Introduction to Serious Couponing, Part One
During the last year, my shopping style has been dramatically changed. Every week I save as much or much more than I spend at the grocery store and drug store. Every week I walk away from these places loaded with free stuff and even having made money. How? The answer is couponing! In this blog post and more to come, I will try to summarize what I do, what blogs I follow, what resources I use, etc. I hope it will be helpful to you. Happy couponing!
Your first step is to rethink the way you spend grocery money. In order to save the most money, you will have to change the way you shop. Instead of making a grocery list and buying those items, I now do the following:
- Buy fruits and vegetables that are in season (i.e., what’s on sale)
- Match coupons with items that are on sale, on clearance, or that have store coupons for them as well
- Stock up on sale items (buy at least two of each)
- Make meals from what I have purchased
The second step is to collect coupons. At first, just collect all you can. After a while, you will get a feel for what is a good coupon and what isn’t.
Now let me explain where I find coupons:
- Sunday paper (these inserts are called SmartSource and Red Plum, as well as the P&G Brand Savor insert)
- The Internet (printables from major sites like coupons.com, smartsource.com, target.com, plus manufactures’ sites)
- Trade with friends who coupon (we have a MemberHub account set up and pass around information and coupons to each other)
- Sites like couponclippers.com and ebay.com (note many coupons state that you may not buy them; these sites will offer coupons for free and just charge shipping and handling. The fees you pay should be roughly the cost of a paper and stamp.)
- Others who do not use coupons (my mom is from a major city that has higher-value coupons available in the paper; she mails me the ones she doesn’t want).
- Peelies (sticker coupons on packages you buy)
- Blinkies (the little machines in store that spit out a few coupons at you)
- Magazines (All You is the best, but usually others have coupons in them too)
- Store coupons (many stores issue their own coupons and many store allow using a manufacturer’s coupon plus on of theirs on one item. This is called stacking).
- Kiosks in front of the supermarket (many have free booklets loaded with coupons)
- Junk mail (or send away for coupons along with free samples)
The third step is to organize your coupons. I put mine in a big binder. I will post some pictures so you can see what it looks like. If you use one of those little accordian bookets or something else, just make sure you have your coupons at your fingertips and know what is where. Every month, you will have to go through and clean out the expired ones.
The fourth step is to know store coupon policies. Many times you can just google this and find the answer quickly. Every store is different. For example, Target releases their own coupons and allow you to stack them; however, you can only do this one per transaction. Walmart does price matching, under certain conditions. CVS has their own program called Extra Care Bucks that seriously maximizes your savings (and is not for the faint-hearted). Walgreens just recently changed their corporate policy to only accept one coupon for a BOGO (buy one, get one free) sale instead of two (bummer). But by far, Publix is the best. They accept competitor’s coupons, allow two coupons for BOGO sales, allow stacking, and are in general amazing and awesome.
This is how couponing works: A coupon is like cash from the manufacturer. They reimburse the store the face value of the coupon plus some. Coupons are good for stores because they actually make more money from them than they do from your pocket. So don’t feel bad to use coupons. Just obey the coupon rules and be happy that in this situation, everybody wins (especially if you get hooked on a product—then the manufacturer will be happy too).
In addition to clipping coupons, I apply for rebates. These rebate forms can be found in magazines or on the web. All the time, products are being advertised as “try me free” … so why not do it? It just costs a stamp and a little time. Also, there are many “earn a $ gift card when you spend $ on [Kraft, Con-Agra, fill in the blank] products.” These rebates are especially good; they give you the chance to maybe try new products and usually you can do so by spending very little OOP (out off pocket).
In my next post, I will explain I make a grocery lists and what online sources are the best for finding incredible deals.
