COUPONING!

drudolph11

So yes I have become inspired to attempt to start couponing. And no im not really looking on spending 37 cents for 867$ worth of food but would love to save some money on our grocery bills. I went on Amazon and after pouring through a bajillion books on the subject I ended up getting "The Complete Idiots Guide To Couponing". My friend has a paper route and he is giving me all of his unused Sunday papers for the inserts. Im just starting to get through this book and have gotten some pretty good advice about online coupons and what not (although we now have to go buy a new printer) lol

So my question is are there any other couponing mamas out there with any advice on couponing. Maybe some little known website or any other books that you can recommend that have helped you? Any other advice that you might have would be great. Thanks!!!

sunset30

I wish I was more diligent about it, but I do coupon off and on (usually when I'm swamped with work or other things it falls by the wayside, butI figure some is better than nothing!). 

One very helpful site is krazycouponlady.com. She does great summaries of weekly sales and ads and has a searchable database of coupons with links. 

If you're a Target shopper, I'd suggest watching their weekly ads for a period of like 6 weeks or so. They run repeated sales where for example, you can buy $15 of personal care products and get a $5 gift card. When you combine this with coupons (which you can print from their website) plus stack them with a manufacturers coupon, you can get a ton of stuff for not too much money. If you have a Target card, you also get a 5% discount on everything you buy with it. If you find their cycle (they'll run the same promotion for a week like every month or two) you can get into a rhythm of buying things only when they're on sale. Doing this I saved like 40% - 50% on paper goods, detergents, cleaning products and personal care products. You just have to go to Target every week or so to take advantage of the different sales. 

My last tip is to make a spreadsheet of the things you commonly buy and 2-3 stores you shop at. Make a column fro the normal price and the best price you've seen on each item at each store. I also will compare the store brand and the name brand of each product. This helps you to see when a coupon is a good deal. Many times I've found that even with a coupon and a product being on sale, its still more expensive than the store brand product. There are a few things my husband insists on buying the name brand for, but in many cases I've switched to buying private label/store brand products. 

Good luck!

BitsyBelle84

Several stores have online coupons or ones you can access and present to be scanned on your smartphone too (hobby lobby, Michael's, Kohl's etc). Also know you can use a manufacturers coupon and a store coupon at stores like Target. There are also websites like https://www.retailmenot.com that you can search for coupon codes when ordering online.

ETA : fixed link

DM718

I used to occasionally get motivated to coupon. I used sites that did match-ups with local stores (I think the most useful ones here were mavenofsavin.com and wickedgooddeals.com). There seems to be an underlying infrastructure to the couponing sites that make them easy to use - they all had a coupon database and the ability to make shopping lists.

Also - I think all the best deals were at drug stores.

KT416

My advice is to jump in slowly and figure out coupon policies, best prices, favorite stores and more.

Also, I typically only coupon at a few stores that are my favorites: CVS, Target and a local grocery store or two. I know all the coupon policies, the best cashiers, prices, etc. I personally hate walgreens and Walmart for couponing and don't find them too coupon friendly. But you may have a different experience with your local stores. It's a trial and error kind of thing.

There's a million coupon blogs and sites and you just need to search around to find your favs. KCL and Hip2save are two big ones but there's a lot of them. KCL has a little too affiliate links/promo for my liking but they have a great beginner section and weekly matchups. I also recommend finding a local coupon blog that does your grocery store matchups.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

caro5931

My favorite website for couponing is livingrichwithcoupons.com. You can search deals every week by store or by type (eg: "diaper deals") my fave store for diapers is cvs. I end up paying $0.50 to $2.50 per jumbo pack of huggies. Wipes are almost always free with coupons, I usually get huggied or pampers at my local grocery store because they double coupons. I have about 40 packs of diapers and about 150 packs of wipes so far lol. I know it sounds crazy but it saves soooo much money to stock up and I have a feeling once baby is here I won't be as motivated to coupon. I also coupon for all other household items but I have a stock pile so I'm just focusing on completely free or baby deals right now. I can tell you though you have a great advantage having a friend with inserts as that is one of the hardest things for couponers to find:) it takes a little bit of time to learn all the coupon policies and resources available but don't get discouraged because it will all be worth it when you see how much $$ you will save!!!

Enigma87

Sign up for inboxdollars.com and print your coupons.com coupons from there because for each one redeemed you get back 10 cents. Also go to afullcup.com to search for a specific product and it will tell you if there's a coupon out there for it. I have been couponing off and on for a few years now. I follow various blogs because they do most of the work for me; all I have to do is clip, sort, and then take the coupons to the store.

atangiblewish

I use southern savers and the Krazy coupon lady. Just the other day I bought two boxes of huggies diapers for a total of $11 and some change at publix. That's where I go for all of my diapers.

drudolph11

@earthian while I am just starting I cant offer much advice towards couponing but the book that I bought off Amazon has really helped break it down for me if you are thinking about starting. It was only like 8$

@atangiblewish I grew up in central Florida where we had Publix and now I live in Western Maryland so sadly no Publix here lol

Thanks to everyone else so far that has helped it has really gotten me started!!

drudolph11

@megaugust10 that's great. Anyway you can link me to her Facebook page?
@TheNetwork‌ ya i just started doing ebates i just got like 12$ back the other day!

drudolph11

@megaugust10 thank you so much that's awesome!

lisap0924

Following this for I have thought about starting couponing too!
I am going to be a SAHM after baby so we will need to save where we can

rachyrach06

i just spoke to my husband about this the other day. As soon as the holidays are past us i'm going to go ahead and start so i can get a good idea of how much money i can save us. I'd really like to be able to do enough things to supplement my income...since childcare will literally cost half of my paycheck i'm hoping to be able to swing it to where i don't have to go back to work for a while.

eta to add a thanks to all you ladies for your tips!

sunset30

One other money saving tip I use (not couponing related but in the theme of cutting spending) is putting every single purchase on a debit or credit card and keeping track of it through mint.com. Clearly you have to be disciplined to pay off your credit card each month so you don't get charged interest. However,  having it all aggregated in one spot and being able to very easily see a categorical breakdown of where your money is going is really helpful in terms of identifying places you're overspending and cut back.