Extreme Couponing 101

Money saved is just as valuable as money earned. Couponing is a great way to save cash!

Everyone has heard of coupons. They've been around your entire life. Maybe your parents or grandparents used them when you were a kid. Maybe you have clipped a few here and there to save a little money. But, have you ever really sat down and tried to save half of your grocery bill, or even more?

Couponing has become more and more popular recently, with shows on television like TLC's Extreme Couponing, websites full of couponers offering up their secrets, and pages on Facebook with "freebies" and links to printable coupons, how could clipping coupons not be popular? Even though the popularity is overwhelming, not everyone can quite figure out how to save as much as they want to. If all you do is go through your coupons and say "Oh, I need laundry detergent, and this coupon for Tide says it is 45 cents off, well that's great, I'll take it" then you lose out on a lot of money. The coupon game isn't about just matching a coupon to what you need. It's all about matching a coupon to what you need, when it is on sale. It takes time and patience and knowing exactly what to do to make the biggest impact on your grocery bill.

The basics of couponing are really just being patient and taking your time to look through your coupons and weekly store ads. If you have a few hours spare each week, and a set of scissors, then you have all the tools you will need to become a couponer.

First, what you need to do is get some coupons, whether you find them online or in your Sunday newspaper, and cut them out. Sort them out by product, for example meat, dairy, frozen, pet, etc… This will make matching so much less tedious and time consuming. Now that all of your coupons are cut and separated, get your circular. Ads from grocery stores, pharmacies, or stores like Wal-Mart change weekly, so sometimes you won't have as many matching coupons, but that's okay, because for as many times as you don't have matches, there are just as many that you do, and those trips are the best. Ads are separated by category, which is why separating coupons is such a crucial part to saving your time, and sanity. So, take your ad, and look through it just to get a general idea of what is in it, and where each category is, like frozen items are on page 3, that is very helpful information. When you sit down with your coupons, just take one category at a time, and find that matching group in the ad and look through them. When you see an item on sale that you need, look through your coupons, and if you have a match, then that's all there is to it!

Easy, right? It really isn't hard to save upwards of 50% on a grocery bill, and it really only takes one coupon per item. You don't have to go "dumpster diving" or begging neighbors for coupons to save a great deal of money, unless you plan on being "extreme" all you will need is one or two Sunday papers and a few printed offline. It doesn't hurt if your store doubles coupons, too. That can make an even more drastic difference, because instead of saving 25 cents, you can save 50.

"Extreme" couponers are able to save nearly 100% on a bill because they do go to the extremes to get coupons, and often times they will clear shelves just to "make money" on a product. How do they do that? Well, that's easy too. For example, your store doubles coupons up to $1.00, you have a $0.50 coupon off of body wash, and that body wash is on sale that week for $0.75. Well, since your store doubles, you will get that 50 cent coupon for twice that, and will get a dollar off of that product. Since the product is on sale for 75 cents, you just made 25 cents toward the rest of your purchase. If you pick up 100 bottles body wash (hopefully by calling ahead to the store manager and not just by clearing shelves), well you just made $25 by shopping. And since stores cannot give change on coupons, that $25 goes toward the rest of your bill. And that is how you can go to the "extreme" in couponing.

The "Extreme Couponers" on TV. don't help a couponer's cause. It really makes it more difficult. Stores are changing their policies, manufacturers are only allowing so many coupons per transaction, and if you walk in with a stack of coupons you may end up with some pretty evil stares, all because of the extremists that hoard in their basements, but don't let that get to you. If you stay focused on what you need, and don't get discouraged because your shopping trip is taking an hour, instead of 20 minutes, then the end result can be pretty spectacular. The best part is when you are standing at the check-out, and the total comes out to $140 and you hand over your coupons and the price drops to $65. There is just something so exciting about seeing the drastic change in your total that it can really become addicting.

The one rule that really is a "must follow" is to know the coupon policy. Do your research and check your local store to see if they double or triple coupons, if they have a limit to how many items you can purchase per transaction, and if they have limits on how many coupons they will allow per item. Some stores can only run a certain number of items at a time through their system, so you will want to be sure that if you come in with the intention of buying 800 items, that the store's registers can handle as many items as you are bringing forward. And as long as you know the store's policy, you will be fine. You may come to a point where a cashier doesn't know the policy and says "I'm sorry, I can't take that many coupons" and all you have to do is pull out their policy to re-check it, because if that cashier is new, or has never read the policy, then you will be doing both them, and yourself a favor by informing them so it doesn't happen to you, or anyone else again. Also, in addition to the store's coupon policy, make sure to check the manufacturers' policy on the coupon. This way, you don't bring up 10 of an item when you can only use 4 like coupons at a time.

There are also a few other things that you might want to keep in mind: be friendly to the cashiers, if you make their job a little easier, then your checkout will be more pleasant and a lot quicker, don't be discouraged if you don't save $100 on your first trip out, you will get there, just take it one trip at a time, and remember, you aren't the only one out there that is trying to buy laundry detergent, or bars of soap, so be courteous to others, because shelf clearing gives all couponers a bad name.

In the end, the basics of couponing are coupons, ads, scissors, and determination. If you set your mind to it, you can be successful.

This article was contributed by Joy Rudy, a stay at home mom who has become obsessed with saving money by couponing. Spending a few hours a week, she has found an easy way to help save hundreds of dollars a month for her family allowing further flexibility with budgeting.