The art of couponing has become more popular than ever in recent years, and for good reason. The incredible savings that can be realized in this way is something that just about every family can use, provided the main shopper of the household knows how best to clip and apply their coupons. The information in the piece below is a great place to start.
One easy way to get coupons is to use the social media resources you likely already have. Facebook and Twitter have many companies that use their sites for networking. Liking or following these pages can get you access to exclusive coupons that others may not have the chance to score.
When you have a manufacturer’s coupon, you can stack that coupon with store coupons. This is a great way to get items for next to free or almost free. Use the store’s coupons from their weekly circular and match them up with coupons from the manufacturer off the Internet or from the newspaper.
Use the Internet to your advantage. As couponing has become more popular, more and more websites are offering coupons that you can just print out at home. Frequent these sites, and check them often. These coupons are free and snagging them often does not require a large time investment either.
Ask your friends and family if they know of any cool sites where you can find some discounts. It is always a good thing to share information with other people about where to get discounts that way you can all figure out where to save together. Just remember to always share your secrets with them and things should work out.
It is in your best interest to make a shopping list at the beginning of the week and have it revolve around the coupons you have. From this list, you will be able to decide on which stores to shop at and where you can save the most money with each coupon.
Don’t allow couponing to use up time that you don’t have. Poring over circulars and trimming those money-saving scraps of paper can easily turn into a full-time job. You need to dedicate time to it, but set a limit to your coupon clipping.
To make the most from coupons, you should make sure you have a subscription to your local Sunday paper. There are coupons in the newspaper every day of the week. However, the sheer volume and variety of coupons in the Sunday paper will more than offset the cost of the subscription.
If you want to be a real coupon-clipping aficionado, you have to understand the lingo. An example would be the ‘BOGO’, which means buy one and get one free or discounted. Mail in rebate is often abbreviated as MIR. Whether it’s an acronym or initialism, you should learn the lingo involved with couponing. You might not use any coupon correctly if you do not use them properly by following what the acronym well.
Avoid always falling for the word, “sale.” A sale doesn’t always mean that you will save a lot. Start doing some research on how much the items generally sell for before deciding to act on a sale. There are also many price-comparison sites out there that you can use to see if you’re getting the best price available.
Invest in a printer, or use your local library’s resources to print out valuable coupons. Although the newspaper is usually full of coupons, you have many more options when you look on line for the specific items your household uses. Make sure you have an efficient way to store all your coupons until you get the opportunity to use them!
To have a basic filing system for your coupons, it’s a good idea to put them in a shoe box stacked in chronological order or just arrange them by an expiration date. In doing this, you do not have to waste a ton of time organizing. However, you always know which coupons are about to go out of date and become useless.
You don’t have to waste costly color ink printing coupons on your home printer. If you have an inkjet printer, you can set your preferences to print in black and white or simply remove the color cartridge. This way, everything will print in black and white. Retail establishments will still accept these non-colored coupons.
The best coupon websites will give you a list of all of the major stores and tell you where you can find the best coupons to go with their weekly deals. You need to pay attention to these and do not forget about your chain drug stores that always have good coupon deals.
Never buy an item simply because you have a great coupon for it. Only buy items you need. If a coupon offers great savings, you may feel tempted to go ahead and use it. Resist that temptation. You’re using coupons to save money. Don’t waste your income on things you don’t even need.
Set up a dummy email account and sign up for all those coupon sites! Most of us don’t like getting spam in our regular mailbox, so have an address just for the purpose of collecting all those amazing coupons, along with whatever else you might get. Your savings will be phenomenal, but your email won’t be over-loaded with junk.
Make sure you’re not purchasing items simply because you have coupons available for them. You want to make sure you’re planning your grocery list ahead of time first. If done correctly, the coupons will save you money. If done incorrectly and in improper order, the coupons will actually cause you to spend more money.
It is impossible to deny the amazing utility of coupons in this difficult economy. In order to achieve noticeable savings through the use of coupons, however, it is important to do one’s homework. By taking the ideas and advice in the above article to heart, it is possible to become an expert coupon shopper in short order.