Ok, I have a few minutes here while the boys are playing, so I am going to quickly post a little how-to on coupon building. First, let me say that I am not 100% coupon clipping crazy (which isn't a bad thing like it may sound.) I try to do the best that I can with the time that I have and the resources available to me.
USING COUPONS
I have read many times in the past that using coupons is not really a good deal. The rational behind that is that if you buy a product because it has a coupon, when in reality, the price with the coupon is still more expensive than the store brand of that same item, you end up spending more money, not less. In regular-every-day-price land, this is usually true, and it is not worth using coupons, but in super-duper-sale-couponing land, it's not the case at all. The REAL deals to be had are because of a combination of sales, coupons, and rebates. You get this buy shopping the sale ads, using store and manufacturer coupons, and SENDING IN REBATES! (side note: Rebates are SO worth it! Don't kid yourself into thinking that they're not!)
Name brand items are usually where the best deals are. This is because, for the most part, these are the items that stores put on sale to lure you in, these are the items that manufacturer's offer coupons for, and these are the items that manufacturer's offer rebates for. The exception is when stores such as Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid offer their brand items free after rebate, Register Rewards, ECBs, etc. More about all of those in another post.
DEALS
Keep your coupons, even if it seems like it's for something that you would normally not buy (because it's too expensive for example.) I've found that many times, an item that I might not normally buy is well worth buying when a sale pops up before the coupon expires.
This of course only applies if it's something that you will use!!! This is something that I struggled with when I started couponing. I would get so excited by the thrill of getting things for so cheap/free, that I got things that I would never use. If you can't use it, or know someone else who could use it, don't get it. In my opinion, it's not being resourceful to stock your home with things you won't ever use, or to throw away something that isn't trash.
The ONLY exception I have to that rule is if I stand to make money off of something, even if I won't use it, in which case I donate it.
BUILDING A STASH
There are a number of ways to get the coupons.
1.) Sunday Paper: BUY THE SUNDAY PAPER! It is well worth the $1.50 (although it makes me sick to see all of the other bloggers talking about getting it for $1.00 or even less!) for the coupons in it.
2.) Online coupons: there are many online coupon sites (coupons.com, smartsource, etc) that offer a variety of coupons. They update these periodically, and they allow you to print each coupon twice, until they either reset the coupon, or put new ones up. More on these later as well.
3.) Manufacturer website online coupons: Many of the coupons that I use come off of the manufacturer's website directly. These are harder to find, but the blogging/couponing world has many MANY people who spend MANY hours finding these. They are usually included with sale match-ups.
4.) Loadable Online Coupons: Load online coupons directly onto your shoppers card. In this neck of the woods, it only seems to work for Kroger cards, but you can load coupons onto your shopping card, that will automatically be taken off of your grocery bill once the eligable item rings up. Upromise also has a variation of this, where the 'coupon' doesn't come off of your bill, but the amount of the coupon is deposited into your upromise account to go towards your children's college education. It doesn't save you money at the check-out line, but it saves money for the future.
5.) Coupon buying: Sometimes I buy coupons. That may sound like an oxymoron, but many times, a sale pops up when, with coupons, the items that I use a lot are able to be gotten for pennies. I want to stock up when those sales come.
The coupon buying sites offer multiple coupons for pennies each, which still makes the deal a very good deal, even after paying for the coupons. One site that I use is called the coupon clippers. They, along with other sites, often require purchasing a minimum number of coupons, and they also charge a service fee. So this only makes sense if they have a lot of coupons that I want, or I really want to stock up on something. I'll also post more about this later (whew, this to-do list is getting longer and longer.) You could avoid the cost of buying coupons by buying multiple stacks of papers. However, I have found that, for me, paying $.05 for a coupon that I need is far worth the hassle of buying 10 papers to cut all of the coupons out (GROAN...), and possible needless expense of spending $15 on papers, for only the possibility of using some of the coupons.
I have also bought coupons for formula from ebay before. I know many people who do that formula is VERY expensive and formula checks and coupons can be stacked together for some amazing deals on formula!
6.) Magazines: Often magazines will publish coupons. Most magazines are pretty hit or miss, so are not worth subscribing to on the off-chance that they may have a coupon that I could use. However, if you have never heard of All You Magazine, let me tell you! It is only sold at Wal-Mart, but it has TONS of coupons in it each month. I subscribed to it a couple of months ago because I've been hearing on various blogs about all the coupons it has, and I am so glad that I did. I took the money out of my grocery budget ($18), which made one week a little tighter, but I have a 2 year subscription! Plus I like the magazine, as does my Mother and Mother In Law, so I can pass it along, and easily make up the cost of it.
ORGANIZING COUPONS
When I started out, I had one of those mini acordian files that holds coupons (like the one my grandmother used to have.) I quickly outgrew that and moved to my current system, which is a little box. I made index cards for the different categories, and adjusted it as I learned what my needs were. I have categories for HBA, household/cleaning, baby stuff, freezer, refrigerated, baking, breakfast, pantry, beverages, etc. as well as categories for store coupons, 'use this trip' and 'expiring soon' to help me on my trips. I map out my plan of action before I go, gather my coupons, attach them to my list, estimate an OOP (out of pocket) estimate, plan my transactions if I will need to use multiple transactions, and then I bring my coupon box along for those unknown deals that pop up.
Ok, I hope this helps and especially, I hope that it makes sense. I am typing it while the boys are playing next to me, interrupting only occasionally (due to a fight or to ask me for juice or to un-twist the roll of painters tape that has become tangled up.)
If you have any questions or something is unclear, PLEASE comment so that I can clear it up or add to it. Also, I'll get to my to-do list later hopefully! Love you guys!
