Join a Coupon Train to Save Money on Your Grocery Bill

If you are like me, and need to save money on all of my daily and monthly expenses, you are always looking for a way to shave just a little off of your grocery bill. For months now, I have been looking for ways to cut down on my grocery budget, but still being able to buy what my family likes and needs. I spend a great deal of time scouring the Internet looking for money saving ideas. Here is one of the best that I have found so far.

Three months ago I joined a site called the Grocery Game. The Grocery Game is a website that you subscribe to. The list makers on the site are paid to go out to your local stores and find the great deals at rock bottom prices for the subscriber. This is a benefit to the subscriber as it takes out the many hours that some people spend on matching the sale ads to the coupons. The list makers also have access to a database of some sort that shows when is the best time to use the coupons to get the best prices.

To make the Grocery Game work, you have to collect coupons from your Sunday paper and other sources. The list normally runs with coupons that can be printed as long as 12 weeks ago. Right when you start the Grocery Game you might not see the savings right away as you might not have all the coupons listed. After the first 12 weeks though, you should see a drastic reduction in your grocery bill.

While I was a member of the Grocery Game, I was exploring all the features of this site and ran across a forum. The forum is totally free and can be joined by anyone. The members on the forum will not give you Grocery Game list information, but they do have plenty of other great information for you. While I was browsing around on the forum, I saw a board titled "Coupon Trains". While the whole idea of a coupon train sounded good to me, I really had no clue as to what it was supposed to do.

I learned quickly that the idea of a coupon train was to take your unwanted coupons and send them to other people that wanted to expand their coupon stash. Most trains go out about once a week, and generally have 7-10 people in them.

How a coupon train works:
Once a week, I take all my coupons that I do not use and pull out any that are expired or about to be expired. I then place them in an envelope and send them to the next person on my route.

When the 2nd person receives them, they take out the coupons that they will use, remove any expired coupons, add at least as many as they took out, and send it on its way to the third person in line.

All members do this at the same time, so everyone should receive an envelope each week and have new coupons from the other train members, along with new coupons from their Sunday inserts.

What are the benefits of a coupon train?
A coupon train is a great way to get extras of the coupons that you want but just didn't get enough of. Also, the coupon train gives you the advantage of getting coupons that are not available in your area. I have received some coupons that are the best that I have ever seen and used, and they were not available here in Florida, but were sent from Kentucky. Most of the coupons that are sent in coupon trains are manufacturers coupons so they can be used practically anywhere that accepts them.

Coupons Trains can also be beneficial for the lucky customers that live in areas where their stores double or even triple coupons