Welcome to Couponing

I started couponing shortly after our daughter was born. We decided that I would stay home part-time with a goal of me eventually staying home full-time. So, I needed to find ways to make cuts in our budget. I had heard about these women who would save 70% to 90% and even more when they were grocery shopping and always thought I could never do that. Well now, just over a year later I am doing it (most weeks, that is).

So… Where do you start?

• Find out what your local store coupon policy is. For me, my local grocery stores are King Soopers and Safeway and they will both double coupons up to a total of $1.00 and will also take printable coupons. The main points to know are will they double coupons values, will they take expired coupons, will they take printable coupons (more on these later), and is there a limit on the number of coupons you can use at one time. King Soopers policy is that they will only take a total of 3 of any one coupon.

• Find out when your stores’ sales ad comes out. At King Soopers and Safeway they come out on Wednesdays and sometimes on Sunday with a smaller sales ad. You can check out Kings Soopers ad here Safeways ad here.

• The key to saving large amounts is finding the items that are on sale in the weekly ad and matching it up with coupons. This is how you are able to get some items free or super cheap. I will be doing some match ups for you on my blog weekly.

• Start gathering coupons. I will post later on where I get my coupons from, but know that there are many ways to get coupons and it is by using a combination of sources that you are able to get some great coupons. One point I never knew was that when you find a good coupon, you want to get as many of that coupon as you can.