I’m in love with couponing.

Tonight I made a run to Walgreens and Giant Eagle.

Walgreens had some great sales this week along with coupons –

Transaction #1:
1 Aussie shampoo @ $2.99
1 Aussie conditioner @ $2.99
2 Oral B indicator toothbrushes @ 2/$4.00

Used $2.00/2 Aussie coupon from 9/13 insert
Used BOGO coupon for the toothbrushes from 8/22 RP
Used $2.00 register rewards on hand

Out of Pocket = $4.00
Received $4.00 in register rewards back!

Transaction #2:
1 trial size Thermacare heat wrap @ $2.49

Used $2.00 register reward from Trans #1

Out of Pocket = $.50
Received $2.50 register rewards back!

Total OOP (before tax) = $4.50!
Total register rewards left over = $4.50!!

Beauty.

So, I was feeling good already. Off to Giant Eagle, where it got even better.

I had been planning to stock up on some Campbells condensed soups, as they had them on sale for $1.00 each and I had a bunch of Campbells coupons from the 9/13 coupon haul, which (after they double the coupons) would mean the soup would be $.60-$.80 a can. Then it kept getting better!

I had seen that they had 5 packs of kraft mac n’ cheese on sale for 2/$6, which is a good price already. Then I noticed that they had peelie coupons on the packages – $2.00 off oscar meyer hot dogs, which were already on sale for $2.50!!!

I left Giant Eagle with 10 boxes of macaroni and cheese, 14 cans of campbells soup, and 2 packages of oscar meyer hot dogs for $17!! My cashier was marveling at the cheapness.

Are you sold on coupons yet?? :)

If you’re still learning the ropes, Keeping the Kingdom First has a $5.00 Walgreens challenge every week – click here to see this week’s post so you can visit the other blogs that are linked up and see how they do it!

This is a continuation of our series on the Sermon on the Mount – if you missed them, you might want to go back and catch up here.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy. Matthew 5:7

Before we get into this beatitude, let’s define mercy. I found the definition of this word in the back of my study Bible to be very helpful and interesting:

The outward demonstration of the Christian character is shown in ‘mercifulness’ (eleos). This is the missionary and altruistic attitude of the Christian in empathizing with the unbeliever and suffering with him the consequences of his sin, and doing everything possible to relieve the tragic results.

Mercy is an area that God has grown in my life. In the past, I have found myself many times sitting on the hill with my pal Jonah, rooting for God to destroy all those wicked people who deserve what’s coming to them. If you haven’t read Jonah recently, the story doesn’t end so well for our prophet friend. He’s sitting on a hill, throwing a fit and saying he wants to die because God took away the nice weed whose shade he was enjoying (he was sitting on the hill in the first place hoping hundreds or thousands of people would be destroyed.) God showed mercy to the people of Ninevah, and Jonah was infuriated – what’s worse, he was hot! Sounds like a fit my 3 year old would throw!

Unmerciful “religious” people are nasty. Think of the Pharisees who were angry because Jesus was touching sinners. They were so full of their own self-righteousness that they failed to understand that they themselves were sinners, desperately in need of the mercy of God. Because they thought they deserved God’s favor, they showed no mercy to those they felt did not.

In his whole Bible commentary, John MacArthur states,

“A person who shows no mercy and compassion for people in need demonstrates that he has never responded to the great mercy of God and, as an unredeemed person, will receive only strict, unrelieved judgment in eternal hell.”

You see, if we are truly poor in spirit, if we recognize the depth and weight of our sin and mourn over it, we begin to understand the undeserved favor, the mercy, that God has shown to us in Christ. When we see what He has done for us, we will begin to show mercy to others. [Jesus' parable of the unmerciful servant is a fantastic illustration of this, as well.]

Remember what mercy is: relieving the tragic results of sin. Empathy, a willingness to enter into their suffering and relieve whatever harmful consequences we can. Mercy is costly. You don’t necessarily get anything in return other than pain and suffering that was earned by someone else.

Unlike God, who balances justice and mercy perfectly since He is completely holy, we Christians struggle with this. It breaks my heart to hear believers speak callously of the homeless, of those on welfare, of those suffering due to deep and destructive addictions. While it is true that we need to be careful not to enable sinful living, are we being merciful? Are we attempting to alleviate the tragic consequences of sin?

When was the last time we (speaking to myself, too!) worked in a homeless shelter? When was the last time we saw someone hungry and gave them something to eat? When was the last time we gave time, help, and tender compassion to someone who as being ripped apart by their own bad decisions?

We live in a broken world. Entering into the lives of the broken means that we are going to get dirty, it’s going to hurt, it’s going to be messy. And they don’t deserve it.

But if you have received mercy, if you understand what God has done for you even though you didn’t deserve it, if you are one of the blessed ones, you will be growing in the area of showing mercy.

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:3-5

*Picture from wikipedia.org

I am a relative newcomer to couponing. Even though I am extremely frugal, I resisted couponing for years – I wondered if it was really worth it. Once I started, though, it became addictive – the combination of frugalness and strategy with bringing home bags of stuff and saying to my husband, “guess how much I paid for this??” was irresistible! Here’s my method of organizing and utilizing all those goodies.

