Today I'll be talking about putting together all of the info I've shared so that you can easily coupon.The first thing you need to do is figure out the days that new store ads/circulars come out for the stores you want to shop at. A lot of them will have new circulars in the Sunday paper, but some (like Publix) come out mid-week. Next, find a site that publishes circulars a few days before they are released. Southern Savers is really good about covering the southeast, and I've found that a lot of times, the same sales are found nationwide. By finding a site that gives you this "preview", you can prepare for your shopping trip ahead of time and head to the store the day the sales start - so items are still available and are not sold out. Just keep in mind, sometimes the previews can be wrong and a certain sale won't apply to your local store.
I then use Southern Savers to view items that will be rock bottom, free, or I'll get paid to buy, from the different store circulars. To see some other websites that offer coupon and circular lists, check out this post and also read the comments left by readers at the bottom! These websites will list next to the items the newspaper date where the matching coupons can be found. They will also link to online coupons you can print. Here's a great example from Target last week. You'll see (RP 12/15) listed next to a coupon that means "Red Plum Newspaper Coupons from December 15th". Any online coupons simply have a link.
Go back to the coupons you organized and simply pull out the coupons from 12/15. Flip through them and find the coordinating coupon to use with that week's store deal. The best thing about sites like Southern Savers, is they offer checkboxes next to the advertised deals. You just go down the list of deals, check the ones you want, and make sure you have matching coupons. Then, just "Print Your Shopping List", cut out the matching coupons or print the online coupons you need. It's literally that easy.
So Publix Ads start on Wednesday where I used to live. I would find a circular "preview" on Sunday or Monday. Then, I just went to Southern Savers, checked all of the items we needed and I had coupons for, printed the shopping list and any coupons from online, and headed to the store. I would also just look through the whole circular and look for items that were excluded on the website, but maybe we need and I might have coupons for. For example, if we needed yogurt and I saw two different kinds were on sale, I'd go back through my organized coupons and look for any yogurt coupons I had recorded on the front of the coupons from week's past.
I know this can sound confusing, but if you go an check out the Target example I linked to above, it will make a lot more sense. Also, there are a ton of helpful visuals under "How To Coupon" on Southern Savers.
I taught myself how to coupon using the internet and searching things on Google. I discovered that you can coupon very easily and it doesn't have to be extremely time consuming. My biggest advice it to pick 2-3 items and just one store to start with. Get used to using coupons on a couple of things and before you know it, you will start to feel comfortable using coupons. Learn your store coupon policies so when you get to the register you can be confident in challenging the cashier if something isn't ringing up correctly. And even if you never get "extreme", saving even a couple cents here and there adds up! I make sure that every time I go to Target, I cross check everything in my basket or on my shopping list with the Cartwheel App. I always have my phone on me, so there's no excuse to not use the app to save a couple dollars every time we buy things. I've saved almost $40 over the past month from the app alone.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below! Also, check out past weeks in the series for more resources and help. Don't be afraid of couponing!
