Couponing: Some Helpful Hints

This is a follow up to my Since I'm Behind post on our major budget overhaul and my venture into couponing. First, I absolutely LOVE when you leave comments-about the boys, couponing, whatever. It's fun to hear from you. :) Second, I'm almost finished with my Captiva post (Promise!), which includes tons of pics of the boys for those of you who are not here to read up on the latest in couponing.

A, you asked about how couponing works with meat and produce. I originally assumed there were few or no coupons out there for meats and produce. However, they are occasionally available both on line and through your Kroger card, which you can load onto your card from kroger.com. Just last week Kroger sent me a coupon book in the mail that included several; one was for a free bag of salad. Since I started back in May, I've always had coupons for lunch meat, bacon, and sausage I cut out of the newspaper inserts. As far as steak, chicken, etc, I only buy those on sale (better yet, clearance), then freeze them if I need to. If you 'like' the coupon blogs I've listed below on fb, they'll alert you to produce coupons when they're available. Driscoll's puts them out pretty often on line.

M, it's nice to meet you! B remembers you from the AFC and I appreciate the blogs/sites you suggested. Money Saving Mom is a great one I had not seen, so thanks for the tip. :)


Abbreviated Run Down on My Couponing Tactics

Binders
I have my coupons sorted and filed in 2 one inch binders; one for food and one for non-food. I use baseball card holders and dividers. (You can buy baseball card pages at Office Depot and dividers are $.97 per pkg at Wal-Mart. I bought 3 pkgs of dividers and probably have 40 baseball card pages.) This way, I have all of my coupons in view so when I find some random something on the clearance table, I just turn to that section in my binder to see if I have the coupon and I’m not having to thumb through a million stacked coupons, trying to find something I don’t even know I have, all while 2 busy toddlers are begging to ‘help’. It’s also easy to clean out expired coupons b/c I fold them where the expiration date is either visible from the front or the back.

Here is a list of my tabs, which I keep in alphabetical order.

Food Binder: Baking Goods, Bread, Candy, Cereal & Breakfast, Chips, Cookies & Crackers, Dairy & Eggs, Drinks, Frozen Foods, Fruits & Veggies, Meats, Pasta, Sauces & Dressings, Snacks (Misc.), Syrup & Spreads

Non-Food Binder: Baby, Bathroom, Deodorant, Feminine, Kitchen, Laundry, Make Up, Medical, Miscellaneous, Oral Care, Paper & Plastics, Pest, Pets, Shampoo, Shaving, Skin Care, Soap

My Favorite Coupon Blogs

www.coupondivas.com (My fave, probably b/c it’s the first one I used.)
At the top the names of the store are listed. Click on the store you want and the coupon match-ups will come up. Also, if you just go to the website and scroll down, you’ll see all sorts of deals from retail coupons to grocery deals to 80% off of restaurant gift cards. (I bought 2 a couple of weeks ago; $25 gift card to The Lemon Wedge and $25 gift card to La Riviera for a total of $5.00.)

www.couponing101.com

www.survivingthestores.com

Both of the above also have coupon match-ups and are great sites. Jenna told me about them and I liked them on fb, so I see when good deals/match-ups are available almost instantly through fb. Like coupondivas, too, for the same reason.

Some Basic Info:(I'm still learning!)
-You’ll rarely use coupons the week they’re put out b/c the best use of them is when the product on the coupon is on sale so you get the coupon + sale for the best value. So hang on to them until the last minute if you have to, then you won’t have wasted money and can still get the item with the coupon if it doesn’t go on sale.

-Cut out EVERYTHING (okay, I skip denture cream and Depends, but that’s about it) b/c even if it’s something you wouldn’t usually buy, you may have a change of heart if it’s on clearance or part of some promotional deal like Buy 10, Save $5 that Kroger often has. EX: I found a $9 bag of Purina One dog food in the clearance bin at Kroger. I would never pay $9 for 5 lbs of dog food, but…it was marked down to $2.99 and I had a $2 off coupon, so I walked out with it for $.99. Also picked up a sample size of the same stuff at Walgreens another time for free, since it was marked down to $1.99. You just never know.

-It’s good to know how much you’ll pay for an item such as dog food, so I’ve taken a few min to calculate them ahead of time so I don’t get excited about a coupon and end up paying more just to use it (coupon skeptics often state that as the reason they don’t coupon). EX: I pay $.50/lb or less for dog food. Always. If my coupon doesn’t get the cost down less than that, I can head on over to Wal-Mart and pay full price, which still costs me $.50/lb or less (Purina). Know how much you spend per diaper, too. Those Huggies and Pampers coupons look good, but almost never get the price of the diaper near Luvs or store brands; even when on sale.

-I’ve started a spreadsheet (Don’t be too impressed, it only has a few items on it. :) of some of the things we use all the time and the dates they go on sale so I’ll know how much to buy during the sale. Ex: I only pay $1 for Pepperidge Farm goldfish (less now that I’ve been collecting $.35 off 1 pkg-Kroger will double that-in preparation for the next sale), so I need to know how often Kroger (and Target) run their goldfish sale. If it’s only every 6 weeks, then I need to buy 6 weeks worth when they’re on sale to keep from paying double that in between. Diapers are another one on my list.

-Different stores have different coupon policies so you’ll need to read up on that. Coupon Divas (www.coupondivas.com) has the coupon policy for each store listed. Go to their site and click on ‘view more’ at the top of the page in the ‘Weekly Match-Ups’ box.

-Target: They allow you to stack coupons, which means you can use a Target coupon (from the paper or online) + a manufacturer’s coupon, so you can save A LOT with this, including freebies! Once again, shop sales for the best value.

-To get Target coupons, go to www.target.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘coupons’. Select and print what you need. Often, you can go back and print duplicates.

-Walgreen’s: They also allow you to stack coupons and their store coupons are in their weekly add, which you can pick up inside the store. I just learned (last night, actually), about the vertical coupon books W’s puts out that are on the same rack as their ads. Great coupons in there each month!

-Most of the coupon websites (those offering coupons, not the ones I listed above, which help you with couponing) add coupons often, so check back frequently. It seems like they add most at the beginning of each month, but I haven’t quite figured out the schedule yet.

Here are my fave sites that offer printable coupons:
-www.coupons.com
-www.shopathome.com
-www.smartsource.com (Their flyers are in the newspaper, too.)
-www.redplum.com (Their flyers are in the newspaper, too.)

Store Sale Ad Schedule:
-Kroger & Alberston’s: Sale ads come out on Wed.
-Target, Walgreen’s, & CVS: Sale ads come out on Sun.