What you need to start couponing!

I have been serious about using coupons for a couple years now. I save on average 40-60% off of my grocery bill by combining coupons with deals. I buy more when it is on sale so that I have a stockpile of items to use while that specific item is full price at the grocery store. I have a few tools that make couponing a little easier and less time consuming:

1. Do NOT cut out all of the coupons from each Sunday paper. But a small plastic file holder and some file hangers with plastic tabs. On the plastic tabs, write the date. Place the each ad (usually Smart Source, Red Plum and Proctor and Gamble) by date in file hangers. I will list coupons by date and ad company. An example would be for Smart Source ad on January 11th: SS 1/11.

2. I buy 2 Sunday papers. In my area I buy the Seattle Times. They have the best coupons. The other local newspaper does not always have the same coupons. It is usually missing the ones I would use such as a cereal coupon. I also find out which of my family members gets the paper and wouldn't mind saving me their coupons. That way I can buy multiple items for a really great deal.

3. I have a binder with picture or baseball card sheet protectors in them. You will get Catalina Coupons from the stores. I store these in the binder by store. This is also where I store my clipped coupons for the week. I take my binder with me to the store. I also keep my Walgreens rebate pamphlet in my binder.

4. I have www.coupontom.com bookmarked. This website is very important when you are looking for a specific coupon. You type in the name of the item you want to buy and it will tell you if there is a coupon that matches. This is where I usually go to match coupons to ads to find the very best deals.

How much can you really save by using coupons?? Today I went to Albertsons. I bought 1 box of Rice Krispies, 2 boxes of Rice Krispie Treats, 7 large boxes of Poptarts, 5 cans of Chef Boyrdee Pastas, Soft Scrub wipes, 3 Red Baron Pizzas, 1 box of childrens Benadryl. I spent $30.92 and I saved 44.22 a total of 58.8%. To make this happen had to combine coupons with some great sales that Albertsons had going. I will list some of those savings below.

Albertsons had 4 coupons that you can use to double the value of a manufacturers coupon up to $1.00. I cut all 4 of those out.

They have a deal with Kellogs Cereal, Pop Tarts, Keebler Cookies, Cheeze-Its, and Rice Krispie Treats. They are on sale for $2.50 each. If you buy 10, you get $10.00 off. You can mix and match to build your stockpile. There is also a coupon for Pop Tarts from RP 2/22 for $1.00/2 that would make the Pop Tarts 1.00/box for the large box (normally $3.79/box). There are 2 Kellogs cereal coupons from RP 2/22 $1.00/1 box ($1.00/ box) and $.70 off of 1 box ($.80/box). If you have a couple of news papers you can really add up the savings from this deal! If you use the Albertsons doubler coupons, it makes these an even sweeter deal!

The Soft Scrub wipes are on sale for 2.49 (regular 3.49) there is a coupon for $1.50 off. I used one of my Albertsons doubler coupons and saved another dollar. That made these cleaning wipes free!

Chef Boyrdee pasta is on sale for $1.00/can in the small Fred meyer insert inside the Smart Source coupons there is a coupon for $1.00/5. This made each can $ .80, normally they are $1.99 each.

By shopping this way I can usually beat that prices at Wal Mart or Winco.

I will post more deals tomorrow for Target and Walgreens!