June 6, 2011 – Bless Your Heart

When you first start couponing you need coupons. Where to get them? The Sunday paper is your best bet. Some people buy multiples of the paper to get lots of inserts. Red Plum and Smart Source are the main inserts in most Sunday papers. You can also print coupons from their websites. If you really think you’re going to get into saving money by couponing, I would go ahead and set up a folder on your favorites bookmarks bar marked Coupons.

Then go to these sites:

There are a TON more sites out there, just Google Coupons and you’ll see! Don’t forget eCoupons too. You use them for your groceries as well. Go to Upromise and set up an account, then once a month activate their eCoupons. Then when you buy say, a can of soup, you can use a paper coupon on the soup at the store, then get credit in your account for your eCoupon. Saving Star is another great resource for eCoupons. They have an app too so while you’re in store you can check your account. Build up $5 at least then transfer it to your Paypal account or get gift cards.

Don’t forget, there are 2 main types of coupons. There are manufacturer coupons issued by the companies that make the products and there are store coupons issued by the stores. You can stack these coupons for ultimate savings. Example: you want to buy Tide detergent. You clip a manufacturer coupon from the Sunday paper for 50 cents off. Then you read Target‘s ad and clip a coupon with the Target logo on it that says store coupon next to the expiration date that is worth 25 cents. You are allowed to use both to save a total of 75 cents. That’s called stacking.

You may want to check with a friend or neighbor and start swapping coupons. My friend Christina and I swap coupon inserts every couple of weeks. She has 2 small kids and I have 3 dogs so our needs are different and we clip different coupons. We swap the coupons and it’s like we bought 2 papers! Some people also participate in coupon trains where they will receive an envelope full of coupons, pull the ones they want, add the ones they won’t use, then send them on to the next person in the train.

Now go get clipping!