This week we’re going to hear from Erica from over at Super Steals, who has a great story that really demonstrates just how much you can accomplish with couponing!!

My name is Erica Rodriguez. I’m 26 years old, and I’m a save-aholic.
I got hooked about a year ago, when my husband and I decided we wanted to travel to some major destinations before having kids.
First stop? Egypt.  Sounds crazy, I know.
How do two newlyweds in their mid-twenties, with entry-level salaries, student loans hanging overhead and little-to-no savings afford a fancy vacation like Egypt?
Sure, the word “easy” would fit beautifully right here. I would love to say that, along with: “It’s simple!” “Piece o’ cake!” “Nothin’ to it!”
Sorry! That would be lying.
Here’s the truth: Saving money to pay for a trip like Egypt in cash takes work – lots of work. (Yes, I said cash. Imagine that!)
Still, it’s totally do-able – no matter what your budget looks like right now – and it will change your life. It’s worth the work.
We agreed to put away $150 a week in a special account designated for travel. My husband went online and set up a weekly transfer from our regular checking into that new account to hit on Fridays. We even picked a debit card that has a planet earth on it (‘cause we’re nerdy like that) and plan to take the card with us on the trip.
We had a little under a year to save, so our goal was $6,000. With the help of our awesome travel agent, Elsa Duarte at Business Travel Advisors in Coral Gables (who happens to be my Mom), we could do two weeks in the land of the pharaohs for exactly $6,000 total, a.k.a. $3,000 per person, air and land included for 14 days.
She found us a killer rate on a couple of plane tickets, booked us for a few days in Cairo, a week-long Sonesta cruise down the Nile, a few days at a beach resort on the Red Sea, private tours and another few days in Cairo. Did I mention we have an awesome travel agent?
Ok. Now, we have an agreement and a dream itinerary. So, where the heck do we come up with $150 a week to just put away?
I started at the grocery store.
We were spending just over $100 per week on groceries and even more on dining out.  I’ll guess the dining out spending was hitting around $120 a week – sometimes more. That’s $11,440 per year on food.
It’s just the two of us and our puppy named Mili. There’s no excuse for that kind of spending on feeding two humans and a 25-pound dog. As a matter of fact, all the spending was happened before the dog – so, it was all on just two people! Ouch!
Something had to change.
I went online, checked out my grocery store’s Web site, and voila! They have a weekly ad that tells you everything that’s on sale that week! I also found dozens of blogs dedicated to teaching people like me how to save money at the grocery store.
I felt like I’d been living under a rock. All this time, I’d just go to the store, grab a few “buy one get one free” items and load the cart with whatever my little heart desired.
Not anymore! I use a seamless system of saving on groceries that helped generate at least 50 to 60 percent of the money we needed for Cairo.
Coupons are part of the system. Meal planning is part of it. And I do a bit of stockpiling – not a ton, because we don’t have the storage space.
I now spend about $60 to $70 per week on groceries (sometimes it’s as low as $30 or $40) and save even more than that. My receipt typically says something like: “Spent $68, saved $65.”
We also cut our dining out budget down to a mere $60 per week. For the most part, we’ve stopped going out during the week. But we still go to our favorite restaurants on weekends. The only difference is now I take a coupon or gift card with me almost every time!
We left for Egypt in May — wrote a big fat check and were on our way. It really was the most amazing vacation EVER! We spent 16 days touring the entire country of Egypt. It was an unbelievable and unforgettable experience. Here are a couple pictures:

Next stop??? Greece!!

Thanks so much for agreeing to be in the spotlight today, Erica!
In order to keep this new feature going, you all are going to have to volunteer to tell us all about something YOU do when you are couponing!! Your post can be about almost anything to do with couponing. You can tell us about a particularly good or bad situation you’ve dealt with as a couponer, about how you got into couponing or how couponing has impacted the rest of your life, you can make a list of things every new couponer should know…just about anything, really! If you think it’s interesting and it has to do with couponing, email me with your idea at contactiheartpublix @ gmail.com!