Secrets to Happy Couponing #4

This is the last in a four part series on Secrets to Happy Couponing! The other posts can be found here, here and here. I hope this has been helpful. This is a summary of between two and three years of couponing.

• If you do not have time to clip coupons for a season, shop the Buy One Get One sales and this will still save you some money!
• Signing up for freebies is another thing you can do to reduce your grocery bill. I will soon post some sites that can get you started in receiving freebies in your mailbox every week! Many manufacturers will send out free samples of new products for you to try.
• Another thing you can do that can help you is to print out coupons that you know you will use, ahead of time. Keep these well organized so you can have access to them when a sale comes up! I will do another post soon on different methods for organizing your coupons.
• Lastly, take it all in stride. Do not try to implement everything you have read here all at once. Pick a few things that are doable for you and start there. Also, do not try to do all the deals you see posted. Pick the ones that will most benefit you and let go of the rest. They will come around again. When I first started couponing I was trying to do every deal I could find....I soon burned out. When I restarted I realized that what I was doing was overkill. That is why I am starting out by giving you $5 deals at Walgreens and CVS.

If you have found this series helpful, please leave a comment for me! Thanks!

Secrets to Happy Couponing #3

This is the third in a four part series. You will find the first two posts here and here.



• Buy ahead. Most stores have a 6 to 8 wk cycle when items will come up on sale again. Figure out how much you will need to keep you for that amount of time.
• Plan your menus according to the sales and what you have in your pantry. You can look at the following websites for menu ideas for the items you have. All of them have a feature where you can input the ingredients you have and it will generate a list of recipes that use those ingredients. http://www.allrecipes.com/ , http://www.supercook.com/ , http://www.recipematcher.com/ .
• Wait to use your coupons when items are at their lowest prices. Here are some good places to get coupons: Coupons dot com (this is my link-when you go here, I receive a tiny renumeration for every coupon you print), http://www.smartsource.com/, http://www.redplum.com/. If you are looking for specific manufacturer coupons that are not printable, you can order them from The Coupon Clippers (link is at the bottom of this page. I am an affiliate with them, so any purchase you make going through my link gives me a renumeration as well. Every little bit helps!) or on http://www.ebay.com/.

I hope this series is helping you to save more on your everyday needs! Please leave a comment if you have a site to share, or any tips to share. Thanks!

Secrets to Happy Couponing #2

This is the second in several posts. Yesterday's post started this series on Secrets to Happy Couponing. You can find it here.

• Don't be brand loyal. The biggest mistake we make is sticking with one brand. Since I started couponing, I have tried many new brands and items that I would not have tried without the coupons. I now have a greater list of brands I like because I ventured off my regular path.
• Look for clearance items (figure out where the store you shop in puts their clearance items). Hint: My Publix has a little kiosk, Walgreens has an aisle and sometimes on the end caps, CVS puts carts near the registers and Target sets theirs in the perimeter...all outside endcaps. I try to carry my coupons with me, if I can match a coupon with a clearance item that is usually a bonus.
• Find a few blogs to follow. There are many bloggers doing all the research for you. Find a couple that you like. I will soon give you a list of some of my favorite blogs.

I hope this series will be helpful to you. These are some of the things that have helped me cut my grocery bill in half. Happy Shopping!

Secrets to Happy Couponing

Today I am starting a new series. I am calling it Secrets to Happy Couponing.

I will start off with a few easy things you can do to keep your grocery bill down. When I talk about groceries, I mean food, paper products, and toiletries.

• Plan, plan, and plan.
• Begin by making a budget or plan for how you will spend your money. I know that college students typically do not like to plan. This is a very important step, do not skip it!
• Use cash when you go shopping. This will help you to not go over your alloted amount. Did you know that when people use debit cards, they spend more than when they pay with cash?
• Shop more than one store. By this, I do not mean run all over town to every discount store you can find. Schedule going to different stores. You need at least one grocery store that you frequent. But you definitely need to add a drugstore into your shopping (Walgreens, CVS or Rite Aid). Shopping the sales at the drugstores is how I actually get many things for free or nearly free! I am attempting to keep you up to date with the best sales at Walgreens and CVS to get started.

Come back tomorrow for more Secrets to Happy Couponing!