How I do it

This is how I do this couponing thing. The first step is to collect coupons. Obvious, right? You'd think so. Actually, let me back up. Why coupon? Why not just buy on sale or live on a budget? I have a friend who only buys items on sale and does just fine. She is also an incredible yard saler, so the money saved on yard sales probably makes up for not using coupons in the store. And, I'm not just talking about 10 - 20% off your total grocery. We're talking in the 50% range.

My goal:

(1) To save money, overall on groceries

(2) To be able to buy 'luxury' items at severely discounted prices

(3) To stock up on items at their lowest price

How I do it:

(1) I get the sunday paper and I buy another one at the store on sunday. If you have a neighbor that throws away their coupon inserts, go ask for theirs.

(2) I print coupons from the Internet. This works very well, except some sites have limits on the number of coupons printed and some stores only take a limited number of Internet coupons. I.E. Harris Teeter.

(3) I check Southernsavers.com to get the weekly sales items

(4) I spend an afternoon or evening making my list and organizing coupons

(5) Newspaper Inserts, Smartsource and Redplum and Proctor and Gamble, get placed in my big divider

(6) I cut out the other coupons and they go in a smaller divider book, organized by brand name

My next post will talk about easy and free ways to save.