A Crash Course in Couponing 101

Take a crash course in Couponing 101. The tuition is free and so are the coupons!

Want a new hobby that doesn’t cost a dime and actually saves you money? You can learn to coupon in a few minutes and save money for the rest of your life!

I began couponing by accident. I was in a Target department store when a woman walked up to me and told me that I didn’t want to buy a certain brand of detergent (that is, without a coupon). Then, she actually shared her coupons with me and walked me through the store showing me how to save money, stack coupons, the works. I ended up saving 50% off my shopping trip that day, and I was hooked!

Couponing 101: Where to Start

Organized Coupon Clipping © by David Reber

Start by collecting and organizing coupons. Where do you get them? Practically anywhere.

The very best place to start is by printing free manufacturer coupons from the best-grocery-coupon-websites.com. There are lots of different websites out there, and almost all offer coupons from the major distributors including Redplum and P&G.

These are the exact same coupons you’ll find in your local newspaper, but you’ll find even more. The only difference is that when you select the coupons you’d like to print, you’ll be prompted to download a small piece of software. You don’t need to know anything about computers to do this. You just click on the button that reads, “download” and it’s automatic.

Why do you need to download this software in order to print? Manufacturers’ coupons are like money (there are even coupon counterfeiters out there)! So, they have to be regulated. They are regulated with special bar codes on each coupon, just like coupons in your newspaper. Each printable coupon only works if it has the special bar code. The software prints official manufacturer coupons with bar codes that will scan at your grocery store.

In addition to gathering coupons online, you can clip them from newspapers and weekly mailers that usually come with your Wednesday mail. There are creative ways to get coupons too. Get them by contacting the manufacturers directly, by following the Facebook pages of the brands you enjoy, or with many free samples that you get from coupon websites. You can even start a coupon trading club with friends from church or in your neighborhood.

You can also get coupons from coupon kiosks in stores like Walgreen’s and CVS, and from store websites. Target, Wal-mart, Whole Foods, K-mart, Kroger, and many more national stores offer store coupons directly from their websites.

The great thing about store coupons is that they can often be stacked, that is, combined with manufacturer coupons. This greatly increases how much money you can save on groceries. Some stores like Target have a liberal stacking policy that makes it easy to save. Others, such as Wal-mart, do not allow stacking of coupons. Know your store’s coupon policy so that you’re prepared to save money on groceries in every way you can.

Once you’ve collected a good amount of coupons, organize them in a fashion that’s easy for you to use and maintain. Some people organize their coupons in a shoebox; others prefer to use a binder. Some people even organize their coupons in the order of the aisles they visit in their grocery store.

Coupons are easiest to find when they’re organized by product type. For example, put all coupons for paper products in one section, baby products in another, etc. This will make matching your coupons to store sales much easier.

To get the most out of couponing, match your coupons to store sales. This isn’t as hard as it seems because manufacturers coupons are distributed in conjunction with store sales. Often you’ll see store flyers that tell you what the sale price would be if you have a manufacturers coupon, store coupon, or both. Grocery store flyers are usually in your Sunday paper, but if you don’t take the paper, you can view the same flyers online at no cost.

The final step to Couponing 101 is to shop with a shopping list. To make your shopping trip efficient and to stay on budget, a shopping list is essential. By the time you get to the store, all your purchases should have already been thought out. You could paper clip your coupons to your shopping list for convenience.

Beyond Couponing 101

Just a little beyond Couponing 101 is the practice of keeping a product pricing log. If you keep a product log with the prices of all the products you typically purchase, eventually you’ll be able to closely calculate what your grocery total will be before you even step into the store.

To start a product log, save your receipts. You should do this anyway, just in case you need to return a faulty product. Enter the items and prices into an Excel spreadsheet for ease of locating particular products if you desire. Most people purchase the same products repeatedly. After about a month or two of shopping and entering receipts, only small updates will be required.

If you shop at multiple stores, you’ll have more than one log. A shopping log really puts you in control of your grocery savings. Imagine how much you can save if you stack coupons and purchase from the vender with the lowest price.

Finally, you may want to bring your coupon organizer into the store with you (it’s recommended). While you shouldn’t have to look through your organizer at all in the store, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to stock up on an unadvertised clearance item that you happen to have coupons for.