Getting Organized

OK, now...here's the tricky part.  Once you start to get a paper, read all these couponing websites, and get all excited about how you can save all this money, you gotta get yourself organized or else you will quickly become too overwhelmed and want to just give up.

There's several options for organizing your coupons.  You can go through the coupons each week, clip the ones you want, and keep them in a letter-size coupon organizer similar to the one pictured here.  These things are cool because these days they make them such that you can velcro them to the shopping cart so they are easily accessible while you shop!  Awesome! :)

I've seen women walking around the grocery store with big 3-ring binders with coupons stored in the kind of page protectors you might expect to see baseball cards stores in...I am *not* that hardcore.  If you're looking for advice on how to get that deep into this couponing thing, you might be in the wrong place.  I can share how we save money, but we're not hoarders and we're not like the people you see on those "Extreme Couponing" shows.  :)

Another option (the method we use), is to keep a file box on hand (like the one pictured here) and file the coupon inserts by date.  We have a bunch of manila file folders, so I label them by month.  We started getting the Sunday paper back in January, so I have a file folder with the Smart Source and Redplum coupon inserts from the Sunday papers from each Sunday in January in one folder.  On each week's inserts, I put a post-it with the specific date (Jan. 16, Jan 23, Jan. 30...).  I also did this for the months of Feb. and March.  Some people use a separate file folder for each week, and that's probably a better way to do it, just in case the post-it falls off.

The reason for filing the coupons this way is that, when you go to Southern Savers and check out the upcoming deals for the week (I always go to her site on Thursday nights to get ready for the upcoming Sunday deals!), she will list the sales that are going to be happening, and underneath, she will list the coupons that will match that item and where to find it.

For example, if you are checking out the CVS deals and you see that they are going to have Herbal Essences Hair Care B1G1 (buy one get one free) and the bottles are $3.99 each, she might list that you could match this sale with a coupon like this:

RP 3/20 $2/2  Herbal Essences hair care

What the heck does that code mean?  Well, I'll tell you.  The RP means that you should go to the Redplum coupon insert.  3/20 means its the March 20th coupon insert.  $2/2 means that the coupon will say that if you buy 2 products you will get $2 off.  If the sale is B1G1 for $3.99, and you can get $2 off, you'll actually be paying $1.99 for 2 bottles!  Pretty good deal, in my opinion!

Anyway, I will get more into those kind of details in upcoming posts, but for now, I hope this is at least a little bit helpful.  Let me know if I need to explain anything further or if you have any different questions!

Sunday Papers...To Buy or Not to Buy?

This is a question that has very recently come up in our house.  We started subscribing to the Sunday paper (for the coupons) back in January.  Its worked well, except for a couple of weeks when, for who knows what reason, our paper has not shown up in our driveway.  Oh well.  On these random Sundays, I've gone to the closest gas station and bought a paper there...but at the gas station I have noticed that, for the same price, I can buy a paper with *double coupon inserts*! For the coupon geek in me, this is like finding free money or something!  So the debate now is...do we cancel our subscription and just go buy the paper w/the double coupons?  Or do we buy the double coupon edition of the Sunday paper in addition to the paper we get delivered?  Hmmm...I'm thinking it would be cool to have the extra coupons so we might just keep the subscription AND buy the double coupon edition as well.

Why in the world would we want all the coupons, you ask?  Well, once a coupon is used, its gone!  Stores will often run the same deal on the same product, though, and if its something you use and need often, its usually a good idea to buy it cheaply and stock up rather than wait until you need it and buy it for a higher price.  If you have more than one coupon for an item, you can get more than one for the good price.

Things like toilet paper, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, etc are things people always need...These are items you can honestly get for FREE many times at CVS and other drug stores if you use coupons and the store rewards programs correctly.  True, you might not need them rightthisveryminute, but you will eventually, right?  And if you're like us, you always have company who comes to visit who happened to leave behind their shampoo, their toothpaste....something.  Its nice to have extras on hand.  Plus, you can donate as often as you want without having to give away the oldest, grossest stuff you have. :)

Whether you decide to subscribe to the paper or just go buy one at the local grocery store or gas station...make sure you look for the ones with the double coupon inserts!  I promise, it'll be worth your time!

Next post:  How to best organize these coupons once you've started collecting them!

Couponing 101

OK, where to begin...

First of all, you simply must check out Southern Savers.  I know a lot of people talk about Coupon Mom but really...Southern Savers is a lot more user-friendly in my opinion.  Jenny is the girl who runs the site and she is so helpful.  You can search by store, check off only the items you want to buy, then print your list so you're not buying a bunch of junk you don't want to buy.  She has links to the printable coupons and even makes up "scenarios" to help you see exactly how to use the coupons to save the most money.  (This kind of thing is especially helpful with the drug stores.)  So anyway, check out her site, subscribe to her emails, and start small.  That would be my advice.  It used to take us @ 2 hours a week to get everything organized to go to the store, but once we got a good system organized, the time really cut back.  Now it takes maybe 30 minutes or so to prepare for a shopping trip and we always save at least 50%.  Its awesome.  I am so used to saving and using coupons that now I simply refuse to buy anything full-price. :)  Call me cheap, but that's just how it is.

If you'd like to see how I've used Southern Savers to save money at Target, CVS, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid, check out this link.  (This one page contains all the posts that talk about how I used coupons to save, so you won't have to search all over my blog for more info.)

One more thing...If anyone is interested in joining us as an author here to share their own couponing tips, please let me know!! 

Ta-Da!

Well, here it is!  I asked around, and it seems like most people want a separate place for the couponing advice so here it is!  I've made Chris a co-author here so he can post his coupon successes at the grocery stores (Publix, mostly, but also Kroger & Target) while I share how I save the big bucks at the drug stores (CVS, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid).  I sure hope it helps!  Thanks for following up and helping us keep up a healthy level of competition! :)