1. I clip every coupon. Even ones I think I’ll never use in a million years. Why? Because occasionally you can get things so cheap (or free!), that even if we don’t need it I buy it anyway and store it or give it away.

2. I usually buy 2-3 Sunday papers per week for the coupon inserts. I go through the inserts in sets so I can stack the identical coupons together – less sorting later, and I can put single pages of the inserts on top of each other and cut out two pages at once.

3. After I pile up all of my treasures, I enter them into my coupon database – an excel sheet with columns for brand, amount, expiration, source, and store (if they are specific to one particular store). Since they are already in stacks, I can copy and paste the rows for identical items. After they are all entered, I sort the whole document by brand, expiration, and amount.

4. I file the coupons alphabetically by brand in an index card file (with letter dividers I found at Dollar Tree.)

Now, this does take some time to clip, sort, enter, file, and use the coupons. I find utilizing this system to be helpful, however. When I first started couponing, I had a small stash of coupons and I pretty much knew what I had on hand. Currently, however, there are 732 coupons stuffed into my coupon file – clearly I don’t remember what I have.

When I sit down to look through the weekly store circulars (I only use coupons when a store has a sale on the same item – I have found that just using a coupon on a non-sale item or purchasing sale items without a coupon rarely brings the price lower than what I would pay at Aldi), I pull up my coupon spreadsheet. It’s quick and easy to scan the circular for good deals and scan my spreadsheet for what coupons I have.

I have also found it helpful to be able to sort my spreadsheet by expiration date, in order to weed out expired coupons or know which high-dollar coupons are expiring soon.

Do you have a coupon organization system that works well for you? I’d love to hear about it!

For more Works for me Wednesday, hop over to WeareTHATfamily.com

Image via Wikipedia

Today we are continuing on with our series on the Sermon on the Mount – if you missed them, you might want to go back and catch up with Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, and blessed are the meek

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Our next “beatitude” is from Matthew 5:6,

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

What do we typically hunger and thirst for?

When I was pregnant, I didn’t have terribly strong cravings – none of those middle of the night ice cream runs.  One thing that I definitely wanted both pregnancies, though, was meat! NP still laughs about one occasion when we were driving to my parents’ house and had gone through the Wendy’s drive-thru for frostys. When he pulled up to order, I suddenly decided that I wanted a bacon cheeseburger instead of a frosty. “For dessert?” he asked incredulously (I have quite a sweet tooth). A bacon cheeseburger was absolutely what I wanted for dessert!

I was thinking about people who were known for their cravings in the Bible – two popped into my mind, neither of whom I would want to be equated with.

Esau’s physical cravings led him to trade his birthright for a bowl of stew. Hebrews 12:16 warns,

“See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.”

Why is sexual immorality tied to Esau selling his inheritance? Sexual immorality, like Esau’s poor decision, is a sin we fall into when we follow our physical cravings.

The other individual who came to my mind was Samson. Samson, to me, is the ultimate example of almost limitless potential thrown away because he could not control his flesh. He craved what had been prohibited. He did what he wanted and it destroyed him, and a lot of people with him.

Our physical cravings will always mislead us. Our flesh screams to us, “this is the only thing that will satisfy!” And yet, it’s a lie. A lie we buy into over and over and over again. It fails to satisfy us, so we go back for more and more and more – more sexual promiscuity, more food, more thrills.

I’ve been personally convicted lately about the lack of discipline in my eating habits. As I discussed in the post Soul Hunger, I think part of the reason that fasting is so prominent in the Bible and in the lives of people who are wholly devoted to God is that it pulls us away from being at the whims of our physical cravings.

When I’m stressed, discouraged, lonely, bored, frustrated, etc – I have a tendency to eat. As I stated in Soul Hunger:

How often do I come to a place of realizing that I am empty and incapable, and instead of realizing that the hunger in my soul is for God, I stuff a cracker in my mouth? When I am emptied of myself, do I long for His the comfort of His presence, or for an oreo as my comfort food?

Obviously physically our bodies need food and water to survive. But are we eating to satisfy legitimate physical hunger, or are we masking the symptoms of spiritual longings for His presence? Only God can satisfy our soul “as with the richest of foods.”

Notice what Jesus says: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

The Psalms are full of references to spiritual cravings for and true satisfaction in God.

•As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness;
I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake. (Psalm 17:15)

•As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42:1-2)

•God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. (Psalm 63:1-5)

When we long to behold God’s face in righteousness – when we long to see Him for all that He is and submit our lives to Him in obedience – that is the source of true satisfaction. The satisfaction of soul that all of us long for.

What are you craving? What do you yearn for above all else? There’s only one thing that will satisfy you.

If you find yourself wrestling with food addiction, sexual purity issues, or substance abuse, I have heard excellent things about the free online Bible studies at SettingCaptivesFree.com.