Coupons

Real couponing is a masterful art. Like art it takes time, patience and hard work to refine your skills. The basics of couponing are simple and once you have your system in place you will develop your own techniques and systems to make using coupons work for you.

The first thing you need to know is that to make coupons work at the highest level of return, you need to use a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon during a sale on that particular item. Store coupons and manufacturer coupons can be used together BUT you can almost never use two manufacturer coupons or two store coupons on a single item. Combining two different discounts (a store and manufacturer coupon) always means big savings. The savings are even greater if you can use both of these coupons together on a discounted, sale or clearanced item. The closest thing to extreme couponing out there is the use of this method.

You differentiate a store coupon from a manufacturer coupon in the following way:
1) A manufacturer coupon will always say "Manufacturer coupon" on it somewhere.
2) A store coupon will always bear the logo of the store on it and will NOT say "manufacturer coupon" on it anywhere.

If the words "manufacturer coupon" are written ANYWHERE on your coupon it is a manufacturer coupon.

Look at the picture of a recent receipt of mine. Listerine was clearanced at 30% off at my local target. We combined a Target coupon for $1 off listerine with a Listerine manufacturer coupon for $2 off which brought each 1 liter bottle down to $.48 each. That's a savings of 90%! The main idea behind couponing is to take advantage of amazing deals like this whenever they arise because you will save a lot of money in the long run. Even though we had 2 bottles of Listerine in our pantry, we took this opportunity to stock up for future savings.

Each month there is something amazing out there to take advantage of. Last month we got 27 bottles of dish soap for $1.17 in tax. Start taking advantage of these amazing deals and as time goes on, you'll see your monthly expenditures going down, down, down because you've stocked up on non-perishables, frozen foods and other items vital to life.

To coupon properly you'll need a few things. You'll need a few 3 ring binders, some plastic baseball card organizers and of course: coupons. The first two items are easy to come by and will only cost you around $20 total. The hard, labor intensive, resourceful part is acquiring enough coupons to make your time worth your while. To start you can go to redplum to find out where to find local coupons. Just type in your address and it will tell you where you can find their weekly coupon insert. It's likely that your coupons are in the biggest Sunday paper in town. In my case that's the Denver Post, if you live in DC it's probably the washington post, chicago would be the chicago times. Wherever you live, the redplum tool will show you how to find your coupons.

Signing up for a newspaper subscription is costly. Some newspaper companies are willing to mail you just the coupon inserts. Call them up and request it. After that you're still going to need more coupons. I recommend simply stopping by your local dollar store. Each Sunday pick up 5 or so Sunday editions for $1 each. Also, ask your friends who get the paper and don't coupon to give you their coupons. Next you'll download and print Target Coupons right on their website. You can also download walmart coupons, CVS coupons and other store coupons at their respective websites.

Make a daily habit of going to blogs like Coupon Mom, Thrifty Guru and Krazy Coupon Lady to see local specials that are going on in stores near you. The people who run these blogs make a living by searching out the best deals around and posting them to their blogs. They are invaluable resources.

Lastly, and possibly most importantly. Many coupons are "regional" meaning they are only released to certain regions of the country. So if there's an amazing deal going on in California and you live in Wisconsin odds are you don't have the coupon you need. Thanks to BrandNameCoupon.com you can get coupons from all over the country for mere pennies.

To recap:
-Use a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon on a sale or clearance item.
-Find your local redplum to get coupons
-Buy the Sunday newspaper
-Buy lots of regional coupons
-Go to store websites and download coupons
-read a coupon blog or two for alerts about up to the minute deals going on near you.