day one of the coupon class

Coupon class  starts today.  There is alot of information here!!! ask questions, try some of your local stores and Good Luck!

Couponing the easy way

Definitions

These are the main sources of coupons.

RP, or R  stands for Red Plum- a Sunday weekly circular

SS or S   stands for Smart Source – a  Sunday weekly circular

PG          stands for Proctor & Gamble-  a Sunday monthly circular.  This is

              usually found the first week of the month.

Other terms you may hear:

Matching: to combine specials or sales with coupons.

Catalina:  a coupon that prints out at the register.  There is often a required

               Purchase to produce these.

Register Reward:  also known as R&R’s are the coupons you receive from

                           Walgreens after you have made a required purchase. 

                            See ( how to use  Register Rewards page     )

OOP: Out Of Pocket, this amount is after coupons, and discounts are                                  

         subtracted. Some people also subtract

          The gift cards or RR’s they receive from that sale.

Internet coupons:  or printable coupons: these coupons can be found in 

                             Several places online.

Stockpile :  when you have a storage space with additional items.       

         

Tare pads and blinkies: both of these are found in the store on displays or

                                In the machines at the shelves. They blink at you. 

 

Price Match: when one store allows you to take a sale price another store offers.

       

My  favorite websites

www.couponmom.com- This site is great to see what coupon matchups are available.  It is a free site, don’t pay to have coupons matched for you or to see what the sales are in any given store. 

www.afullcup.com  This site is a member site where you can get info., chat about what is on sale and how to handle certain situations.  It is also free but can be confusing and may be a site to hold off on til you are comfortable with the system you choose.

Mypoints.com—this is a referral site and it is also free.  All I would need is your name and email to have a link sent to you.  This site is useful for printing your coupons.  When you print then use the coupons you get points that can later be turned into gift cards.  The site has other options to earn points such as searching, surveys, purchases and looking at emails.

I would say make a coupon email to access these sites.  Then you know what you are looking at and it doesn’t fill up your personal email.

There are more sites but these are my 3 favorites for coupons.

My favorite rebate or money back sites

These are referral sites, and it helps me out to allow me to send you an email to use the site. 

Ebates and mypoints.  Both sites give you a return when you shop.  I use sites such as these when I shop for gifts that will need to be shipped.  I can often get free shipping and then I get cash or points in return.    

The secret behind coupons

The real secret is  There is NO secret!

Couponing is a lot like anything else you do in life.  If you decide to exercise you may decide to start jogging, I may decide to start zumba.  Both are exercise.  Both will get the job done, but we are taking different paths to the same goal. 

First decide what it is you want!

 Do you want…….

To reduce your grocery bill

To grow a stock pile

To use a budget

To get the biggest bang for your buck

Or perhaps all of the above.

Then prepare a menu

When I say prepare a menu I mean  to not only decide what it is you need to shop for in the grocery store to prepare your families meals but to also decide what you use most often.  

My initial list looks like this: ( see page 4)

It contains the items we prefer and use most often.  I then keep my eyes out for any coupons or sales and stock up when both happen.

I would also know the amounts I am willing to pay for some of these items.

For example : chicken… I will NOT pay over $1.50 per lb. So when it is on sale at $.88 I stock up.  I also buy it with skin and bone and make my own skinless, boneless chicken at half the cost.

List of usual shopping items

1)      Deodorant—mennon

2)      Body soap- mens dove

3)      Head and shoulders

4)      Always pads

5)      Dawn

6)      Charmin

7)      Electrosal

8)      Advil

9)      Eos lip balm

10)   Olay

11)   Dayquil

12)   Nyquil

13)   Progresso soup

14)   Blue diamond  almonds

15)   Coke

16)   Hunts tomatoes

17)   Alive vitamins

18)   Cheese

19)   Chicken

20)   Potatoes

21)   Cottage cheese

 

Now down to the coupons, Where do I get them , you ask?

Sunday newspapers are the most obvious place to collect weekly coupons.  There are printable ones on the computer , you are limited to 2 for most of them . (2 per computer/printer)

You can also order them, this seems silly but can give you multiple coupons of one kind without the hassle of extra papers to buy.  This does take some planning and forethought.  We will go over this in a later section.

