While on maternity leave, I came across this online community for mothers in Charlotte. Within this community was a forum dedicated to being frugal and the basis behind this was using coupons! This has definitely been the contributing factor that has allowed me to cut my expenses by more than 50%! Just to give you and idea in real terms, since August, I have not paid for toothpaste, toothbrushes, rice, cleaning products or baby food. And trust me…this just represents a small fraction of the items I’ve received for free! And Please Please Please don’t say that every time you get the Sunday paper and look through the coupons, you never see anything that you need! Ugg! This is the excuse that I hear all the time and it’s just not good enough! The fact of the matter is, there will always be a coupon that you will need, and it’s just a matter of being patient and organized!
Here are the basics that I’ve picked up along the way….at the very least, take what I do and tailor it to your lifestyle/tolerance level because I must admit, I’m a coupon addict and some of my methods are extreme, but it works for me and I have a house full of free food, cleaning supplies and personal hygiene products to prove it!
First things first…..invest in a coupon binder! This will help on the long run. Since the whole point of this blog is to be fashionable and frugal while reducing debt and creating wealth I recommend finding a binder that is stylish without breaking the budget! I just love going to the grocery store and pulling out my cute binder with all my coupons! I find Target to have the best selection and this is where I purchased mine from. You will also need the baseball card inserts to hold your coupons along with dividers to break out your coupons into categories. The cheapest place to find the baseball card holders are Wal-Mart. Some of the most common categories are Personal Hygiene, Cleaning/household, Sauces, Condiments, Canned Goods, Pasta/Rice, Beverages, Snacks/Desserts, Baby, Frozen, Paper/Plastic Products.
Now that your organized, its time to start clipping! Get the Sunday paper and clip the coupons of interest. Now clipping the Sunday paper isn’t’ the only way to get coupons. Below are some other methods that I use and this will be especially beneficial in building up a collection of coupons that you actually use and need for your household:
Visit the manufactures website and print them out! More likely than not, just about every product has a website with a “special offer” or “coupon” section. They usually require that you set up an account and if you’re like me and hate getting junk email, then its best to set up a separate “junk” email account. Here is a very useful website that lists just about all the manufacture’s websites out there http://www.gmabrands.com/membercos/membercos.cfm. Another way to get coupons (and free products) from these companies is to compliment on there product! Extreme? Yes…but worth it! One day I spent hours going from site to site complimenting everything from Canada Dry Ginger Ale to Bushes’ Baked Beans. a few days later I received a stack of coupons for .50 off any Bush product (amongst a host of other freebies)!
Another way of accumulating coupons is to buy them! I find eBay to be the best spot! But other popular sites are www.hotcouponworld.com and www.thecouponclippers.com. This my seem counterintuitive but just last week, I purchased 15 GUM Toothbrush coupons for $1.00 off eBay. The value of each coupon is $.75. One of the local grocery stores who always doubles coupons valued up to $.99 was running a special on these particular toothbrushes (2 for $3) thus I ended up paying $1 for 15 toothbrushes! I’ll explain in greater detail how to maximize accumulating free products but this is just a small example.
If you’re not looking to “buy” coupons, another way of getting them is trading them. The mommy network that I’m apart of has a coupon swap. Every week I mail on the coupons that I don’t need to the person listed below me and so on. They also have an in house coupon swaps on occasion where everyone brings all there unwanted coupons and passes them around and you just take what you need. www.hotcouponworld.com is a good place to trade coupons with others. This is also a good reason to clip ALL the coupons in paper so that you can use the ones that you don’t want as bargaining chips!
Now that you have your coupons its time to match them up to sales! This is the best way to get FREE products. A .$.75 off coupon for Success rice that cost 2.99 is menial compared to waiting until that rice goes on sale for $1.50 and shopping at a store that automatically doubles therefore getting the rice for free! (Hence the 30 free boxes of Success rice in my pantry!) Not all stores double coupons but its up to you to get know your local grocery stores policy! www.hotcouponworld.com is absolutely the best resource for this. Not only does it give you the in an outs of just about every grocery and convenience store out there but it will often times give you a sneak peak at flyers weeks in advance along with listing items that will be free when matched with sales/coupons! Off hand, I know that Stop and Shop, Bi-Lo, Lowes Food, and Harris Teeter doubles coupons valued up to $.99 and but please review the coupon polices since some stores have restrictions on the amount of coupons you can double per day. Also, the advantage of looking at these flyers in advance makes it so that you’re prepared! If your favorite spaghetti sauce is on sale 2 weeks from now and you know there is a coupon out there that matches this product, you have plenty of time to go online and “buy” your coupon!
I just want to stress the importance of couponing! My friends think I’m nuts for having 30 tubes of toothpaste, 20 toothbrushes, 10 taco kits, and 30 boxes of rice but if these are things I’m going to use eventually, then why not stock up?????? Not only are you stockpiling (a term I will discuss later) but your getting items that you use for FREE which allows you to take that extra money saved, however small, and apply it towards your debt! It really doesn’t get any better than that!
See below for some of the items I've gotten for free!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment