Right before Wilson was born, my mom got me started in couponing. Spell check is telling me that is not a word, but pop culture will tell you that it is a well-worn word among thrifty moms these days.
I'm sure you've all at least seen clips of Extreme Couponing on TLC. You know, the ladies digging through the garbage cans for (gasp) paper money that some fool tossed away!
This is not how I roll. I do not have grocery store shelves in my bonus room, nor do I buy 10 Sunday papers. I'm more of a subdued, practical couponer.
If you like extreme, I'm not going to be much help to you. But, I would like to offer some advice to those of you who would like to get more for your budget.
1. (What should be most obvious) Have a grocery budget. A lot of couponers will tell you that you succeed if you save 80% or more at each shopping trip. While this is a great deal, you can still overspend as you are "saving." When we first got married, I would run home after a shopping trip and tell Andrew "I saved such-and-such percent!" and he would reply with, "Great... how much did you spend?"
2. Choose one or two grocery stores and one pharmacy to shop at. Again, I am being a rebel in the coupon world, but I have found it best to not worry with checking out every sale in every store every week... I like to keep it simple and fix my attention on just a few. My personal favorites for grocery stores are Kroger and Publix. My favorite for pharmacies is CVS.
3. Find an online helper. There are several great helpers, but the one I check at least once a week is {Southern Savers.} Jenny will tell you about all the sales each week and under each price she will list coupons that have been in the paper or give you links to printable coupons online. She will get an extra crown in heaven for all this work, I'm sure. It's incredible.
4. Buy two Sunday papers a week. Another conservative move on my part... sometimes we only buy one if the coupons don't look that great.
5. Cut the coupons that we will use. Another way I differ from the extreme world... I go though my coupon inserts once a week (usually) and cut out only the coupons that are for things that we actually use. I do not cut out coupons for items that I wouldn't buy if it were not on sale. For instance, I do not cut out chocolate-covered Oreo coupons because I do not want to be tempted to buy them if they are on sale. It's pretty standard around our house to not have convenient sweets laying around and I don't want to change our standards just because something is a good price.
In Part II, I will talk more about how I organize the coupons and plan out my shopping trips! I hope this is helpful. When I first started, I couldn't really find much advice for those of us who wanted to be practical couponers. So if you are not a dumpster diver... we just might be in the same category!
I tried couponing. I bought a paper and signed up for the Grocery Game. You know how many of those coupons I used? None. NONE.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just me, but I just don't get it. Most of the stuff that there are coupons for, I don't use/eat, and there generally aren't coupons for the things we do use/eat. One blogger I read, talking about extreme couponing, said something like, we get so into the excitement of saving so much money that we forget to ask if this is stuff we actually need.
I'm eager to read your next post about it and see how it's working for you.
Stacy Leigh, Thanks for the comment! I know that you guys are on a more restricted diet, so couponing may not be worth it for your family with groceries. However, if you are not too picky about brands for household products (like toothpaste, tooth brushes, razors, paper towels, toilet paper) then you may just want to do it for those sorts of things!
ReplyDeleteYeah, groceries are obviously a big part of it. We eat hardly any processed foods (soon to be none- going on an even more restrictive diet!), and "real" foods don't usually have coupons. For household products, I'm super picky about chemicals and I make a lot of our own stuff- cleaners, fabric softener, toothpaste, etc- from basic and non-couponable ingredients. I've actually found that to be cheaper (and much healthier) than using coupons.
ReplyDeleteAbout the only thing that I'm die-hard about and can use a coupon for is my charmin toilet paper, but that doesn't even make up for the cost of a newspaper. :)