Saving Money With Coupons

More Practical Money Saving Tips

What, saving money with coupons?

I never was a coupon clipper. I always thought clipping coupons was a waste of time, and a big waste of money! Every coupon I came across normally was junk I didn't really need.

Then one day I was talking with my friend who is a big coupon clipper. She shared all of this info with me. Homeschool families can be saving money with coupons and I'm excited to show you how!

You can find wonderful websites online that allow you to print them off. These two websites I found are great: Coupons and SmartSource. You can also go to your local grocery store website and see if they have coupons. I do a lot of grocery shopping at Target. They do have a coupon section online. If you buy a certain brand a lot, you can go to their website and print coupons from there. For example: Betty Crocker, Mr. Clean & Campbell Soup all have a section for coupons.

You can even call 800 numbers of certain brands and if you explain to them that you want to try their food and that you would like some coupons, they will send them to you.

Another good way to get coupons is through the Sunday paper. If you don't really read the paper, ask your neighbors if you can have the coupons out of their Sunday paper. Or, some gas stations will sell day old papers for half the price. Also, go to grocery stores on weekends. They tend to have more people handing out samples. When you try a sample they usually give you a coupon for the product.

You can even find coupon friends and trade coupons. Give your unwanted coupons to someone who will use them. Ask them if they will do the same for you.

Look in your grocery store's flier. See all their deals before you write your grocery list. And ask a store manager if they double-up coupons. Doubling-up means that they allow you to use one of their in-store coupons and one manufactured coupon for the same item. For example: let's say I had a Target coupon for Dole lettuce for $0.25 off. But, I also had a coupon from the Dole company that was for $0.50 off. Well if the store will allow me to double-up by using both coupons, I would get $0.75 off lettuce. Target allows you to double-up!

A good way to avoid getting caught up in the I have to buy it because I have a coupon, is to only clip the coupons for the things you know you're going to use. Nine times out of ten you'll be able to find at least five coupons for the things you need. But, if you do find a really great deal coupon that you just can't pass up, (but don't need) donate it! Food pantries or churches will also benefit from your saving money with coupons!

So after talking to my friend, I tried it out. I wanted to see if it really was worth looking and clipping to try and save a few dollars. I looked at a few grocery fliers to see the deals they were having. I looked for coupons online, in the paper, and in the stores. Sure enough I had a handful of coupons for stuff that I normally buy. You can find pretty good coupons out there instead of the junk I assumed I didn't need. I had coupons for Swanson broth, Gold'n Plump chicken, dog treats, cereal, oatmeal, sugar, butter, extra virgin olive oil, V8 V-Fusion juice, Yoplait yogurt, Hormel sandwich meat, Jiffy peanut butter, etc.. It took me about 20 minutes total to find coupons and clip them.

Before I get ready to go, I write a weekly menu based on the deals at the grocery store and the coupons I clipped. Then I go through my refrigerator and pantry to see what I have and what I need. Then I write my grocery list. I get my list, my coupons, and to the grocery store I go.

So was it worth it? Am I saving money with coupons? Definitely! With coupons alone I saved $18.75. With the deals I found in my grocery flier plus the coupons I saved a total of $53.82! It saved me about one third of my grocery bill by taking 20 minutes out of my day to clip coupons and look through fliers! That is $2.69 per minute that I saved in the 20 minutes it took to do it.

Happy Clipping!

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