The Tightwad

With today’s economy, it is even more important to save money where you can.  Saving on groceries is a way that you can accomplish this.  Coupons are a great way to save on groceries.  You get the biggest savings from coupons when you have multiple coupons and using them against a sale.  Getting multiple coupons can be tough sometimes.  One way to do this would be to start a Coupon Club.  A Coupon Club is where you get together with others and trade coupons.  A local library is a good place to set something like this up.  Many libraries will let you use their community rooms for this type of purpose.  Many libraries will also let you put up flyers so you can advertise for your Coupon Club.  You need to think up the rules in advance and post that on the flyer.  Some examples may be have the coupons already cut out, what type of coupons will be allowed and how will you go about the exchange.   Another place you could do this is in your own neighborhood if you live in a safe area.  You could hand out flyers to some of your neighbors and invite them over for coffee and couponing.   Just make sure you keep yourself safe and don’t invite complete strangers to your house. 

Having a good coupon organizer is very important.  My favorite type of coupon organizer is a coupon binder.  What I like about it is, I can see the coupons real well and I can lay them out in the binder by aisle rows and then flip the page as I move on.  I also have a place to store other things in my binder such as a grocery list, grocery ads, calculator, pencil and a coupon cutter.  It is best to take the coupon organizer with me when I go shopping, so I have all my coupons there and I can take advantage of unadvertised sales.  The only problem I have is, I get stopped several times a shopping trip with people asking about it. Lol!!!  For more information, see this article: Coupon Binder.

So, you go to the store because they are having this fantastic sale and you are searching for the item and just can’t find it anywhere.  You go to a store clerk and ask where to find the item only to be told they have sold out of it.  Oh, no… You are so bummed!!!  So, what do you do now???  Well, in many stores they will let you have a raincheck.  A raincheck is a piece of paper that tells the store that you can get the item at the sale price when the item comes in later.  Make sure you ask if you can get a raincheck.  Also, pay close attention to the expiration date.  You do not want to miss the date by which you have to buy the item.  The next most important part, is not to loose it.  So put it in a place where you will remember it!!!

Now days the Sunday newspaper is not the only place to get grocery store coupons.  A newer way to get grocery store coupons is to print them out on your computer.  Yep, that is all you have to do.  Yes, this is legal and yes, most stores will accept them.  Of course, you may want to try just one or two at first to make sure your store does not have any problem with accepting them.  Do not however, make photocopies of the printed coupons, that would be illegal.  The printed coupons each print up with a barcode.  You will probably have to download a special program for your computer to put the barcode on, but this download is free.  There is also usually a limit on how many coupons that you can print out.  Here are a few sites you can get these coupons from.

http://coupons.smartsource.com/

http://couponbar.coupons.com/

http://www.coupons.com

http://www.upons.com

The Tightwad Tip of the Day:

Learn to use coupons effectively when grocery shopping.  Challenge yourself to see how much you can save while grocery shopping.  Go at it like a game and see if you can beat your high score by saving even more the next time.   Keep a price book detailing how much each store costs for each item and whether the “sale” item is a good price.  Use coupons and sales together to get an awesome price on the products your buying.  Shop at stores that offer double coupons, especially if they have a sale on that item also.  If you have more than one coupon for a product and the item is on sale, consider stocking up if it is a product you use often.