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People often ask me about my tricks on how to save money. I am an incredibly frugal person and not just because of necessity. I just genuinely like getting a good deal and knowing I didn't pay too much. Here I am going to give you my best tips on how to get started using coupons and how to make it work for you. I am not an "Extreme Couponer." I don't have stock piles of cat food in my bedroom closet, and entire basement filled with sports drinks. I have found a way to use coupons and be able to save about 50 -75% on average on my grocery trips.
First things first, you need to get organized about it. There is no point clipping a bunch of coupons and shoving them in the junk drawer or your purse and hoping you remember to use them.
Get an organizer. In the past I have used one like the picture on the left. But as I got more devoted to coupons I decided on a mini 3 ring binder. It's half the size of a normal 8.5 X 11 binder. I filled it with sheet protectors and got some stick on tab labels. Then I thought about my typical grocery store of choice and labeled the pages by aisle categories. Then I just put the pages in Alphabetical order. (Ex. Baby, Baking, Breakfast, Cleaning etc.)
Get an organizer. In the past I have used one like the picture on the left. But as I got more devoted to coupons I decided on a mini 3 ring binder. It's half the size of a normal 8.5 X 11 binder. I filled it with sheet protectors and got some stick on tab labels. Then I thought about my typical grocery store of choice and labeled the pages by aisle categories. Then I just put the pages in Alphabetical order. (Ex. Baby, Baking, Breakfast, Cleaning etc.)
This is my binder on the left. It is small enough that I can put it in my purse to take in and out of the store. It's also happy colors and flowers which makes me feel a bit better about being the crazy coupon lady. The binding has broken a bit so I duct taped it with some mustache duct tape we had in the house. It works and that's really all that matters!
So after you get your binder, organizer or whatever you choose then you can begin accumulating your coupons. My suggestion would be to get one newspaper. You will easily offset the cost of getting a subscription to one paper. Most newspapers will have an offer for weekend only, Sunday only or Sunday and another random day. My local paper does Sunday/Thursday which I chose for $12 a month. I easily save double that in coupons in a month so it's definitely worth it. The next place to get coupons is online. It is important to not go crazy with online coupon sites. Unless you get free paper and toner for your printer you don't want to print all the coupons out there. You will never offset the cost of printing pages upon pages of coupons when toner prices are so expensive. The second is with apps on your phone or by logging into the stores website. Many stores now will allow you to "load" coupons to your rewards or frequent shopper card. These are AWESOME!
Here's an example of how it works, I will log into ShopRite's website with my username and password. Under my profile I have loaded my ShopRite card member number. I can click on their coupon section on their website and see any "e-coupons" they have. I choose the ones I want, but most of the time I just load them all because I don't have to print anything and it doesn't cost anything. When I go to the store and check out I just hand the cashier my regular ShopRite card I have always used and they automatically take the coupon discounts. Most places will allow you to combine ecoupons with paper coupons. It's the only time I know of that you can use more than one coupon on only one item.
So with all the options out there, all the websites, all the different stores how do you choose? It's not easy and does take some effort but here are some rules that I live by with couponing.
1) Be Loyal. - Many stores, ShopRite for example reward you for the spending more in their store. ShopRite has a baby club where if you spend a certain amount of $$ on baby items you get $10 off your next shopping trip when you reach the threshold. They also offer different promotions during the year, "if you spend X between 3/1 - 4/30 get a free Ham or Turkey." They run lots of smaller ones if you spend $10 on certain brands get $2 on your next shopping order. If you are keeping all or most of your transactions at one store you will most likely get the most bang for you buck with rewards specific to your purchases. The stores than print out what coupons call "Catalina's." I have no idea why they are called this but they are like bonuses to me. Spend the money on the diapers you were going to buy anyway and get $10 to spend on anything you want, even more diapers. Other stores just simply tell you on your receipt you have reached the threshold and then on your next trip you just let them know you want to use your "free holiday item" or "baby bucks" or whatever your store has.
2) Sign up for Rewards. - This should go without saying but if you shop at almost any grocery store there is probably a frequent shopper, loyalty program, whatever you want to call it. Sure if you don't have their Super Saver Member card they will put in the "store card" for you but then you are missing out on all the rewards from what I mentioned in #1.
3) Learn to Earn more. - Some stores will double or triple coupons. Some do not. Most stores if they double don't double anything over $1. Example, if you buy toilet paper for $6 and you have a coupon for $0.75 off, if a store doubles you are now getting $1.50 off. So the same toilet paper is now $4.50. Also it is important to know if you store limits the amount of coupons you can use in one transaction. If you store only allows 25 coupons per transaction you may need to split your order into more than one transaction. Some stores will match competitor pricing as well. For instance you normally shop at say Target, but you found out that ShopRite is offering pasta sauce for $0.30 cheaper and you have a coupon for that item. Instead of driving to two stores to get the best pricing if Target price matches you can bring the flyer from ShopRite and show them the price and they will match it and you can still use your coupon. Knowing your stores policy is very easy. Simply ask at customer service, go to their website or check the fine print on their weekly flyer.