If I have whole circulars I tend to keep them whole, this way when I use coupon sites I can look to see the date of the circular the coupons came in.  I find them faster this way and my binder is not as messy.

Separated coupons go into my binder, separated into categories.  Here is where you need to decide what way you shop and how you will find coupons in your binder.

Some examples may be only use sections like frozen foods, produce, canned goods, health items: or you may decide to get specific and break it down into sara lee, Oscar myer, band aid.   Or a combination of both. 

I carry my binder with me into the store, it is a zippered 3 ring binder with other pockets where I carry my calculator, scissors, paper clips, and shopping list.  I prefer the zippered kind since more than once I dropped it.  NOT FUN!!!

Now that you have a list and coupons you need the sales flyers.  You can get these online (couponmom, afullcup) or directly from the stores. I like to have the copies that come from the store that are paper copies so I can price match in stores that allow it.

I use the coupon mom’s site to see what the sales are and generate a list.  I can then use the target matching program on the same site to be sure I am getting it at the right store.  It sounds complicated but is easier than comparing them from the flyers myself.   I then carry all the lists with me in were out of several items.  The other stores lists did not have those items so

Things do not always go as planned!!

Get rain checks, wait for the next sale but do not beat yourself up that the total was  not $0.00 OOP.

Know your store and it’s coupon policy

Target: Target will price match, they allow 2 coupons per item IF one of the coupons is a Target coupon. 

Walgreens: will not price match, they allow 2 coupons per item If one is a Walgreens coupon but you must purchase ONE item per Coupon.  So if you have 12 coupons and register rewards you must have 12 items.   Most people will use items like pencils (10 /$1) or cheap candies.    REGISTER REWARDS…you will only get one per offer, per transaction.  If you try to use that register reward in a transaction that contains the same offer a new register reward will not print.  So be careful how you use them.

Patricia’s: will price match and does double coupons.  Take the circular with the price you want to the register  and they can adjust it there.

Hyvee: no longer price matches, will not double. Accepts upromise and savingstar cards.  They do have great 2 or 3 day sales to watch for and an internet special flyer you can have sent to your email.

Gerbes: also know as Dillions or Krogers, has a savings card for specials and can be attached to cellfire and savingsstar cards.  Some Gerbes double so be sure to check in your area.

You can find the full  coupon policies of your local and national stores at couponmom.com.

EXAMPLES OF HOW TO USE MATCH UPS

I  use lots of Lipton tea in my house.  I found Target has  the tea for $1.99.

The shopping senerio would look like this.

2 lipton tea.----1.99 X2  =3.98

Use target coupon $1/2            

Use lipton coupons $1/1 use 2

3.98 -1.00-2.00=.98 

.98/2=$.49 per box of tea. 

These boxes for paid retail are usually 2.99 per box

A savings of 2.49 per box!!!!

A Walgreens example with register rewards

Here is one $5 Scenario for the week of January 8th – 14th:
*coupons in red (scenarios never include tax as this will vary by region)
Transaction #1
Buy 1 Syntha-6 Meal Replacement Bar @ $1.89
Total= $1.89
RRs Earned= $1.89
Transaction #2
Buy 1 Reach Total Care Floss @ $2.99
Pay with $1.89 RR from above
Total After RRs= $1.10
RRs Earned= $2.00
Transaction #3
Buy 1 Tom’s of Maine Unscented Deodorant @ $3.99
Pay with $2.00 RR from above
Total After RRs= $1.99
RRs Earned= $3.00
Grand Total OOP=$4.98
Total Value= $8.87 with $3.00 Register Rewards remaining!

Thanks to   Keeping the kingdom first.com  for their $5  challenge.

This shows how to “roll” register rewards.  If these items had coupons then you would have needed to add a filler item. 

Using the above tea example :

2 lipton tea.----1.99 X2  =3.98

Use Walgreens  coupon $1/2               

Use lipton coupons $1/1 use 2

3.98 -1.00-2.00=.98 

.98/2=$.49 per box of tea. 

These boxes for paid retail are usually 2.99 per box

A savings of 2.49 per box!!!!

I would have had to purchase one small item due to 3 coupons and 2 items.