Acquiring and organizing your coupons

KNOW YOUR PRICES

First you need to know your prices on the products you buy frequently. This will help you know when you are looking at a coupon if it will save you a lot of money on an item. You also need to know your prices so you know if a "sale" is really a good price. Sometimes places like Walmart have really low prices on an item or roll backs and combined with the coupon make the price drop to pocket change. Example, Lasting Impressions oil warmer kits are $4.84 at my local store and there are coupons out for $4.00 off one. They retail at most other stores for close to $10.00 and I buy them for $0.84!

SUNDAY PAPER COUPONS AND FLYERS

You need to get the Sunday paper every week and go through the coupons. When you find good ones that have a high value, can be doubled, are for the retail value and make the item FREE, buy one get one free, etc. or are for your frequently purchased items go to ebay (U.S., I don't know how things work with coupons in other countries) and find coupon clipping services by typing in "**** coupons". This is the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to aquire large amounts of coupons.

Look through the flyers in the Sunday paper and keep them on hand until the next ones come in. I used to wait until I got the flyers and saw what was on sale before I got my coupons off ebay but I have learned there is a cycle to sales and coupons of about every 3 months, some things cycle every month. This can help you budget your money knowing that if you can't buy a lot now just wait a month-3 months and it will probably be on sale again. And if you can't get a lot of coupons right now they will probably come out in the next 3 months. As you look at coupons on a weekly basis you will see the pattern of how frequently there are coupons out for your favorite items. Some only put out coupons every six months so you need to jump on them when you see them. You will see a pattern over time. Coupons are also seasonal for certain products. There are a lot of BBQ/summer food/supplies coupons in spring and summer for example.

ACQUIRING LARGE AMOUNTS OF COUPONS

So now when I see good coupons on Sunday and I know I will be using them in a great enough quantity before they expire to justify getting 10-20 I go right to ebay and get them. Make sure you acquire coupons that won't expire for at least a month so you have enough time to use them. When doing searches for coupons always sort the results from lowest to highest and put things in the watching before you make a purchase. Many coupon clipping services have combined shipping discounts and you can save a lot of money by buying different lots from one person. If you are lucky enough to find coupons that don't expire for at least 3 months to a year try to figure out how much you will need to buy and stock up on those coupons.

ORGANIZING YOUR COUPONS

It makes the most sense to have coupons on hand when sales hit for your favorite items so you can stock up. If they run out of sales items and the store offers rain checks, get one and keep it with the corresponding coupons. This can extend the sale for you by a couple of weeks to a month and help you budget your money. I use an accordian check holder to store my coupons that are divided into two sections. The first half is by month and each month has a health and beauty section and a separate section for food and pets. The last half of the holder is divided into 2 month sections and all of them are for household and cleaning supply coupons. Every week I look at what I have in that month's sections to make sure I am going to use most of them before they expire.

MAXIMIZING SAVINGS WITH COUPONS

The best coupons are $1,$2,$3, etc. off 1 item, buy one get one free, high value coupons of at least a $1.00 that don't specify size, Free and $0.75 off one.

Find a store that doubles coupons and $0.75 coupons are worth $1.50!!

Sometimes an item goes on sale for a price close to the value off of the coupon and you can get the item for pennies. My stock pile of kotex thong panty liners were close to free because they were on sale for $1.00 and my coupons were for $1.00 off of one!

If the coupon doesn't specify a size you can usually buy the smallest size and get it for change or close to free.

Use buy one get one free coupons on items that are buy one get one free and the item is FREE (not including the small amount you paid the coupon clipping service)! The shampoo and conditioner and all the St. Ives products in my stockpile were close to free because they were on sale buy one get one free and I had buy one get one free coupons.

There have been "Free" coupons for things like cat food or toilet paper that I have used to stockpile. An example is the t.p. coupons I used to stock up were valued at up to $1.00 off on 1 roll. My local store sells them for less than a dollar so I got 20 coupons off ebay for a little over $4.00. 20 rolls for under $5.00!!

KNOW THE COUPON POLICIES AT YOU FAVORITE STORES

Every store has different policies. Some limit the amount of coupons per each different item you can use, some double or even triple coupons up to $0.99. My Walmart has no restrictions on amount of coupons you can use : ) This will also guide you in what value of coupons to aquire and how many.

CHECK EXPIRATION DATES ON ITEMS

Always try to buy food, toiletries, etc. with expiration dates as far in the future as possible especially if you are buying a large quantity of items. Try to only buy what you will use before it all expires.

Hope this helps you start saving! I saved $80.00 in coupons on my last trip to Walmart and only paid a little over $20.00!