Some tips for Grocery Couponing

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Why use grocery coupons

Sometimes it seems like you can't make your budget stretch any tighter. One of the easiest ways to trim money from your monthly outflow is by saving money at the grocery store.

The reason why the grocery store is one of the easiest places to save money is that food is what's called a variable expense as opposed to a fixed expense. This means that, unlike many of your expenses, your grocery budget depends on what you decide to spend on any given month.

By using the following plan, you'll put money back in your pocket that you can use for debt reduction, to pay your bills, or just to buy yourself something shiny.

Photo by Ninja Poodles on flickr

Couponing resources

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Super Grocery Coupon strategy

How to stock your pantry without busting your budget

1. Read your weekly grocery circular and see what's on sale. Usually the loss leaders, that is the items that the grocery store sells so deeply discounted that they take a loss, will be on the front and back cover, but skim the rest of the circular too.

2. Look through your grocery coupons to see which of those items you have coupons for. Calculate how much each item would cost after coupon.

3. If an item is completely free, or nearly free, and your family will use it, buy a bunch. Don't buy one or two, by twenty. Stock up as much as you can.

4. Look at the items that are on sale, but aren't free. Choose a few items that your family uses regularly and buy twice the quantity you usually buy. That way, next week you won't have to buy it at regular price and you'll be able to spend more money stocking up on something else that's on sale.

5. As time goes on, and your pantry gets stocked, your buy price for most items will continue to go down. You'll be able to buy most of what you need for free or mostly free.

6. If you want to buy luxury items that don't usually go on sales or have grocery coupons, wait until you have a week when you aren't spending very much. Try to buy one luxury item a week, on light weeks, so that you don't bust your budget all at once.

7. Enjoy!

A video tutorial on how to clip and file coupons

How to clip coupons
by riffparker | video info

36 ratings | 51,343 views
curated content from YouTube

Resources to find great grocery deals

Money Saving Mom
A great blog that lists weekly deals for Target, CVS, Walgreens, and many grocery stores
Hot Coupon World
A massive forum with deal discussions for many major grocery stores.
Coupon Mom
A free service that matches coupons with deals at a number of local grocery stores.
Couponing to Disney
An excellent blog with tons of great deals, updated several times a day.

Where to get grocery coupons

The key to the super-coupon shopping that you'll find in magazines and on YouTube videos is to accumulate multiples of the coupons you need. This way when a sale hits, and you can get an item for free or cheap, you don't just get 1 or 2, you get 20. So where do you get enough grocery coupons to do this?

1. Your Sunday newspaper. This should be your first source for grocery coupons. While you're at it, get your friends'/neighbors'/enemies' Sunday newspapers.
2. Home mailers. Sign up for mailing lists from all your favorite companies to get their best coupons mailed to your house.
3. Online. This can be a bit tricky, though, because not all stores accept online grocery coupons. Always check your store's grocery coupon policy first.
4. Coupon Clipping Services. Because, for the most part, you will only use a few coupons from each week's insert, it is a much better idea to purchase multiples of those few coupons than to buy extra newspapers. One clipping site I like is Coupon Clippers, which tends to have a lot of high value coupons available at any given time.

Where to find printable grocery coupons

Looking for those great online printable grocery coupons? Here are some sites that let you print coupons for free.
Coupons.com
The motherload of online grocery coupons
Red Plum
Similar coupons to those listed in the weekly newspaper
SmartSource
Another newspaper insert gone digital

Great Stuff on eBay

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Further your grocery shopping education

The best grocery coupon resource, bar none, is Crystal Paine's grocery e-course Supermaket Savings 101. For only $9, you will get 6 easy to follow mp3 audio lessons, along with an accompanying workbook. The lessons cover everything from menu planning to finding great coupons.

Plus, when you order Supermarket Savings 101, you'll get 6 bonus free ebooks on other ways to save money in your home.

Read more of my articles on Grocery shopping.

Share your couponing wisdom

  • zap1994 Dec 6, 2011 @ 12:57 pm | delete
    I love coupons
  • zap1994 Dec 6, 2011 @ 12:57 pm | delete
    I love coupons
  • jbhoward Apr 28, 2009 @ 11:06 pm | delete
    Wow, this is great information! If you're just getting started (or not sure HOW to get started) saving on your groceries with coupons, I've put together a 5-part mini-course on why couponing works and how to get the most savings. To sign up, visit www.StartSavingWithCoupons.com

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story3girl

Melissa is a teacher and a writer interested in living more fully for less money.  She maintains a blog at http://storiedmoney.blogspot.com more »

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