Yes, coupons are your friend. They are a really nice friend that can save you a lot of money to do stuff with your “in real life friends”!
I have a lot of moms (and single friends) tell me that they don’t have time to use coupons. I always think “Really? I don’t have the money to not use coupons.” but I generally keep that thought to myself and tell them it isn’t that hard to start or something else that sounds much nicer.
Well nice gloves come off for this post and I am going to suggest you break out the couponing habit that is within you. Once you start seeing how much you can save, you will find you can’t stop your couponing. It is addicting but your wallet and bank account with thank you!
The most obvious place to get coupons is the Sunday newspaper. We get two newspapers daily (the local paper, The Daily Progress, and The Washington Post) so I get double the Sunday coupons. The papers pay for themselves plus some by just using the coupons in them. Plus we get the local news and my husband gets two crossword puzzles a day! You can often sign up to just get the Sunday paper delivered to your house. So check that out if you don’t want a daily paper. You can also ask a friend who gets the paper to pass on their coupons if they don’t use them or after they are done with them. My coupon inserts go to my neighbor when I am done with them. (I got her into her couponing habit and am proud of it!)
You can get coupons by mail and have some “good” mail days yourself! Some online offers will send you a coupon if you give them your address (such as my free chocolate bar and Charmin coupons I mentioned in my last post!) The Val-Pac or other local magazines are good for coupons to local restaurants, car repair places, you name it. We hardly eat out without coupons!
You can also print coupons from your computer. I have just started this addiction but it is paying off already. http://www.coupons.com/ is a basic starter location for coupons. http://www.redplum.com/ and http://www.smartsource.com/ also have printable coupons. You can print coupons for stores that you may get in emails or they may just have available online. http://www.afullcup.com/ has a Target Coupon Generator that will give you coupons good only at Target.
Now how to do use those coupons, the best time to use them is when something is on sale. So you will get the sale savings and the coupon savings. In the past few weeks, I have learned that you can combine some store coupons and a Manufacturer’s Coupon on the same item for even bigger savings! The stores I know where this works are Walgreens, Target, and Toys R Us!
A lot of sites, include the ones I have on the side of this blog have couponing basic posts. Some of the blogs post the best deals (where you combine a sale WITH a coupon or even two!) so you don’t even have to do all of the planning work. Check out some of those blogs and see how easy it is to start saving with coupons.
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