Couponing 101

Learning to coupon can be described in two simple words; an adventure. I believe that the reason most people fail at couponing is they believe that it is all just going to come to them, they won't have to spend time learning the ins and outs of how it works. Once you learn the very basics you will be well on your way to saving thousands (yes, I said thousands) of dollars a year for your family! This post absolutely does not contain all the ways you can work on saving your family money, there are many more posts to come, but it does contain the very basics of couponing. Following each step below can set you up for very successful future grocery shopping trips.

Step 1: Organization

• To set yourself up for a long future of being successful you MUST begin your coupon adventure by creating a system of organization. Trust me, this step in the beginning will save you hours of work later!
• The easiest and most efficient way I have found to organize myself is using a binder system. You'll need just a few things for this; a binder (can be any size, I started out with just a 1 inch but now I've have to upgrade to a 3 inch), page protectors, baseball card sleeves, and finally print outs of your different categories. There is no need for you to come up with the categories on your own, simply click here and you can print or download my binder categories.
• Once you have printed out your categories, place them in page protectors and fasten them into your binder. Behind each category place baseball card sleeves, these will be holding your coupons. 

Step 2: Get Coupons

• There's no way to coupon without coupons! There are so many different places to get coupons, but one of your absolute best sources is going to be your Sunday newspaper. Save yourself the trouble of getting out every Sunday morning and sign up for delivery. You will maximize your savings with the more papers you get every Sunday, if your serious about saving money I would 3 or 4 papers every Sunday. Don't worry about the money you spend on the papers, you will save way more than it costs you for those papers. I would also ask family and friends to set coupons off to the side for you if you know they don't plan on using them. 
• Coupon printing from websites. The best website for coupon printing is coupons.com. Please be aware that there are limits to the quantity of coupons you are allowed to print. Do NOT break these rules, you can be criminally charged for it. 
• Extremely Important: buying and selling coupons is completely ILLEGAL. I would never think of trying it! Please don't do it, it really is not worth it!

Step 3: Learn The Policies

• Before you ever make a trip to the store you need to learn that store's coupon policies! You can do this several ways; check the stores website, contact their corporate office, or simply call the store and ask where you can get a copy of their coupon policy. I would strongly suggest obtaining a paper copy of the policy and putting it in your binder, there may be times you visit the store and the cashier is unclear of their coupon policy so it helps to have it with you and be familiar with it so you can kindly show the cashier.
• Once you know the policies, don't ever intentionally try to break the policy! Once again this is illegal. If you are unsure about a certain policy, just ask someone in the store, they are usually willing to help and will be able to give you a clear answer.

Step 4: Learn The Language

• One of this things that people find most difficult is all the different terms you will find in the coupon policies and also the terms on the coupons themselves. 
• Here are some of the very common terms and abbreviations when it comes to couponing;
• One per purchase- This simply means you can only use one coupon per item you are purchasing.
• One per customer- You may only use one like coupon for your entire shopping trip.
• B1/G1- Buy one get one 
• Save $1 when you purchase 2- Some coupons will have certain requirements, like you must purchase a certain number of items to use the coupon.
• Save $5 when you spend $25- To use these coupons you must meet the requirements. It generally can be used before all other coupons as long as you have spent the specific amount indicated on the coupon.
• Do not double- This is actually instructions for the store, it is telling them not to double the value of the coupon. Some stores however do double coupons that are under a certain amount. For instance, several stores here will double coupons that are 50 cents or under. So really a coupon for $.50 is really worth $1. Check your stores coupon policy- if you are able to you should shop at stores that double, it will maximize your savings.

Step 5: Plan Your Trip

• Throughout your couponing experience this will always be the most important step! Even the most experienced couponers still sit down and carefully plan their trip.
• Now that you have your coupons and know the policies, you need to sit down with the weekly sales ad and plan your trip. The key to couponing is the following; only buy things that are on sale AND you have a coupon for. This is the best piece of advice I can give to you, if you start buying things just because you have a coupon- you will not save, but instead you will be spending more!
• I will be posting more on planning your trips and what to look for in order to save the most.
• Don't forget to be checking prices of store brand foods, sometimes they are still the cheapest.

Step 6: Head To The Store

• When beginning to coupon it is important to head to the store when you have some time to spare, your first trips are going to be time consuming even though you planned. Try to minimize your distractions- for me this means leaving my husband at home! I love him very much, but he can quickly mess up my whole trip by throwing random things in the cart! 
• Make sure you are thoughtful of other shoppers- don't clear shelves (this is incredibly rude) and also if you have tons of coupons kindly inform the person behind you that your check out will take longer than normal because of coupons. 
• Enjoy your savings!

Like I said in the beginning- this is just the very basics of couponing, now that you know these things we will gradually build off of it. In future posts I will go deeper into coupon policies and how to plan out your trip! I'm sure these steps will keep you busy for a couple days :)

Your coupon trips will begin to look like this- paid just $16.78 for all that.