Coupons

Coupons are becoming more and more a topic of interest. I see more questions and articles about coupons than I ever have before.

Back on July 1, 2008 I wrote about coupons in a post about saving money on food. This will have some new points and a few of the previous ones.

1. Why is a $.75 coupon better than a $1 coupon? Because when stores double or triple coupons they will not do it on coupons over $.99. So your $1 coupon is never worth more than $1. While your $.75 coupon can be worth as much $2.25.

2. Check store circulars every week. The circulars are in the stores themselves, in the Sunday papers, thrown onto your lawn in plastic bags, or sometimes available online. See what is on sale and plan your menu for the week around the sale items.

3. Save your coupons for the time the store has a sale on the item. You can get items for very little if they are on sale, you have a coupon and if the coupon is also being doubled or tripled.

4. Check the inserts in the Sunday paper for coupons. You can also get some coupons online. Not all stores take online coupons.

5. If there are a lot of good coupons it can be worth it to buy an extra Sunday paper.

6. I highlight the expiration date of my coupons so it is easier for me to see when they expire.

7. Check for more coupons in women's magazines, store circulars, inside packaged products and in special store promotional pieces that have coupons.

Saving Money on Food

I've seen food costs on some items jump 15% and on others jump as much as 80%. How can we eat well and cope with these ever rising costs? Believe it or not it can be done. And it doens't mean eating gruel and going hungry. It can be done by eating name brands and quality items and plenty of them. It doesn't mean starving yourself and only eating store brands and things you can't stand. I'll be doing a series of articles about cutting food costs in lots of different ways.

I have a friend who is a master of couponing and over the years I've learned from him how to use coupons to get the most out of them. He eats three meals a day (and he really eats), he stays away from processed foods (practically no white flour, white sugar or white rice) and he eats a very healthy diet. His big splurge in the not so healthy line is ice cream. I've known him to get premium ice cream (Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's) for 28 cents a pint, frozen fish for 18 cents a pound and yogurts for 10 cents each.

1. Don't buy generic items (store brands). This may seem counterintuitive but there are no coupons for store brands.

2. Wait for sales for the coupon items. Combining the coupon with a sale can work wonders.

3. If you can, wait for the double or triple coupon weeks. If you can get a coupon tripled you get an amazing discount. If the item is also on sale you can get it for practically nothing. Hence premium ice cream for 28 cents a pint.

4. By an extra Sunday paper if it has coupons that are good for you. You can save a lot more than the cost of the paper by doing this.

5. See if you can find people who either don't clip coupons or don't clip the same ones that you do and get their coupon sheets.

6. Buy in bulk when there are sales.

7. Use your freezer for the fresh foods you buy in bulk.

8. Get the store discount cards.

9. If there is a special that says limit of four don't let that stop you. Go out and come back in for a second round of buying the item.