My Couponing Tips

Those of you who are my Facebook friends know I LOVE to coupon! I started about 5 months ago and haven't looked back since.  I absolutely love it and for a family of 6 on one income it has become essential to our family in order to have the things we need without breaking the bank.  As a mother I very often went without things so my kids could have what they needed, but that's no longer always necessary now that I am able to save so much money with couponing.  It also brings me a sense of peace because if something (God forbid) were to happen where my husband couldn't make an income I know that we have essentials stocked up and I won't have to worry about feeding my kids.  Some of you also know that I'm also addicted to posting pictures of my scores, I absolutely LOVE sharing these deals.  Each time I post deals I end up getting asked how I do it, so I end up sending out an e-mail that I created for one of my friends showing her how to coupon.  I have been asked so many times for these tips that I decided to post it here to make it easily accessible to anyone.  Hope you enjoy these tips and that it helps you save tons of money! If anyone ever has any questions please feel free to ask....and please note, these tips are in no particular order, just the order I thought of them for my friend...


#1 and most important: get organized-no matter which way is best for you, as long as you get an organization system down for your coupons. I started off in one of those file folders then as I got more coupons I moved to a binder with those baseball card pages in them, now I am in two binders-one for food and one for non food, then it's organized into categories, such as dairy, frozen and cans for food and oral care, feminine products, hair care for the non-food. I think i got like 11 categories per book

#2 start clipping, go ahead and start clipping coupons and getting them into your organizer...a good measure to go by is to buy one paper for each family member in your house, so I buy 4-6 papers each Sunday on average...of course, do whatever works best for your home

#3 start sales ad watching-grocery sales ads usually come out on Tues or Wed depending on where you live (here it's Wed) and all other stores come out on sundays, start looking at these sales ads every week and learning the prices, especially watching for really low prices. if it helps you start a price book where you write down prices on products from different stores, this will help if you aren't good at remembering the prices and will help you learn what a rock bottom price on an item is

#4 you can't always be brand loyal...while i won't buy just any brand because i have a coupon, i have expanded to using about 3-4 different brands in each product category, but when i find coupons on my favorite brands i'm in love!!!

#5 learn your coupon policies...not every store has a written coupon policy (like I know K-mart does not) but many of them do, go to their websites and print these and keep them in your coupon book...this helps for many reasons like 1)having it with you while shopping and the cashier is trying to tell you that you can't use a coupon but you know you can, pull out the policy and show them and most importantly: some stores have store coupons and will allow you to use BOTH their store coupon AND a manufacturer's coupon on one item, that's awesome for extending your savings power!!
Example: Publix here let's you use a manufacturer's and store coupon towards one item, i was in the store last month and found some listerine on clearance for $3, well I had a $1 off Publix coupon and a $2 off Manufacturer's coupon, I used them both and got the listerine for FREE!!!!

#6 don't just go out and buy a product because you happen to have the coupon, hold on to that coupon until the item goes on sale somewhere at a rock bottom or damn near rock bottom price that combining it with the coupon will make it a huge savings. BOGO sales and when items go on sale for $1 or less is awesome for this!!! of course you do have to watch the expiration dates on them though

#7, this goes with #6 some....basically, the idea is to never HAVE to buy the item, to never really run out. buy enough for anywhere from 6 months to a year (or whatever works best for you) when it goes onto that rock bottom price then just pull from your stockpile when you need stuff. like right now, i currently have about a years worth of body wash, body soap, deodorants, shampoo and conditioners....so i don't need any of those things for quite awhile so i won't worry about buying them until they go to a rock bottom price again since i already have them....sales do repeat themselves and you will start learning a pattern once you start reading the sales each week

#8 pace yourself at what's right for you.....what i bought above has taken me about 2 1/2 months to stock up on and still keep to our budget...when you're first starting i recommend buying what you NEED first then using leftover budget towards stockpiling....as your stockpile grows your NEED list will shrink and your focus will be on keeping up your stockpile or stockpiling items that you haven't done yet....like this month, my NEED grocery list was much smaller then it usually is so I have a much bigger grocery budget this month to put towards growing my stockpile since we don't need much, and for toiletries i have been rotating what i was focused on shopping for, like once i had 6 months worth of toilet tissue i changed my focus towards soaps, deodorants and shampoos

#9 CLEARANCE!!! I love clearance, so when i have the time, while i shop i will walk around and look for clearance tags...(oh and always carry your coupons, i have a bag for my books)....you never know what you will find on clearance that might match up with a coupon....like today i found some herbal essences hair spray on clearance for $1.12 each, well I had 4 $1 off herbal essences coupons, so I bought 4 hair sprays for .12 each, or one time i went to walgreens and found some nail polish on clearance for .50 each and i had .50 off coupons so i got FREE nailpolish!!!

#10 storage-since you will be having a stockpile you are going to want to think of storage for your items, right now the cabinet under my bathroom sink is where i stockpile all my bathing toiletries, paper items like tissue are lined up on the wall in that bathroom, over the counter medications are in a cabinet above my fridge and food i have stored in my bedroom on some shelving (which i'm running out of room on, gotta think of more storage solutions!)

#11 just thought of one more!! rewards cards...any stores that have rewards cards or email rewards SIGN UP!!! there are so many perks with the cards, like at CVS I earn tons of store coupons and get extra bucks towards items, and at kmart i get exclusive savings, plus earn points on all my purchases and those points convert to money, like right now i have enough points to equal $24, just for buying what i need anyways:)

and here are my favorite websites: www.thekrazycouponlady.com and www.coupondivas.com

www.iheartpublix.com   www.frugalfloridians.com

these sites have couponing tutorials and do coupon match-ups, coupon match-ups are those websites doing a lot of the work for you, they will take current sales and match them up with coupons that have come out in the paper (you won't always have the same ones though) or online printable coupons (you will have to download coupon printing software) and coupon divas is awesome because across the top of the page they have tons of stores listed and you just click on the store you want and that's where you will find your matchups, they also have links to coupons for clothing stores (which is where i got my back to school coupons from)