In today's economy living with one income has become almost unbearable for us middle income families, not to mention all those single parents out there trying to get by! So we have had to become creative on how we can save money!

The Grocery bill has become the one spot that I have come to save lots of money, sometime even walking out of the store with free items. I have done this by becoming one of those annoying coupon clipping ladies! Every Sunday I get up and drive to the local grocery store where I purchase not one but three newspapers. Now I live in MI and choose to buy the detroit free press because I find in comparison they have the best coupon section then any other newspaper. Now you may be asking why I buy three? Thats a good question too. Our one local grocery store will double up to 3 like coupons of the same product so like this week nabisco crackers were on sale for 1.99 and I had three 1.00 off coupons because I had bought three newspapers. So when I checked out I ended up getting these boxes for free! Now depending on where you live and what the coupon policy is at yoru location will determine how many newpapers you need to buy! I know our Meijers will double all coupons up to 50 cents.
So if your serious about getting into couponing your first order of business should be to call around to your grocery stores that you shop at and find out if they double coupons, up to what value, and how many of the same coupons can you use in one order?

Now many moms (or dads) say they simply don't do the couponing because it's just too much work and too messy! Well there's a simple fix to this! When you get your coupons if you have multiple adds that are the same staple them together before cutting the coupons out that way they stay together for later when it comes time to organize them! Also it helps to keep them more organized so they don't end up everywhere like mixed in with the scraps your planning on throwing away. If you just have one coupon then you just simply cut them out! As for organizing the coupons I have found those handy old baseball card holders to be the best. I simply bought a 2" three ring binder and loaded it with a bunch of clear baseball card holders. I then bought a bunch of post-it tabs so that I could mark sections in the book such as: refrigerated goods, cereal, health & beauty, snacks, frozen, boxed goods, canned goods, pets, kids, etc. I then take my coupons that i have cut out and sort them out in the three ring binder according to the tabs i have marked!

Making the shopping list and having your coupons ready before you even leave the house! Now the key to coupon shopping is just cause you have a coupon for it doesn't mean you buy it! I will sit down the night before I go grocery shopping and make up my grocery list! I start of by figuring out what my meals are going to be for the week. I then start my list with the weekly needs such as Orange juice, milk, diapers, etc. I then add the items that i'll need to complete my meals for the week and I try to cordinate my meals to what items I already have in the house and what coupons I have! In the paper you should get an ad for your local grocery store, like meijers. I will then flip through and see if anything is on sale thats not on my grocery list like for example the nabisco crackers. I will find my coupons for them and see if it worth adding to the grocery list. I usually ask my self will I be getting the product for next to nothing, so is it a REALLY good deal and will my family actually use it! Sometimes it's worth holding on to the coupons till a later date because an item will become an even better price later. Such as basic paper towel, you can almost always get basic paper towel for next to nothing or free if you use your coupons at the right time!

After I finish making my grocery list I then take small envelopes and place the coupons in the envelope for the store that I plan on visiting. So if I was planning on shopping at Meijers I would write meijers on my envelope and place all my coupons that i'm going to need at checkout in there. I will also put a little mark by the item that i have a coupon for on my grocery list because sometimes you have to buy 2 items to get the discount sometimes just 1. So I like to know which items I have a coupon for so I can stop and look at the coupon if I need too. I try to keep my shopping trips to just one store sometimes though if the deals are really good I'll go to two usually it's Meijers and my local grocery. Never any more than that otherwise you defeat the purpose of saving by wasting it in gas!

One more thing. Some of you might have noticed that Meijers does these Mega deals where they do this mix and match 10 for $10. If you use your coupons right alot of times you can walk out with 10 for $5. Also all you people who throw those annoying coupons away that the store clerks give back to you at check out. Almost all stores will allow you to use those on top of Manufacture coupons. The coupons we clip out of papers are from the manufactures and the one we get at the store at checkout those are from the store. So say you want to buy diapers normally $8.99 and you have a manufacture coupon for $2.00 off and a store coupon for $2.00 off most store will allow you to use those in combination and you would be able to get those diapers for $4.99!

So, yeah there is a lot involved in coupon clipping! Once you put your 3 ring binder together it really becomes a piece of cake! It feels so rewarding too when you see a receipt that should have been $100 and you only paid $60! So give it a try and if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me [email protected]!