There’s using coupons and couponing…. If you use coupons when you think to, or when you’re at the store and have some that’s using coupons. If you gather coupons, stock up on them, hold on to them until there’s a stack worthy sale, and constantly get items for free, or nearly free, you’re couponing!
In the beginning it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed! Think of it as learning to read or starting a scrapbook, you can’t put every photo you’ve ever taken into one book. You can’t pick up Hemmingway the first time you pick up a book. Once you get the hang of it, you learn to pick and choose the best books for you, the best photos for your book and once you pick up steam, there’s no stopping!
In the beginning it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed! Think of it as learning to read or starting a scrapbook, you can’t put every photo you’ve ever taken into one book. You can’t pick up Hemmingway the first time you pick up a book. Once you get the hang of it, you learn to pick and choose the best books for you, the best photos for your book and once you pick up steam, there’s no stopping!
Getting Started:
The paper arrives Sunday morning, what do you do? First open the paper, and pull out the coupon inserts. Then...
The paper arrives Sunday morning, what do you do? First open the paper, and pull out the coupon inserts. Then...
Don’t cut out ever coupon! When should you cut?
- Will your family use the product?
- Is it something you can donate?
- If you get it for free would you try it?
- If you can’t say yes to any of the above, set it aside and swap it with friends!
Don’t get so wrapped up in the deal that you get stuff you don’t need or won’t use!
After you cut, organize!
You can organize your coupons in many ways…. Coupon binders, folders, photo albums, etc.
I do not recommend using coupon filers. Your coupons easily get buried, lost, forgotten about when you can’t easily see them! Instead, use your coupon filer to sort by store!
After you cut, organize!
You can organize your coupons in many ways…. Coupon binders, folders, photo albums, etc.
I do not recommend using coupon filers. Your coupons easily get buried, lost, forgotten about when you can’t easily see them! Instead, use your coupon filer to sort by store!
Before you shop:
Do NOT feel you have to use every single coupon you clip right away. Manufacturers want you to use a coupon the second you get it, because coupons are usually released during “off” sales cycles. If you watch closely you’ll notice that stores cycle their offers
Do NOT feel you have to use every single coupon you clip right away. Manufacturers want you to use a coupon the second you get it, because coupons are usually released during “off” sales cycles. If you watch closely you’ll notice that stores cycle their offers
*Know the system:
-Every grocery store (and even super centers) has a cycle. Most products you purchase will hit their “BOTTOM” price in 6-12 week cycles. Know what “full price” is. What a “sale price” is. And what the “Rock Bottom” price is for the items you buy.
Example: Product | Full Price | Bottom Price | |
Total Cereal | $3.58 | $1.99 | $1.49 |
-How do you know you’re getting the best deal or the bottom price? This will vary based on your personal thoughts are.
Change Your Thinking
Building up a stockpile is the biggest key in my opinion to really seeing a HUGE reduction in your grocery bill! When an item is on sale and you have a coupon for it, then STOCK UP. Don’t buy one or two…. Buy as many items as you have coupons for or can find coupons for. Meaning, you can’t be a couponer and get one or two newspapers a month. If a newspaper has coupons for products that you buy, don’t buy one paper, buy 3, buy 5, ask neighbors friends and family for their inserts!
So when you find an item on super sale or at its bottom price, buy a many as you have coupons for! If that's 10, then great. The more you stock up, the less likely you're ever going to have to pay full retail price again for that item. Once you build a well rounded stockpile you'll really only need to spend money on produce, milk and any other perishables.
So when you find an item on super sale or at its bottom price, buy a many as you have coupons for! If that's 10, then great. The more you stock up, the less likely you're ever going to have to pay full retail price again for that item. Once you build a well rounded stockpile you'll really only need to spend money on produce, milk and any other perishables.
Most of the time it's best to buy the smallest product you can find and pair it with a coupon. When I first started using coupons I did not realize this. I would buy the biggest bottle of Laundry detergent, the family size shampoos and conditioners and then wonder why my bill hadn't really gone down. Lots of times the smallest size products will be FREE after the coupon! Free is FREE and regardless if the product is smaller- it's still FREE! If you have lots of coupons and buy enough of the smaller items, then soon enough it will add up to the larger item... BUT you will have paid a lot less!
The Rules
1. DON'T be brand loyal...try new products, and be opened to purchase products you don't normally use.
2. Stockpile which basically means if you're getting a product at a rock bottom price get TONS of them even if they wont be used right away. Great things to stockpile are canned goods, cleaning products, toothpaste, paper goods ext.
3. Buy a few newspapers that way when a good deal comes your way you don't have to just buy one and this will help with rule #2 as well.
