Couponing 101

Okay so your whole life you have always thought clipping coupons was a waste of time. Right? Well that was me, too. I am here to tell all of you "WE WERE WRONG"!!!! I should have started this a long time ago. Everyone should adopt this as a natural way of life. Why not spend a few hours Sunday evening clipping, comparing sales, and surfing the net for more coupons? In return you will save at least 40%. My 1st try at it that's what I saved. Now I average between 60 and 70 percent TOTAL SAVED. Sometimes it is 99% FREE (just pay sales tax).

Do I have your attention now? Would you like to join me in the savings?

Okay, well here are the basics and I will try not to leave anything out.

First off, on Sunday buy a few newspapers. If possible, ask the store what they do with their papers that don't sell. Maybe you can score some leftovers for free.

Next, go to Target. Buy a 2 inch 3-ring binder with pockets, 2 pks. plastic tab dividers w/pockets, 1 pk. baseball card protectors, and a zippered pencil pouch. The baseball card protectors are by the last registers before cosmetics. You will end up spending about $20-$25 but it is worth it. At first I started out with the "Envelope System". This is very cheap, but not very practical. Who wants to walk around with a ton of envelopes flipping through a ton of coupons? Then I moved up to the accordian style folders with envelopes also. Well that works, too. But you are still flipping through your coupons, dropping them, everyone starring at the Krazed Coupon Lady. LOL So trust me this is your best bet. With the "Binder Method" you have all your coupons seperated into different categories, and they are easy to view. That way when you are walking through a store and see a great deal in the CLEARANCE section you can just flip to the corresponding category and see if you can get it for FREE! Later in another post I will explain to you how I categorized my binder but really it is just up to you.

Lastly, get to clipping and find the deals. At first your OOP (out of pocket) will be higher and you won't see the savings like you would like. That is all part of it. You have to create a "stock pile" first and then when stuff goes on sale you will just take advantage of the sales and never pay full price for anything again.

My advice is to start out with a couple of stores and stick with them until you get the hang of it. I started with Walgreens. My faves are Wags (Walgreen's), Wal Mart, and TARGET. I still haven't figured out CVS and Rite Aid. But I am working on it. Tommorrow I will post a list of sites you can visit to print coupons and a list of all the printables available. For now just concentrate on getting your binder and organizing your categories.