Basics of Coupon Shopping (Guest Post)

I love having guests over at Midday Escapades and today, I have special guest poster who is going to give us all some very useful information.  If you want to guest post on this blog, check out these guidelines.   

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 The basics of coupon shopping

Are you looking for ways to stretch your dollar? Are you feeling the bite of the economy these days? Many of us are trying to make our dollars stretch just a little bit further these days. Rather it be from a job loss, you can’t work or it isn’t affordable to work (if you are like me and live in a high cost of living area and the daycare would cost more money then you would make.) We have two options: 1) Make more money or 2) Spend less! I’m here today to give you some tips and ideas on how to spend less and to save money on your grocery bill.

Kinds of Coupons

There are two different kinds of coupons you can use. There are store coupons and manufacturer coupons. Store coupons come from the grocery store ads and are normally labeled with store name at the. Manufacturer coupons will say “manufacturer coupon” at the top of the coupon.

Coupon Sources 

There are quite a few different places that you can find both store and manufacturer coupons.

• Sunday paper~ You can subscribe through your local newspaper or you can pick up the paper for $1.00 on Sundays at either Walmart or the Dollar Store. I recommend getting at least 2 newspapers a week.

• Printable coupons~ These are coupons that you can print from online directly from your computer. Smartsource.com, Coupons.com, and Redplum.com are just a couple of sites.

• Blinkies are the coupons you get from the little machines in the stores next to the groceries. You know, the ones that your kids are always pulling a million of them out of and proudly showing you?

• You can also get some great coupons from various magazines and from manufacturer’s websites.

Organizing your coupons

My advice for this is to find a system that works best for you. Keep in mind there is not one set way to organize your coupons and you may need to try out a couple of different ways before you find the method that works best for you.

I use an accordion type file system and sort my coupons alphabetically by using the manufacturer. For example, Cheerios goes under “G” for General Mills and Rice Krispies goes under “K” for Kellogg’s. There are others that like to organize by categories (produce, baby, breads, snacks, dairy, etc.)

Using Coupons

• First thing, you do not have to use your coupons right away. The key is to save your coupon and match it up with a sale price. This is how you will get the most bang for your buck. I often get items VERY CHEAP or even FREE by doing this.

• The second thing to know is that you can use 1 store coupon AND 1 manufacture coupon per product, but you cannot use 2 of the same coupon per product and it can only be used once per item.
        *  Here are a couple of examples from Albertson’s last week~

~Freschetta Pizza, 12.6-28.01oz or PizzAmore Pizza, 19.21-24.69oz  frozen- $3.99, limit 2
Use $1.00 off from 11/15 SS (smartsource)
Final Price= $2.99
~Hershey’s Baking Chips, 8-12oz- 2/$4.00
Use $1.00/3 from 11/15 SS
Final Price=$1.66
~In these examples, you can only use 1 of the $1.00 off coupons because they are a manufacturer only coupon.

• BOGO Sales~ You can use 2 manufacture coupons for a Buy one, get one free sale.

  Last week at Rite Aid you can get~
        ~L'Oreal Lip & Eye B1G1 FREE

         $1/1 Lip RP 11/8

         $1/1 Eye SS 9/20

         Use 2 coupons, one for each item, to maximize your savings.

Tips & Myths

• We’ve been taught to buy in bulk or to buy the larger quantity item, but with couponing it is often times the opposite.

• The generic brand is not always the cheaper price.

• 10/$10 - you usually don’t have to buy 10 to get the sale price.

• Start small.

• Don’t clear the shelf of all the items and don’t take all the blinkies.

• Don’t follow the picture on the coupon; read the fine print.

• Keep the kids at home and consider shopping late.

There are certainly plenty of more tips, tricks and ideas to save you money and I could go on and on and on and on. You can keep watch on my blog for occasional tips and ideas. You can also check out a couple of my favorite money-saving blogs that are posted on my sidebar.

This post was brought to you from Missy over at Are you there God? It’s Me. I am a stay-at-home mom to a 6 year old, 4 year old and 5 month old. I discuss everything from religion to parenting to recipes to autism to coupons and saving money and anything else I can think of in between.

Thanks for this guest post, Missy! 

Happy savings everyone!

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