4. This is by far the best advice we can give that has helped the most. Buy the smallest size possible that the coupon will allow. For example if we have a $1 Charmin coupon we'd by the 4 pack or some stores sell just one roll for .98....so with 12 coupons we could essentially get 12 rolls FREE. We did this the other day with Old spice body wash coupons. We had 4 $2 off 2 body wash purchases. The coupon didn't exclude the travel size (which some coupons do)... so we went to Walmart and bought 8 travel size old Spice body washes that would have cost us $1 a piece for FREE!!
5. Another good lesson we've learned is to always check different product boxes before throwing them away. A lot of times there are different rebates going on or other promotion where you might need the UPS. Also some products have coupons on them as well...sometimes hidden inside the box. We cut out the UPC from our Colgate toothpaste and sent them in last month to get FREE Sponge Bob automatic toothbrushes!
7. Sometimes you have to buy products you don't need to get products you do. Now this rule might seem like a hard one to understand. Here is an example- The other day we went to Walgreen's because they had a great promotion going on. You had to buy 10 Gillette shaving products and you would receive $5 back to use in the store. So we went in and got 10 of the cheapest shaving gels-- which were $2 a piece for a total of $20. Well Walgreen's had a store coupon for $1 off each shaving gel which brought the total down to $10 plus we had 10 $1 off manuf coupons bringing the total down to nothing but tax!!!:) So we then used the $5 in another transaction to get 4 FREE newspapers to get more coupons. So we walked out of there with 10 FREE shaving gels that we didn't need, but 4 FREE newspapers that we did!!
10. Coupon overage is Great. It lets you get other products you want and don't have a coupon for at a better price. Example: We buy the travel size clean and clear at Target for $1, but have a $2 coupon...so the additional $1 goes to other products. This also is another reason for rule #7.
HOW?
How?? It is really putting two concepts together:
How?? It is really putting two concepts together:
1. Product prices fluctuate on cycles normally 6-12 weeks long. When an item is at its lowest price in that cycle you want to buy enough of that item to get you through until it comes back on sale. An example, your family eats 1 box of cereal a week, so you buy 6 boxes when it is on sale to get you through the sale cycle.
2. When it is a rock bottom price you use your coupons to reduce the price even lower. Grab some extra copies of coupons that you will use a lot of by purchasing more papers, getting friends papers, or buying the individual coupons online.
That’s the basics! Pretty simple and yet so many of us have never put these things together.
If I don’t have you convinced let me spell it out with money. You can buy 1 box every week for 6 weeks, or buy all 6 boxes on sale. 1 box @ $3.00 x 6 weeks = $18
1 box @ $1 x 6 boxes = $6
That’s one product and you have saved $12. Now think of the other 200 products that the average family buys a month. Even if you didn’t have coupons for all of your items, if you wait until the product is on sale to purchase it you are still saving.
Want some more tips to save even more?
1. SAVE ALL coupons or inserts from the Sunday paper. You can cut select coupons you know your family will use or ones your likely to use. Save the ones you don't for a friend or for an unexpected find! One SMOKIN' deal I can think of is this: A Blood Glucose meter was on sale for $20 giving back a $10 coupon (can't remember if this was a walgreens or cvs deal). An insert had a coupon that was $20 off/1 Glucose Monitor. You paid NOTHING for the product, and got a $10 kick back!
2. Start to shop buying only the things that are on sale and using your coupons then. Also when an item is on sale you STOCKPILE. Some sites recommend 12 weeks worth because that is the common time it takes for an item to come back on sale. That's great if you have the space, if space is your problem, you may not be able to get that many. It will take time to build a stockpile, but once you have it started, you won't have to pay non-sale prices for things!
3. If you don't have a stockpile built up, you can make a menu for the week based on what is on sale that week at the store. In May, June and July when everyone is grilling out retailers have BBQ sauce, ketchup, etc on sale. Grill out 3 times a week if you want! But remember with these shelf stable
4. If you know that you are going on a trip or having a special event in the future start a separate stockpile early for those items so that you are not paying top dollar just because you are on vacation! Why pay $4.99 for a 12pack of soda at the beach that you could get at CVS a month earlier for $1.33 each seems crazy!
5. Give up what brand loyalties you are able.
Couponing has enabled our family to try many new products or new to us products for free or nearly free! While I love my specific type of toothpaste my kids and hubby go with the flow and will use whatever! You may have always loved Tide laundry detergent, but when you can get All for $.99 for a 50oz+ container, you may rethink that Tide! If you stock up on a bunch of products for free and find you don't like them, you can always donate them!
6. Store Brands Are Cheaper.....NOT!. National brand items bought on sale with coupons become incredibly cheaper than house brand items. That was a hard lesson to learn after years of automatically grabbing the house brand item. When you have no coupons or are in a pinch, maybe this is the case, but when you're shopping "Stephy Smart" you're looking for the sale to pair the coupon with! Store Brand Cereal may be $1.79 vs. $2.39 for a name brand. When you add a $.50 coupon, the store brand is still better, unless your store doubles! Then you're paying $1.39 for cereal as opposed to $1.79 for the non-name brand!
