writing a blog and creating a spreadsheet though. Many "deal of the day" blogs are aggregators -- they cut and paste their info from other boards around the web and don't actually try the deals out. I shop regularly at the stores I blog, and I like to make sure the deals are working before I write. And, there are some deals you discover only by visiting stores and doing them. I try to provide the best, quality information for my readers.

The question I hear often is why Mondays and not Sundays for "Deals of the Week?"

When I began blogging "Deals of the Week," it was always posted on Tuesday mornings (for about two years - my longtime readers will remember this!) as I wished to keep Sunday as a non-working day. It was extremely difficult for me to shop all of the stores' sales on Monday before I blogged about them, and still get "Deals" written up at a reasonable time on Monday -- plus, at the time, my "Deals of the Week" radio segment aired on Tuesdays, so the writeup went live on Tuesday mornings to correspond with that.

Over the past year, I did change "Deals" day to Monday instead of Tuesdays. My family deserves an enormous thanks for understanding that I have to give up most of my Sunday now to shop and write in order to get everything up by Monday morning.

I have had a lot of new users email me lately nearly demanding that I post the Deals on Sunday mornings. There is simply no way I could post Deals on Sunday mornings, because I not only need to get the papers, ads, and coupon inserts on Sunday, I then spend my day shopping at the stores and researching, writing down prices of anything NOT in the ad. Lately, Dominick's runs sales with none of the prices in the ad (the Buy 4, Save $4 cereal sale this week is an example.) I am not able to get those prices until the store tags the shelves and I physically go there to get them.

Another example - the Meijer vitamins sale looked good this week, but to really know if the B1G1F will overlap with the $8 Catalina before writing about it, I have to go to the store and try.

If I want to thoroughly blog the Sunday sales, there is simply no way to get the Deals up first thing Sunday morning -- those sales just started at the stores. And, there are often things that look good in the ad but aren't working once you get there. (More examples: Walgreens Lunchables sale looked like it had potential this week, but none of the sandwiches in the store's sale matched the coupons available - didn't blog it. Ditto the Dole Fruit Parfaits that are $1 in the Wags ad -- but none of the stores have them in stock. They'd be a steal at .25 each, but after learning that our area stores don't regularly carry them, I didn't blog it. I've learned from experience that if I DID blog deals like these that don't actually work once you get to the store... the "hate mail" just pours in. ["You said these were on sale but they weren't at my store and you made me waste gas!" Things like that. People who are just learning to coupon are extremely intolerant of deals not working.]

Then, I go home, sort through all of my notes, and write for hours. :)

So... that's probably more than you wanted to know about the backstory of what goes into blogging each week's Deals for you guys. I do post them as soon as the writeup's complete. If that's at 6pm on Sunday night, that's when they go up. They will -always- be up by 6am Monday morning, but they're often up hours earlier.