How to Coupon like a Pro

The extreme couponing craze has consumers chasing after carts of food for mere dollars and money making deals at every grocery and department store they can find. The savings to be found using coupons may not take your grocery bill down to pennies on the dollar, but you can see some significant savings if you use some basic tips for success. There are also some behaviors to avoid when couponing so that you don't spend more than you should on products you won't use or don't need.

Find All The Coupons You Can Get Your Hands On

Coupons are literally everywhere you turn lately. You get them in the Sunday paper, you get them in the mail in circulars and direct advertising flyers, they are on tear sheets along side products in the store, they are attached to products you are buying and they print out on your receipts and on machines at the checkout. You can find a lot of coupons in magazines, but particularly in All You magazine that can be purchased in Wal-Mart. There is usually about ten or more times the value in coupons than you spend on the magazine. The more coupons you are equipped with, the greater the chance of matching them up to products you use or really good sales. You can also check the websites of some of your favorite stores and other coupon websites for printable coupons on the internet.

Get Your Coupons Organized

When you are collecting a large amount of coupons, you have to have a system in place to keep them organized by expiration dates or by categories. I prefer to use a large binder with baseball card insert pages. I can easily see what coupons I have and the dates are visible at a quick glance. When I used to keep a small amount of coupons, an envelope worked fine; but it was quickly outgrown when I started really working the coupons for big savings. I prefer to have a separate section for each store that I shop that has their own specific coupons. These are only useable at that store and I find that keeping them in their own location lets me see at a glance if it is worth a trip to that particular store.

Know The Coupon Policy of Your Favorite Stores

You are best equipped to get the lowest price if you know how to best utilize your coupons at your favorite stores. Many stores allow you to "stack" coupons. Target, for example, lets you use a manufacturer coupon and a Target coupon on the same item. So, if you have a dollar coupon from the manufacturer and a dollar coupon from Target and they are for the same item, you can use both and save two dollars instead of one. Stacked this way with sales, clearances and markdowns; you can really see a big savings and get something for a very small price. Some stores still have a policy where they will double or triple the savings of a coupon based on the cents off the coupon is.

Find Extra Savings

There are savings to be had from some stores in extra ways. Loyalty cards can give special prices, accumulated savings or coupons just for being a loyal customer who presents the stores card at checkout. CVS even has a coupon printer that gives coupons when you scan your card at the store. Other stores offer cents off of per gallon on gas purchased at their attached station if you buy a certain amount of product from them. My favorite extra savings is when Target gives a gift card for qualifying purchases. Stacked with sales and coupons, you can almost make moey when they are giving you a gift card and you also have that to discount your next purchase with them.

Additional Tips and Warnings

• Take your coupons everywhere with you. You never know when you will run into a store for a quick purchase and see a good sale on something that you have a coupon for. If it is at home, you are out of luck.

• Purge your expired coupons from your book. You will want to have useable coupons in your book, so I suggest that you scan your stash when you are adding new coupons and just pull out the expired ones.
• Don't purchase something just because you have a coupon. You won't save all you can for your household if you purchase every high dollar item that has a small cents off coupon.
• Stock up when you can on items that you will use and won't go bad; but you probably won't want to keep twenty bottles of ketchup in the pantry because you won't use them quick enough and they will be taking up valuable space.
• Have fun. Couponing shouldn't be a tedious chore. If it is dragging you down, cut back and take it slow and easy until you get the hang of it.