On Couponing: How-To

Every month, one of those coupon inserts gets delivered to the house. This is not enough to do efficient couponing. I could buy the local newspaper and get all the coupon inserts out of that, but let's just be frank. In Southern California, we get the worst coupon inserts with products I would never dare to eat (because they are so unhealthy) or with products I would never use (lots of allergy medication coupons, and I don't have many allergies.)

For me, the most efficient way to coupon, and the cheapest way, is to print coupons out from online. The largest source of online coupons is coupons.com. New coupons come out every month, and they sometimes add 2-3 new coupons every few days. Notice it's July 1st, so it's time to head over to coupons.com to print your free coupons today!

Now, there are a few things I do when I print coupons. First, I always try to print 3 to a page. Save paper. (And recycle the rest after you cut your coupons out!) Second, while some people choose to just print all the coupons, I only print coupons for products I will actually use, or products I could potentially use if the price comes out low enough. Therefore, you have to be discriminatory in your coupons. I try to only print coupons that will either double to a dollar, are for one dollar off, and coupons that are only off one product. Don't be fooled into printing a coupon that says $1 off when you purchase 3, unless you already use that product and buy it regularly. $1 off 3 sucks because it does not double at the grocery store, at least not in SoCal. Also, unless the product is under a dollar, $.33 cents off for a product you don't normally use will never be worth it; the product will be very expensive still. Last, coupons.com allows you to print two of each coupon per computer. Since I have two computers, I always try to print four of each coupon right away. Coupons actually do run out, so sometimes if you don't print them right away (within the day,) they will be gone.


After I print coupons out, I clip them, usually only when I have time, and it's usually when I'm watching TV.

Let's not waste more time than we should doing this; that's my philosophy. You're not going to see me doing this 40 hours a week like those people on Extreme Couponing!





Next, I start organizing and grouping like coupons together. Again, I do this while I'm doing something like watching TV or chatting online late at night.

Because online coupons expire quicker than coupon inserts in the newspaper, I organize them by date first, then by product type.

I know a lot of other people just organize them by product type.





Finally, when I'm going to a store, I pull out the coupons I think I am going to use, and organize them according to the store layout, if I know it, and then clip the coupons together. Here, I was going to Target, and I've been to Target a million times, so I know the store layout extremely well. This leads for an easy shopping trip that gets me in and out with just the products I need.

Sometimes I do pull out some coupons just to see how much they cost at Target, so I can mentally keep it in mind and be able to compare it to grocery store prices later.

Anyway, that's just a taste of how I started. There are more efficient, better ways, I'm sure, but this way works for me because it's fairly low maintenance.