How to coupon for beginners

Couponing is a great way to save money on your grocery bills. I look at how to coupon for beginners.

My wife and I have been active couponers for some time and we regularly save between 25 and 50 percent of the total cost of our weekly grocery expenses for the family.

Juggling a budget can be difficult, especially in these challenging times for the economy, which is why I thought that I would put together this rough guide, which I’ve named: How to coupon for beginners.

You won’t become an expert from reading it, but it will give you the bare bones of how to coupon and hopefully you will save as much money as we do (with a little practice and experience).

Where to find coupons

First of all you need to know where to find coupons. One good places to start is with newspapers and magazines – in many cases, you can get them for free and they can be mailed to you. There are various websites where you can find coupons online, plus you will also see coupon offers on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. In-store displays at your favorite store are another good place to find coupons, you will often them on display near the entrance/exit to the store. You can sign up with some manufacturers, or write to them, and they will send you free coupons for their products. Another source of coupons can be found on purchased products, they often take the form of buy this and you get $1 off your next purchase, or whatever.

Trading coupons

Don’t worry if you acquire lots of coupons for products that you aren’t interested in - they are still worth keeping, as you might find that it’s worth your while to get involved with trading coupons. Trading coupons basically involves you linking up with other couponers and swapping coupons that you don’t want in return for ones that you do – for example, you may not require coupons for baby food, but require coupons for breakfast cereal, whereas another couponer might want baby products but not cereal. You can generally find other couponers via online forums and agree to mail each other coupons. (Any spare coupons that you don’t need and can’t swap can be sent to help military families).

A mixture of grocery coupons

Self

Organizing coupons

One of the biggest challenges for couponers is not so much finding and getting coupons, but organizing them all once they’ve got them. This requires a system for categorizing them and doing some forward planning. I would strongly recommend getting a coupon organizer wallet that you can use specifically for this purpose. One that is portable enough for you to take to the store with you on shopping trips generally works best for most couponers (some coupon wallets are even designed to fasten to your shopping cart). How you organize your coupons is question of person choice, but most couponers have some system of splitting up their coupons into groups according the type of product that they relate to and how quickly they are due to expire. Don’t worry if you struggle with organization at first, most couponers find that they have to try things out and make a few mistakes before they find their ideal method for organizing their coupons.

Putting your grocery list together

Once you have your coupons organized, you can put together your grocery list.

The ideal is to find a balance between the grocery needs of your family and the coupons that you have available, the aim being to maximize your savings. This doesn’t mean that you radically change the sorts of things that you would normally purchase, but it can mean making minor adjustments, such being a little more flexible with the brands that you buy.

Buying more of a non-perishable product while you can get it cheap is also a great tactic for saving money, although don’t allow yourself to get too carried away! Most experienced couponers use a coupon spreadsheet when putting together their shopping list. You can download a free coupon spreadsheet here (plus get some tips and an example of how to fill it in, if you are unsure).

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Couponing gets easier with experience

Each family is a little different and you may find that you have to tweak and change your couponing practices a little over time, as you gain more experience and have the chance to try different out different approaches. Always remember, however, that the aim of couponing is to shave some money off your weekly grocery expenses, so that you can spend those savings on something else that you enjoy! (Almost as bad as not being sufficiently organized is allowing yourself to become obsessed and turning into an extreme couponer!)

PaulGoodman67, on 02/03/2012

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Comments

katiem2 on 02/19/2012

Oh boy do I ever need this every time I attempt to use coupons I forget to use them as I get in a rush after so much time in the store. I think I might have grocery shopping phobia.

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