7. Save your receipts! You never know when a manufacturer will release a rebate on items. I keep my reciepts in a file fold organized by store. I can look through them as needed for any returns I have, but I can always use them when there's a rebate available too! You'd be surprised how many times you've unknowingly bought items that can be used for a rebate. Beer companies are HUGE on this. They'll offer a $10 or $20 rebate when you buy ____ Beer and $20 worth of snack foods, plates, cups, condiments, ice, etc. You generally don't need to buy them on the same receipt. So you make your purchase, then go through your file of receipts and chances are you've bought all of this stuff (hopefully for free or nearly free) and you can get an extra $20 back! WOOHOO!
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Organizing:
I get asked frequently by readers and by people in the store how I keep my coupons organized. Here's my method of attack.Supplies:
(1) 3.5 inch Binder (If you're a new couponer you don't need to start this big).
(1) Pkg of Baseball Card Holders
(1) Set of Sturdy Divider Tabs
(1) pkg Page Protectors (optional)
(1) pkg Page Protectors (optional)
1. After I get my newspaper coupon inserts the first thing I do is put each "like" insert together in a pile. (Red Plum in one; Smart Source; P&G; etc). Aft er I've got the inserts separated I got through them and put matching pages together. I make sure the front and back of each page is the same to make it easier to cut the inserts in a timely fashion.I hold the matching coupon pages firmly in my hand and cut all sets of the same coupon at the same time. 2. After the coupons are cut you need to put them somewhere. I've found that if you file coupons in a filer or envelope they get lost, expired or are difficult to find. I've also found that if you over complicate your coupon categories it makes it very difficult to find a specific coupon when you need it. I separate my coupons in to one of eight categories, and I've tried to arrange them in a method by which most stores group their items. The eight categories are as follows:
a. Beverages and Produce: Whether it's coffee, tea, soda, juice, a rebate for beer/wine, etc this is where it goes. If it is a drink in some way, shape or form it goes here. Beverages can be spread throughout the store, so putting this section at the front of a binder helps make it easy to find the coupon you need when you need it. Produce is grouped with this because there are so few produce coupons available usually and the produce section is generally the first section of a store you walk in to. b. Dry Goods: This is where I put any shelf-stable items like canned goods, pastas, rice, bread, spaghetti sauces, condiments, etc. These items are generally in the middle of the grocery store.
c. Breakfast, Snacks & Baking: These aisles in the supermarket are generally grouped right alongside one another. You'll find cereals and poptarts in the same aisle as fruit snacks. Then an aisle over is the baking mixes, spices, oils, etc. I found I was always in these aisles consecutively so I grouped the items together. I also include any chips or shelf-stable dip coupons here.
d: Refrigerated/Frozen: Rather than having to worry about whether or not something is meat or dairy or fish or dessert, I just put anything cold here! he frozen stuff is always together this way and I can easily find my refrigerated items as I stroll through the store.
e: Cleaning & Paper Products: Whether it's Windex or paper towels to wipe the Windex away, I have anything cleaning related goes here. I also have any air fresheners grouped here, again because of their general proximity to cleaning products in the store.f: Personal Care: Toiletry items, toothpaste/brushes, feminine hygiene, hair color, shampoo, razors, diapers, etc.
h: Pet Care: Even if you don't have a pet, there's always really great coupons available on pet products. Why not see what you can get for FREE or nearly free and make a donation to the Humane Society?!
i: Miscellaneous: This is where coupons for toys, candy, or any other random 'stuff' that doesn't fit in my other categories.
CONFESSION: I don't cut every coupon, and there's weeks where I just don't feel like cutting coupons at all. That is why I have the full size page protectors. I put coupons I haven't clipped yet, or ones that I'm just holding on to until someone needs them or there's a great deal for! These go at the very end of the book. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organizing and Getting Ready to Head Out:I personally lug my coupon book with me every time I head out. I have it in a large tote bag that I use to carry it in. I have it facing so I can see and read the tabs from the opening in the bag. That way if while I"m shopping I come across a good price or a clearance find I can instantly check to see if I have coupons to pair it with!
Before I leave the house to head to the store I look at the coupon match-ups and make my list. Rather than writing down what things are on sale I sit down and write out my list with the coupons.
Example:
6 Birds Eye Steam Fresh Vegetables
4 Coffee Mate Coffee Creamers
5 Del-Monte Vegetables
Then I paper clip the coupons in that order to my shopping list. Then if there's items I don't have coupons for, but know I need I write those at the bottom of my list. I put the list and paper-clipped coupons in my coupon filer and head out! I have 1 slot in the back of my coupon filer that I use to put any coupons I come across while shopping. Whether they be tear pads, blinkies, etc. I put them in the back of my filer and then slide them into my organizer binder once I get home! Clear as mud right?!
