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!
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. :)
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!
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