Couponing: Welcome to Your Hobby!

I started couponing a little over a year ago.  Although, there are months that go by that my husband accuses me of just stockpiling coupons, I try to go out weekly and get at least the easy deals.

Lots of people ask about how to get started or want to understand how it works.  There is a lot to go into it and it's a skill to develop just like anything else.  But even if I can save a small amount on my bill, I'm feeling good about that.

Couponing is literally trading pieces of paper instead of cash.  Lots of these little pieces of paper are free. In fact, technically they all are since they come free with the paper, although I buy just the paper to donate to the vet's office and I just use the coupons!!

I started off by just getting the local paper, I get 12 (2 per person in my household) and collecting coupons that way.  I have a file system where I take each insert and file it by date. I don't cut the coupons out.  I don't take them all with me.  This has good and bad things about it.  Good:  I don't waste my time cutting out crap I'm not going to have match ups for. And I can't make any unplanned purchases (If I want to save money)  I don't have a huge binder with me. Bad:  I don't have them with me when I come across clearance items. 

So, now I've got my coupons.  Every week I go to a coupon match up site for the store I want to buy my groceries.  I like Publix because they have the best deals, are the most coupon friendly and the stores are usually really nice to go into.  There are a few coupon match up sites on Facebook.  CIA coupon spy or the couponing couple, to name two.  The Couponing Couple has a lot of different stores to match from.  Dollar Stores, grocery stores, target.  I look at the blog to see the match ups for the week.  What these sites do, is take what the sale is, and post available manufacturer and store coupons.  And tell you where the coupon is located.  For instance:

Scott toilet paper is on sale this week from $10.49 to $7.49 at my store a for 12 roll pack.  The site also tells me that there is a $4.00 off coupon in the purple flier that is in the store.  And then lists every available manufacturer coupon that they know is available at the time of the blog post. Here is an example from the Couponing Couple's site.

Sometimes the manufacturer coupons are printable and sometimes they are found in the inserts from the news.  Sometimes, they are those blinking ones that pop out at you and sometimes they are peelies on the product themselves.  Those are kind of just a crap shoot to find.  With this toilet paper I ended up with 6 coupons, so I got 6 purple fliers and now I saved a "buttload" (HAHA) of money on TP.

I am going to add that sometimes there are also "thresh hold" coupons available.  This is a coupon put out by the store that is for a certain amount off a purchase of a certain amount.  For instance.  $5/40 purchase.  At Publix, you can use this if you reach $40 total, before any coupons.

Say I bought 6 of the TP at once. $7.49 x 6 = $44.94 before tax/coupons.  They would apply the $5 off $40 to this total.  Making my total before coupons/tax $39.94.  Next I would use (6) of the $4/off purple flier coupons. Making the total $15.94.  Then they apply the (6) 65 cent off printable coupons I have. Making my total before tax $12.04.  Which, if you have a big family like myself, that's a pretty sweet deal!

There are other deals that I've done in the past, for example, in Florida we have true BOGO.  Meaning we buy one and the second one is free.  Other states may do it differently by charging half price for each item.  In Florida this works out well for us if we have a coupon that is also BOGO.  The coupon, plus the sale allow you to get the product for free if it's non taxed and for the cost of tax if it's obviously a taxed item.  If you just have a dollar off coupon.  You would be able to use (2) one for the item that you are purchasing and one for the free item.  An example was the cat treats I bought last week.  They were $1.79 regular price on sale last week, BOGO.  So right off the bat, I saved $1.79.  I had (2) $1.00 off coupons from the paper.  They give me $2 off the $1.79.  That's right!  I made money to take them home.  I applied to the rest of my groceries, but some people put this on a Publix gift card. 

This is just a quick/simple explanation to get your started on your couponing adventure. I know it sounds tedious and maybe boring.  I mean, it's couponing, right? There is a pretty good rush you get when you walk out of the door with enough to feed your family and you only spent $20.  Because you cut out little piece of paper!  But it's actually a serious hobby and if you misuse coupons purposely there are legal ramifications for that. Not to mention some of these couponers are pretty cut throat!  You just don't know what's hiding behind their mom demeanor!  Let me know if you have any questions or you have anything to add!