Coupons

Basics to couponing successfully:

• Be Organised - Have a time set aside once a week where you find, print, clip & organize your coupons. I personally use a large ringbinder with the clear plastic inserts that people use for collecting baseball cards. I find this SO much easier becuase I can see all of my coupons
• These are my categories to help you get started alter them to suit your buying needs
• Baby, Beverages, Breakfast Items, Cleaning, Dairy, Frozen, Health & Beauty, Household, Meat & Fish, Pantry & Baking, Paper Products
• I have a large clear pocket at the end for store specific (like to 20% off Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons that come in the mail)

• Don't buy something just because it has a coupon, you won't save money this way. Only use coupons on items that you buy anyway or at the very least was something that you wanted to try

• Make a list before you go grocery shopping and put a mark next to an item you have a coupon for. This helps for two reasons:
• Making sure that you abide by any "rules" of the coupon, such as having to buy two to get 50c off.
• So you can make sure that the coupon deal is the best. Such as a store sale of 24oz Heinz Ketchup for $2.50 or a 30oz Hunts Ketchup for $2.82 with a buy 2 get 50 cents off coupon ?
• TAKE A CALCULATOR - Yes you look like a nerd in the store, deal with it, you will save $ by being able to figure out what is the best deal per oz, per lb, per diaper etc.

Getting the Coupons

These are the main five main places where I get my coupons each week

I ALWAYS check for the Sunday coupon preview . If there are coupons that I will use I will buy a paper if there are many coupons I will buy two papers to be able to stock up on coupons or the items themselves. Helps to keep my stockpile of newspaper going for when we PCS :-)

These websites are also my go to places:

http://www.smartsource.com/

http://www.coupons.com/

http://www.redplum.com/

Last but not least in store itself !