coupon ramblings

Some people have asked me recently (different people at different places) if I'd do a class or something about couponing. I've held one "mini workshop" before and shared with some friends what I'd been doing/learning. I liked this. It was neat. I'm no expert and I don't have wall to wall storage but I do enjoy the couponing game for sure.

If you're starting out, I'd really suggest deciding first what method is best for you. There is a binder method which is pretty popular, where you cut out all the coupons in the inserts or a folder method (which is what I do), where you keep the inserts whole.

Then the next obvious step is to start collecting coupons. We get two double papers most weeks. That's four papers on Sundays only. Then I purge out the inserts (Red Plum, Smart Source, Procter and Gamble) and put the inserts into folders labeled with that week's date. There are other places to get coupons: friends' papers, recycling, the internet... Please Note: Dumpster Diving is ILLEGAL in GA and several other states.

But then after that, find yourself a good site to get the deals and sales on (I live and breathe by Southernsavers.com) and use the information that's out there. There are so many blogs and sites it's just crazy, but sift through and find what works for you!

Also don't think you need to go out tomorrow, armed with 200 coupons and try to buy your whole shopping list at one time. Creating a stockpile is a slow process. And let me tell you, it is even slower if you're operating your coupon game on a budget. You can't just go buy jelly be/c it's on sale. You need to buy jelly when you have a coupon and it's on sale and it's the rock bottom price you want to spend on it. Then get *cough* ten or however many you have coupons for. I'll be getting **cough** ten or so jellies tomorrow at Publix. Along with four pasta sauce jars, four deodorants, an unknown number of chefboyarde and four 4 packs of yogurt. Now, can I feed my family with jelly, pasta sauce, deoderant and yogurt? No probably not. But, when it's time to buy more of those items, I don't have to buy them... I simply go to the storage room and get one off the shelf. Last week I bought eight dressings, eight shampoos, and eight boxes of cheerios. The amount of items purchased are usually small. The amount of those items purchased are dependent solely on the amount of coupons I have available to me for those items. Sure, I still have to buy meat and milk and produce. But each week I aim to only buy those type items and then "deal" the rest. I don't want to spend full price money for anything I don't have to. .... ah, but I've rambled on. Sorry. I meant to stick to this theme and my thoughts got carried away... Keep it small. Don't try to get the whole sale ad with coupons just be/c things are on sale. Get what's on sale AND at it's lowest best rock bottom price when you pair a coupon or two with it whenever possible.

Another popular question is "How much time does all this take?" Well... usually it takes me about an hour or so per store I'm dealing with. By the time I go through the sale ad, select the deals I want to do, sort through my coupons/print online coupons, organize the coupons, do the math with the deals to make sure it IS the deal I want it to be and then get to the store, actually shop and all. I'd say an hour or so per store. Often I'll do a lot of leg work on Wed after the Publix ad is out for the next week so that I can go to the store Thurs or Fri armed and ready for savings! Then I'll also spend time working on Sunday for the regular ads at other stores so I can go on Mondays to what's good deals. I don't go to each store every week. And if you're just starting out, I'd recommend focusing on ONE store for a while until you have it down. If you overwhelm yourself with store hopping at the start, then you're going to become burnt out fast.

Anyhow, these are my thoughts, hope they help someone.
Feel free to comment, I'll try to answer any questions if there are any.