#1. Don’t overload yourself by getting too many coupons each week
- I get 4 of each insert per week
---- This allows me to do 2 buy one get one (BOGO) deals
---- This also allows me to take advantage of Targets Gift Card (GC) deals (buy 3 or 4 and get a GC)
- I get extra coupons of single items if I know a deal is going on with them
#2. Use a couponing site to create your shopping lists. Here are a few good ones I use:
- I use southernsavers.com religiously!
- Krazycouponlady.com
- totallytarget.com
- theharristeeterdeals.com
- iheartthemart.com
#3. Plan your trips so that you only have to make a couple of runs per week
- Learn when your store does extra deals (ie: Harris Teeter does extra special deals on Saturday) and plan to shop on that day. Yes, some of the items you wanted will be gone by then, but you can always get rain checks
- Gas is EXPENSIVE. This planning will also save you money. Think of it as a free gas coupon.
- Of course if a Run Deal or a ridiculous sale pops up that you weren’t aware of on something you really need go for it.
#3. Don’t worry about catching every deal. It’ll come on sale again at this store in about 6 weeks and it’ll most likely be on sale at a different store within the next 2 weeks
- Again, you have to think about how much gas you’re burning by running out to every store
#5. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS get rain checks (RC’s)
- If a store is out of the item you wanted get a rain check for it so you can purchase it at a later time. Who knows, you may even have a better coupon for it in the future.
#6. Organize your Facebook couponing pages into a coupon interests list
- Whenever you “like” a couponing page (ie: The Krazy Coupon Ladies page: https://www.facebook.com/TheKrazyCouponLady) hover over the “Liked” button and click “Add To Interest Lists” and create one for couponing (name it what you like)
- Now when you go back to your Facebook news feed you’ll have the option to only see what these pages post in your news feed by clicking on (whatever you named it) under Interests on the left hand side.
#7. Always keep all of your coupons because you never know when an item will be a money maker (MM) or could just be an item you could donate to someone
#8. Keep your coupons clipped and organized
- This gives you time to get familiar with what coupons you have
- It also is a time to clean out all of your expired coupons
#9. Donate your expired coupons to military families as they can use expired coupons up to 6 months after expiration date
- Here’s a great Facebook group where you can adopt a US military family living overseas: https://www.facebook.com/groups/expiredcoupons/
#10. Couponing should be fun. If you’re feeling overloaded (which happens to most of us) just take a break for a little while. You won’t die if you don’t get the $.30 box of cereal this week.