4) Check the Flyers - Check your weekly sales flyers and see what is on sale ahead of time. Plan your meals around the sales items. And find out which stores have the items on sale that you need. Find out what coupons will match up from online, e-coupons or the coupons from your paper. Then pull those coupons aside if you know you are going to by them so there is no fumbling in the store trying to find the coupons.
5) Combine for Maximum Savings - You will find that a lot of stores match their sales to what coupons are in the Sunday paper. So the toilet paper you bought in the previous example for $6, might be on sale for $5 plus you have that coupon for $0.75 that doubles, you are now getting the toilet paper for $3.50. That's almost a 50% savings than if you waited to purchase the toilet paper when you needed it and it would be $6.
6) Stock Up - Now I'm not suggesting that you start a crazy stockpile that takes over an entire room of your house. But I would suggest you stock up on items you know don't go bad or that you will most definitely use up. Examples, toilet paper, tissues, laundry detergent, cereal, Pasta etc. When these items are on sale and you have a coupon buy more than you need or buy them even if you don't need any RIGHT now. You will need it and you will use it.
7) Do the Math - Sometimes things just aren't as good of a deal as you think. Stores now usually give you the break down of "unit cost" on the label. This makes it super easy for you to compare apples to apples. Sometimes the store brand is cheaper, and sometimes its not if you have a coupon. Volume is important! Things that are perishable are not good to stock up on. You don't want to put in all this effort to save money and throw money away because you thought buying 17 cans of spam was a good idea because it was on sale. Break it down, If you only eat Spam on rare occassions maybe once every few months how much Spam would you really eat in a year (or two I think Spam lasts longer than a year.) Maybe only 3-4 cans. How long is it going to take for you to eat 17 cans? There answer is you can't because they will expire before you can eat them. Remember if you've made one of these impulsive decisions most stores will allow you to return unopened items. Or better yet, you can donate those items to a local food pantry!
8) Rainchecks are your friend - What is a raincheck? A raincheck is when and item is on sale in your store but it is out of stock. You can go to the customer service desk and ask for a raincheck. Most stores will give you a piece of paper with information about the item that they will honor the sale price when they happen to get the item back in stock. Example, ShopRite does a can-can sale every year. They drastically reduce many items (not just cans) to allow people to stock up for the year. Tide detergent pods were on sales for less than half price. Already an awesome discount! But I also happened to find online some coupons for $2 off their new type of pod they just released. I happened to be able to get a couple of the coupons online and in my paper. This is certainly and item I will use and being able to get the much better quality Tide than the store brand is awesome. When I got to the store, they only had 1. = ( So I went to customer service and got a rain check for the few more I needed. By the time they got some in, the sale was over but the coupon was still good. So I got the sale price and used the coupon and got the same deal about 2 weeks later.
9) Spend Some Time - You don't have to spend hours upon hours. You don't have to do a marathon shopping spree and stay in the store longer than any of the employees. But spending maybe about an hour clipping your coupons, picking the one online you need to print, and loading e-coupons may take you an hour. Do it while you are watching TV. My husband helps me cut up the coupons while we are watching cartoons with our son after breakfast on Sunday mornings. You'll need to spend maybe an hour compiling your grocery list while you plan your meals for the week based on the flyer sales & what coupons you have and combine that with what you have in your pantry. After you start doing this a few times you will see it takes less time, you get to know your "inventory" in your pantry and house. You will also know off the top of your head what items you need for certain recipes and whether or not you have them available.
10) Be Flexible - It is impossible to have the perfect shopping experience. You make your meal plan for the week. You load and clip all your coupons. You make your list and are able to actually get to the grocery store alone with no distractions and have no time limits on when you have to leave. The store has every item in stock you want and everything is easy to find. You get to the check out, none of your coupons are expired and all of them scan without any issues. It can happen, but days like that are rare. That's why I say be flexible. Maybe you go to the store and decide you are having chicken one night, but they don't have enough packaged and ready for you to buy for the two meals your plan. Or the roaster chicken you were going to buy is pretty much out of stock unless you buy the 20 pound bird that would feed an army. Then you see they have some sliced beef on managers special that says use or freeze today. So you grab that instead. So that chicken and broccoli with cheese casserole just became beef stirfry with broccoli. Also look out for stuff in the clearance section of the store and also the Reduced produce section. Then you can adjust your meals according to the best sales you can find. Or sometimes you don't intend to buy body lotion. But you go into the store and happen to find a bottle of it in the clearance section because the cap is broke or something like that. And you remember you have a coupon for that particular brand. You don't need lotion right now, but your going to get the item for less than half price, so it's worth it to stock up on it. You also can not be married to a brand. You can't walk into the store and say I'm only buy Hellman's Mayo. Maybe Heinz has a mayonnaise that is on sale and you have a coupon. But don't go completely AWOL on your grocery list either. Don't go into the store find out toilet paper is on sale and Ketchup and walkout with a cart full of that and nothing else. You've officially blown your entire weeks budget and now have to dip into the savings or the NO NO credit card to buy your family dinner for the week. Do what makes sense for you. If you really don't have any money to stock up with week because of an unexpected bill than stick to the immediate needs and don't buy any "stock up" items.
