Many people are able to save hundreds of dollars each month on their groceries and a few are able to get some of their groceries for free. Here are some tips on how to get started.
Finding Grocery Coupons
Grocery coupons can usually be found every Sunday in a local paper. Check all of the inserts to make sure none are missed. Grocery coupons can also be found online. Check out couponmom.com, smartsource.com, coupons.com, and allyou.com for free online grocery coupons. For these websites, software might need to be downloaded to a computer in order to print them. Some coupons can also be downloaded to a cellphone or a grocery store discount card. Try websites like cellfire.com, valpak.com, or shortcuts.com for these options.
Organizing Grocery Coupons
Buy a coupon organizer or make one by taking a binder and filling it with clear plastic sheets or baseball card sleeves. Organize the coupons by departments such as produce, dairy, meats, canned goods, baked goods, breakfast items, pet food, personal care, baby, etc. Clip the weekly coupons and immediately organize them.
Making a Grocery List With Coupons
Take the flier for the local grocery store and write down all of the items that are on sale. Then take the coupons and see if the sale item can be matched with a grocery coupon. Doing this can help to save a lot of money on the item and, in some cases, the item might even be free.
Tips for Saving Even More Money With Coupons for Groceries
Buy in bulk. Sales at grocery stores usually go in cycles. If a person buys six boxes of a cereal that is on sale and uses grocery coupons on top of the sale price, those boxes of cereal can be gotten cheaply and eaten until they go on sale again. Check with a local grocery store to see if they double or triple coupons.
Some stores will only double if the coupon is under $1.00, and some stores will only double on certain days of the week. Also check to see if a grocery store will take competitor's coupons. Be willing to shop at more than one store. Grocery stores usually do not run the same items on sale at the same time, so go to more than one store any buy the items on sale with the corresponding coupon.
Coupon Warnings
Go through the coupon organizer every now and then and weed out the expired coupons so that at the end of a grocery trip there won't be any disappointment at the check out line. Only buy items that are needed and used. If a family does not own a dog, there is no point in buying dog food just because it is a good deal unless it is to be donated to a shelter. Be willing to try different brands and, most importantly, give using grocery coupons time. It can take a while to get the hang of using grocery coupons to save money, but the savings are well worth it.
Honey Denson - I the mother to three wonderful children and five years ago I left my job as a full time English teacher to spend more time with them. Now ...
