Where Can I Find Coupons for Extreme Couponing?

The key to extreme couponing is to match individual store sales with store coupons and manufacturer coupons. For this reason, when a store has a great sale price on an item, in addition to an in-store coupon, having a good manufacturer coupon to stack on top of that can bring the cost of a good down to pennies or even free. The goal of the experienced extreme couponer is finding these great deals and matching them up in an effort to stockpile free supplies, and sometimes even make money.

When the total amount of the coupons exceeds the price of a good that is on sale, most stores will credit the deficit to additional items checked out at the same time. This is how extreme couponing works on the show to save shoppers money. Once the concept is understood, most shoppers want to take advantage of these practices as well. The first step and challenge to becoming an extreme couponer is to build a collection of coupons. Here are seven sources for obtaining cheap or free coupons:

1. The Sunday Paper
There are many sources for finding great coupons without spending a ton of time or money.
The first source for finding coupons and the best place to start is the Sunday Paper. There are several coupon inserts which are printed and inserted in the Sunday paper every week. RedPlum and SmartSource are the two most frequently printed coupon inserts. Manufacturers like General Mills or Proctor and Gamble will also have valuable coupons printed and inserted in the paper from time to time. Most extreme couponers will preview the inserts on-line to determine if there are coupons worth having and then decide how many of the coupons they will need. If the coupons are very valuable they may choose to purchase 12 or more papers. If the coupons are not as valuable but there are one or two deals, they may only purchase 4. The key to making this decision will be matching the sales with the coupons in advance and deciding how many products you will want to purchase. Keep in mind that most stores and manufacturers have a limit of 4 like coupons per item for any one transaction. For this reason, I like to put my coupons in groups of 4 and buy my Sunday papers increments of 4. I like purchasing multiple papers because it is very easy to stack like coupon pages and clip them all at one time creating a stack of like coupons to use for the best sales. Most people think purchasing a two dollar paper for a fifty cent coupon seems counter-productive. However, there are typically hundreds of dollars of coupons in one Sunday paper and just using a fraction of these multiple times will justify multiple purchases. In addition to the coupons, the Sunday paper is also a great place to find all the store ads and sales for the week which is useful in matching coupons to sales for ultimate savings.

2. Friends, Family, and Neighbors
Instead of paying for multiple Sunday papers, sometimes friends, family, and neighbors are willing to donate their coupon pages if they are just throwing them away and not using them. You could offer to deliver the paper to them minus the coupon section or even share the cost of the paper in exchange for letting you keep the coupons. If you are new to extreme couponing, a stack of 4 to 8 identicle coupons is a great place to start experimenting with the process. Organize them in a binder or a box with index cards or envelopes to locate them easily when shopping. The more coupons you have in your collection, the easier it will be to match them up and save when you shop.

3. Coupon Trading and Passing off the Extras
After clipping all the coupons from the Sunday Paper there will be multiple stacks of coupons which are seemingly useless for goods you never buy. Instead of throwing away coupons you know you won't use, offer to trade them for coupons you will use. Many local areas offer coupon trading groups you can join like the one in St. Charles, Missouri started by NewsByElle.com. If you can't find one, you can network with other shoppers in your area and start one yourself. Some individuals have even started coupon clipping businesses where they charge a small fee (pennies on the dollar) to clip coupons for others. You could do this with your extra coupons and earn additional savings this way.

4. Purchase from a Clipping Service
Coupons by Dede is one of the legitimate coupon clipping sites where you can obtain multiples of the individual coupons you want after matching them with your local ads. You can purchase the coupons from the site and have them shipped directly to you. The benefit of this is getting exactly what you need when you need it. The downfall is you need to be careful when calculating the shipping costs against your savings. Always keep in mind that extreme couponing is all about the math and like any business, savings should be greater than the cost of acquiring the coupons. When you purchase your clipped coupons in this manner it is important to pay close attention to the expiration date as well as the sale duration at your store and consider shipping times which in some cases can be as long as a week. If the sale is a really good deal the coupons available will be limited and the store shelves might be cleared before you get your ordered coupons in the mail. Most of these purchases are non-refundable and time sensitive so be careful. Trading or purchasing them locally is always a better bet, so try to find a local coupon clipping service if you plan to acquire your coupons in this manner.

5. FREE Printable Coupons On-Line
Another great way to obtain coupons is by printing them yourself. Coupons have a bar code on them and they are scanned at the register. Most stores will not accept a printed coupon unless it scans with a legible bar code. You want to check with your local store about their policy on printed coupons before you try to use them. The downfall of printed coupons is that most sites only allow a maximum of two coupons to be printed per IP address per month. They are typically manufacturer coupons and similar to the ones you find in the newspaper. Remember to consider the cost of printing them as well. The best sites for no-hassel printable coupons include coupons.com, Smart Source, and Red Plum.

6. Free Coupon Dispensers - Directly Where you Shop
Many grocery stores offer free coupons in the aisles where the products are located as a way to encourage you to make a purchase. These manufacturer coupons are typically very valuable and are great for storing if they do not expire soon. While other parents are yelling at their kids to stop touching the coupon dispensers, I am encouraging my children not to miss any. I always grab extra and take them home. Because they are typically manufacture coupons, they can be used anywhere. Match those coupons to the best sales prices at other stores as well or use them as a commodity to trade with others as mentioned in the coupon trading section above.

7. Stuck on Products
I love it when Manufacturers stick coupons on the product. Sometimes I even take the coupons when I am not buying the product that day. I still don't know if that is stealing or not, but no one has ever asked me not to do it. One time I found croutons on sale at Dierbergs that were 10 for 10 and they had a "Save .55 cents NOW" coupon on them. The croutons were foruty-five cents per bag at the register but the original price was over two dollars per bag.

No matter where you get your coupons just remember it is all about the math and finding the best match ups between the store sales and the manufacturer coupons that will save you the most money. And don't forget to deduct the cost of acquiring your coupons when you determine your total savings. It's the one step that they don't cover much on the show but it absolutely needs to be considered in your total savings.