Couponers....help me out!

[Jengerbread88]

Fair warning. This is going to be a VERY long response.

Currently, I am not actively couponing the way I used to, since I live with my parents and have few expenses. I WAS actively couponing and got many things for free. I'll give you what worked for me, and what didn't.

1. Many couponers will tell you that you need to get 10 papers a week. No. Get what you'll use. I found that 2 papers per week was enough for me. I clipped what I would use. I then saved my inserts for what I didn't think I would use, and traded coupons with other coupon people I knew, or in online forums. For example, I'd find cat food coupons in the paper. I would give those to a friend of mine with cats, and she would give me dog coupons from her paper. I had a dog, but no cats, she had a cat but no dog, we were able to trade. I didn't have a baby, so baby food coupons went to a parent with a baby, but a coupon I would use that she wouldn't would go to me (it usually varied).

2. You can also dig through recycling bins, or ask people who buy papers and don't coupon to save you the insert. Sometimes you'll find more, sometimes you won't. If you find that there is a coupon that you really really want in a paper, buy an extra. I only buy 2 papers regularly, as I said, but if there was a coupon for $4.00 off a specific Gilette product and it was on sale that week in a circular, you better believe I was buying 5 or 6 papers if I could get the Gilette kit for pennies... it would give me extras of other usable coupons, too.

3. Get a system that works for you to organize your coupons. Mine was a binder. There was a front pocket that had scissors, a memo pad, pens, a calculator, and other supplies I found I needed on a regular basis. Then, I had dividers for each category (Hygiene, Restaurant, Paper goods, Frozen Food, etc etc etc). Each section had it's fair share of baseball card plastic sleeves and photo plastic sleeves. Small coupons went in the baseball one, larger coupons in the photo ones.
Each kind of coupon (for example, duracell batteries) go in a pocket TOGETHER. So I have all of my duracell coupons in one pocket, all my colgate in one pocket, etc etc etc. I put them in order of expiration date, expiring soonest in the front, farther away in the back. If there's a great sale, I may use them all at once. If not, I may use them as needed.

4. Clear out expired coupons regularly. There are some programs where you can mail expired coupons to military families, who can use these coupons for a certain amount of time at the base shops... you can google for more information about sending them coupons you didn't get to use in time.

5. Keep a notebook of your store's prices. Most will go in a cycle-- Macaroni and Cheese may be $1.08 one week, and two weeks after that be $0.79. If you track an item you regularly buy long enough, you'll be able to predict when a sale is.

6. Sign up for programs like bzzagent, vocalpoint, and shespeaks. Often, not only will you get free samples, but you'll get coupons. Occasionally, they are coupons to get an item completely free! My mom got invited to a Chex campaign on a website from the manufacturers of Chex product-- not only did she get multiple coupons for $2.00 off Chex, but she also got a free mixing bowl and a $10.00 gift card to go purchase other supplies to make Chex mix. Not only did that $10.00 help us get ingredients not on the list, but at Target, Chex went on sale to $2.00 a box... which meant her $2.00 off coupons made it FREE! She also participated in a campaign with BzzAgent, who sent her coupons for $2.00 off any 2 items from the Glade Winter Collection. Target just marked these down, meaning candles that were between $2.00 and $4.00 were now only $0.48 each after that coupon-- we were able to get 6 candles, 2 scented oil warmers with a candle in each, and 8 scented warmer refill candles for less than $6.00.

7. Stack promotions when you can. A little over a year ago, I got a buy that I am still proud of to this day. I went to Target and they had Special K bars on clearance. I had multiple $1.00 off coupons from the manufacturer. Target was running a promotion that if you bought 4 boxes you got a $5.00 target gift card. Plus, Kellogs was running a promotion that said if you bought 10 boxes in a single transaction, they would mail you a $10.00 rebate check. After rebate, gift cards I received (which I paid for my other stuff on a second transaction), and coupons, I got 12 boxes of Special K bars for under $3.00. TOTAL. Not per box. TOTAL. If your store has a catalina printer (one of those printers by the register that spits out coupons), the printed coupons would be a "store coupon." In case you didn't know, you can use both a store coupon AND a manufacturer's coupon (like what you get from the newspaper, like the P&G brandsaver or whatever) on the same item... we had a manufacturer's coupon for Kibble's and Bits, and at the store, it spit out a coupon for the same product... we applied both coupons to the purchase and saved $3.00 off, which was about half off!

Anyway, those are my fast tips. Hopefully they help a little bit!