How To Start Couponing

Does the idea of couponing seem overwhelming to you? It did to me too! I wasn’t raised in a couponing family, and I didn’t get started with couponing until late 2007. But after a year of practice it almost feels like second nature. Typically the only time I get frazzled now is when I am shopping WITHOUT my coupons. :)

So where do you begin? How do you get started? Hopefully I can provide some help to those of you who are where I was a year ago. Here are the steps that I recommend taking to begin effective shopping with coupons...

1) Start gettting the Sunday paper from a large city! This is essential. You can’t “coupon” (I think it’s funny that coupon can now be a verb) without coupons! Most large-city Sunday papers have a couple of coupon inserts each Sunday. The most common ones are the Smart Source and Valassis (or Red Plum) inserts. Proctor and Gamble also puts out a monthly coupon insert. You can also print SEVERAL coupons directly from your computer HERE.

2) File your coupons! My recommendation is to start filing your coupon inserts by date. I got a filing box and labeled the folders by date. Then I put the whole (not cut-up) inserts in the folder that matched the date of the paper. So the coupons from the 1/4 (January 4th) paper would go in the folder that was labeled "1/4" or "January 4th". It takes about 1-2 months of saving up coupons from the paper to really be effective at couponing. Don’t get discouraged during this time as you see deals and sales using coupons that you don’t have yet... they will come around again! You can see how I organize all of my coupons HERE.

3) Grab a copy of the All You magazine from Walmart each month. It will cost you less than $2.50 each month, and it seems to always be worth it to get it. File these in a separate folder in your filing box or filing cabinet. You can also order it for much less than the cover price off of Amazon HERE.

4) Each Wednesday I provide a place here at Surviving The Stores for other bloggers to come and link up to their coupon matchups. The authors of the different blogs do the research and match up the weekly deals to the coupons from the inserts (they will tell you, for example, that the coupon for XX item came from the 1/4 (January 4th) newspaper Smart Source coupon insert). Most blogs will also tell you if there is a printable coupon that you can use for an item (along with a link to print out the coupon). You can view this section (titled "Surviving The Grocery Stores") HERE to find the current week's deals. I personally post matchups for Target, Albertsons, Kroger, Tom Thumb (Safeway stores), CVS, and Walgreens.

5) From the deals that you find for your local store, make a shopping list and clip the coupons from your files that match.

Please email me if you have any questions or additional tips that you think would be helpful to new couponers.

Couponing at the Drug Stores (like CVS, Walgreens and Rite-Aid) is a little more complicated, but definitely worth it! I read the weekly CVS posts for a few months before I felt brave enough to venture out and try it on my own. But now I am completely addicted and it has saved our family TONS of money.

Make sure to read Stephanie @ Couponing 101's post: couponing strategies