I hope these tips help get you started and make couponing seem a bit less intimidating knowing now what works for me. If you have questions feel free to contact me or comment!
So after you get your binder, organizer or whatever you choose then you can begin accumulating your coupons. My suggestion would be to get one newspaper. You will easily offset the cost of getting a subscription to one paper. Most newspapers will have an offer for weekend only, Sunday only or Sunday and another random day. My local paper does Sunday/Thursday which I chose for $12 a month. I easily save double that in coupons in a month so it's definitely worth it. The next place to get coupons is online. It is important to not go crazy with online coupon sites. Unless you get free paper and toner for your printer you don't want to print all the coupons out there. You will never offset the cost of printing pages upon pages of coupons when toner prices are so expensive. The second is with apps on your phone or by logging into the stores website. Many stores now will allow you to "load" coupons to your rewards or frequent shopper card. These are AWESOME!
Here's an example of how it works, I will log into ShopRite's website with my username and password. Under my profile I have loaded my ShopRite card member number. I can click on their coupon section on their website and see any "e-coupons" they have. I choose the ones I want, but most of the time I just load them all because I don't have to print anything and it doesn't cost anything. When I go to the store and check out I just hand the cashier my regular ShopRite card I have always used and they automatically take the coupon discounts. Most places will allow you to combine ecoupons with paper coupons. It's the only time I know of that you can use more than one coupon on only one item.
So with all the options out there, all the websites, all the different stores how do you choose? It's not easy and does take some effort but here are some rules that I live by with couponing.
1) Be Loyal. - Many stores, ShopRite for example reward you for the spending more in their store. ShopRite has a baby club where if you spend a certain amount of $$ on baby items you get $10 off your next shopping trip when you reach the threshold. They also offer different promotions during the year, "if you spend X between 3/1 - 4/30 get a free Ham or Turkey." They run lots of smaller ones if you spend $10 on certain brands get $2 on your next shopping order. If you are keeping all or most of your transactions at one store you will most likely get the most bang for you buck with rewards specific to your purchases. The stores than print out what coupons call "Catalina's." I have no idea why they are called this but they are like bonuses to me. Spend the money on the diapers you were going to buy anyway and get $10 to spend on anything you want, even more diapers. Other stores just simply tell you on your receipt you have reached the threshold and then on your next trip you just let them know you want to use your "free holiday item" or "baby bucks" or whatever your store has.
2) Sign up for Rewards. - This should go without saying but if you shop at almost any grocery store there is probably a frequent shopper, loyalty program, whatever you want to call it. Sure if you don't have their Super Saver Member card they will put in the "store card" for you but then you are missing out on all the rewards from what I mentioned in #1.
3) Learn to Earn more. - Some stores will double or triple coupons. Some do not. Most stores if they double don't double anything over $1. Example, if you buy toilet paper for $6 and you have a coupon for $0.75 off, if a store doubles you are now getting $1.50 off. So the same toilet paper is now $4.50. Also it is important to know if you store limits the amount of coupons you can use in one transaction. If you store only allows 25 coupons per transaction you may need to split your order into more than one transaction. Some stores will match competitor pricing as well. For instance you normally shop at say Target, but you found out that ShopRite is offering pasta sauce for $0.30 cheaper and you have a coupon for that item. Instead of driving to two stores to get the best pricing if Target price matches you can bring the flyer from ShopRite and show them the price and they will match it and you can still use your coupon. Knowing your stores policy is very easy. Simply ask at customer service, go to their website or check the fine print on their weekly flyer.
4) Check the Flyers - Check your weekly sales flyers and see what is on sale ahead of time. Plan your meals around the sales items. And find out which stores have the items on sale that you need. Find out what coupons will match up from online, e-coupons or the coupons from your paper. Then pull those coupons aside if you know you are going to by them so there is no fumbling in the store trying to find the coupons.
5) Combine for Maximum Savings - You will find that a lot of stores match their sales to what coupons are in the Sunday paper. So the toilet paper you bought in the previous example for $6, might be on sale for $5 plus you have that coupon for $0.75 that doubles, you are now getting the toilet paper for $3.50. That's almost a 50% savings than if you waited to purchase the toilet paper when you needed it and it would be $6.
6) Stock Up - Now I'm not suggesting that you start a crazy stockpile that takes over an entire room of your house. But I would suggest you stock up on items you know don't go bad or that you will most definitely use up. Examples, toilet paper, tissues, laundry detergent, cereal, Pasta etc. When these items are on sale and you have a coupon buy more than you need or buy them even if you don't need any RIGHT now. You will need it and you will use it.
7) Do the Math - Sometimes things just aren't as good of a deal as you think. Stores now usually give you the break down of "unit cost" on the label. This makes it super easy for you to compare apples to apples. Sometimes the store brand is cheaper, and sometimes its not if you have a coupon. Volume is important! Things that are perishable are not good to stock up on. You don't want to put in all this effort to save money and throw money away because you thought buying 17 cans of spam was a good idea because it was on sale. Break it down, If you only eat Spam on rare occassions maybe once every few months how much Spam would you really eat in a year (or two I think Spam lasts longer than a year.) Maybe only 3-4 cans. How long is it going to take for you to eat 17 cans? There answer is you can't because they will expire before you can eat them. Remember if you've made one of these impulsive decisions most stores will allow you to return unopened items. Or better yet, you can donate those items to a local food pantry!
8) Rainchecks are your friend - What is a raincheck? A raincheck is when and item is on sale in your store but it is out of stock. You can go to the customer service desk and ask for a raincheck. Most stores will give you a piece of paper with information about the item that they will honor the sale price when they happen to get the item back in stock. Example, ShopRite does a can-can sale every year. They drastically reduce many items (not just cans) to allow people to stock up for the year. Tide detergent pods were on sales for less than half price. Already an awesome discount! But I also happened to find online some coupons for $2 off their new type of pod they just released. I happened to be able to get a couple of the coupons online and in my paper. This is certainly and item I will use and being able to get the much better quality Tide than the store brand is awesome. When I got to the store, they only had 1. = ( So I went to customer service and got a rain check for the few more I needed. By the time they got some in, the sale was over but the coupon was still good. So I got the sale price and used the coupon and got the same deal about 2 weeks later.
9) Spend Some Time - You don't have to spend hours upon hours. You don't have to do a marathon shopping spree and stay in the store longer than any of the employees. But spending maybe about an hour clipping your coupons, picking the one online you need to print, and loading e-coupons may take you an hour. Do it while you are watching TV. My husband helps me cut up the coupons while we are watching cartoons with our son after breakfast on Sunday mornings. You'll need to spend maybe an hour compiling your grocery list while you plan your meals for the week based on the flyer sales & what coupons you have and combine that with what you have in your pantry. After you start doing this a few times you will see it takes less time, you get to know your "inventory" in your pantry and house. You will also know off the top of your head what items you need for certain recipes and whether or not you have them available.
10) Be Flexible - It is impossible to have the perfect shopping experience. You make your meal plan for the week. You load and clip all your coupons. You make your list and are able to actually get to the grocery store alone with no distractions and have no time limits on when you have to leave. The store has every item in stock you want and everything is easy to find. You get to the check out, none of your coupons are expired and all of them scan without any issues. It can happen, but days like that are rare. That's why I say be flexible. Maybe you go to the store and decide you are having chicken one night, but they don't have enough packaged and ready for you to buy for the two meals your plan. Or the roaster chicken you were going to buy is pretty much out of stock unless you buy the 20 pound bird that would feed an army. Then you see they have some sliced beef on managers special that says use or freeze today. So you grab that instead. So that chicken and broccoli with cheese casserole just became beef stirfry with broccoli. Also look out for stuff in the clearance section of the store and also the Reduced produce section. Then you can adjust your meals according to the best sales you can find. Or sometimes you don't intend to buy body lotion. But you go into the store and happen to find a bottle of it in the clearance section because the cap is broke or something like that. And you remember you have a coupon for that particular brand. You don't need lotion right now, but your going to get the item for less than half price, so it's worth it to stock up on it. You also can not be married to a brand. You can't walk into the store and say I'm only buy Hellman's Mayo. Maybe Heinz has a mayonnaise that is on sale and you have a coupon. But don't go completely AWOL on your grocery list either. Don't go into the store find out toilet paper is on sale and Ketchup and walkout with a cart full of that and nothing else. You've officially blown your entire weeks budget and now have to dip into the savings or the NO NO credit card to buy your family dinner for the week. Do what makes sense for you. If you really don't have any money to stock up with week because of an unexpected bill than stick to the immediate needs and don't buy any "stock up" items.
I hope these tips help get you started and make couponing seem a bit less intimidating knowing now what works for me. If you have questions feel free to contact me or comment!
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