"Non-Extreme" Couponing or Couponing For the Rest of Us
Since the advent of the hit TV series "Extreme Couponing" it seems that people's conception of how couponing works is that you spend hours and hours every week gathering coupons and researching sales and then you go to the grocery store and purchase free toothpaste, sports drinks, deodorants, etc. by the pallet load. Well, I suppose some people do. But some people, like me, already have full time jobs. Or full time families. Or full time lives.But that doesn't mean that we can't coupon effectively. I coupon religiously every week. It saves me upwards of 50% on my total grocery bill each year. And the best part is that I only spend about 1-2 hours per week on the whole effort. It isn't extreme...or particularly glamorous. But it's definitely worth it.
Whether you are looking to start couponing for the first time, or trying to simplify your method, in this series of posts I will outline the method that works for me. So let's get started.
Step 1. Join a Coupon and Sale Matching Site
Many people cut coupons out of their local paper, wait until they need the items they have coupons for, and then head down to the store to use their coupons. THIS IS WRONG! When you buy an item is the most important aspect of couponing. Stores regularly place items on sale and then take them back up to full price. The absolute most important aspect of successful couponing is to use your coupon when the item you are purchasing is also on sale. This is what allows you to get certain items for free and many items for 50-90% off.
There are two ways to match store sales with available coupons. The first is to cut out each coupon and place them in a large binder organized into categories (or alphabetically, or whatever works for you.) Then, as weekly ads from stores are published you go through your binder and see if you have a coupon that matches with the sale item. This method has two major drawbacks. First, it takes FOREVER. Second, every grocery store has unpublished sales. In order to know about these sales and match your coupons effectively you have to actually go to the store and walk the aisles. OR you can use the second way to match sales with coupons...
Join a coupon matching website. There are lots of them. These websites maintain a database of coupons and every week they publish a list that matches the sales at each store with the coupons that you should have clipped and saved from your local paper as well as coupons that are currently available online.
The site that I use is grocerygame.com They've been around for a long time (not sure how long but I've been using them for about seven years.) They maintain databases that are very accurate and very easy to use. I pay $25 every 8 weeks and I have access to four different stores that I have selected (Albertsons, Walgreens, Target and Family Dollar.) You are charged per store. This is, in my humble opinion, the best money you will ever spend. Using grocerygame.com allows me to coupon effectively without wasting hours and hours trying to match coupons to sales myself. They also have a huge online coupon database where I can download and print the online coupons I need right from their site. I have no affiliation with grocerygame.com and I have not signed up for any referral bonuses, so I have no vested interest in recommending them.
There are coupon/sale matching sites that are free and I have tried a few of them. In my experience, none have been nearly as thorough, organized or reliable as grocerygame.com
In the next post, I will discuss the importance of learning which types of items you can expect to receive discounts on and how large the discounts will be. This is important to know because it helps you to decide when to purchase an item and when to wait for a better deal.
In the meantime, here is a photo of today's shopping trip for me. I spent $12.71 and saved $65.91 or 86%. Not too shabby.
