Effective Couponing

Getting coupons

• Subscribe to your newspaper.
• Ask family, friends, etc that for their coupon inserts.
• Print off coupons online, the CouponCabin is a great resource for finding coupons to print as well as online coupons and coupon codes.

Clipping & organizing

• Go through your inserts and clip anything that you think may be useful for you. 
• Once you have all of your coupons clipped, organize them into categories. My categories:
  • Breakfast Foods
  • Snacks
  • Meals/Soups
  • Meats
  • Baking Goods
  • Side Dishes
  • Beverages
  • Pet Stuff
  • Health & Beauty
  • Household
  • Items Misc.
  • Store Coupons
  • Restaurants
• I have a three ring binder that I keep my coupons in, I bought a few packages of baseball card sleeves and I used an idea from this post for the bigger coupons and printed coupons.
• I purchased a pattern from the Coupon Clutch Website and made this to cover my binder.  When I go to the grocery store it just looks like a purse.

Make a list

• Find the sales ad for your local grocery store, you can either check your paper for an insert from the store, of go on the stores website for the ad.  I find that some stores will have coupons that come in the mail that they do not allow you to print from their website, so keep that in mind.
• Check the ad for things that you know your family will eat/use.  I have an excel spreadsheet that I make up for my grocery list that lists the item description, price of the item, store coupons, & manufacture coupons.  I try to match up the sale to coupons to maximize my savings.  I also have a column on the right of the spreadsheet where I put in the meals I plan to make.  That way I make sure I am actually getting the things that I will need for meals.  I find with my pre-planning my grocery list that I am spending way less and having more meals from the groceries that I buy.
• Make sure you check what your coupon's requirements are.  If there are things that are a great buy and you have a coupon, stock up on it while it is on sale.
• Follow this forum: What's In Store  Members are constantly posting deals they find in the stores and coupon match-ups.

The Shopping Trip

• I put all the coupons I plan to use in an envelope, so they are handy when I get to the register. 
• Make sure you bring your coupon organizer with you to the store. 
• Try to stick as closely to your list and not get tempted by things that you do not need. 
• Watch the cashier as they ring up your coupons to make sure that they all go through.

Have fun, it's really rewarding when you start to see those savings add up!