To coupon successfully you need to purchase the newspaper at least every Sunday. You can also ask your friends and neighbors to give you the coupon sections from newspaper if they don't plan to use it. Keep the coupon inserts in a folder or binder and date them by week. You want to start collecting these weekly inserts in a folder office box or anything that allows you to keep them organized. If you buy the Wednesday-Sunday paper you'll get great coupons for department stores and grocery stores! Get them delivered to your house for even greater convenience! Once you have been doing this for a couple weeks to a month you will be able to start enjoying the main benefit of couponing:saving lots of money! In Central Florida, The Orlando Sentinel lets you purchase several subscriptions of the newspaper! The prices are extremely less than store prices!
Other cities, check out your local newspaper and see how many subscriptions they let you purchase.
Another way to go about getting the paper is to following the Sunday Coupon Preview weekly and checking a preview of coupons coming out in the next Sunday's paper. You buy several copies only if it will benefit you in savings. Other people like to go dumpster diving for coupons or they ask their neighbors for the coupon section of their newpaper. You can also buy several coupons of a product at Ebay or sites like the Coupon Clippers. When it comes to organic coupons you will have to print most of them. Follow Organic Deals to get up to date coupon deals! Always get several coupons to stock up when the deals are good! Publix and Windixie have their BuyOne Get one Free (BOGO) deals. You can price match them at wallmart. They only allow you to get up to 4 of the same product. I have been able to get more of the same product at Publix. Apply coupons onto the BOGO deals and save lots of money. Aldis is a store that has lots of cheap vegetables and fruits. Check out the dirty dozen and the clean 15 list to find out which produce doesn't have pesticides before you purchase produce at Aldi's. At this store they sell organic cereal and other organic foods throughout the store. They don't carry a lot but they carry some products. I also buy products there that have no preservatives and colors. You can find a lot of great prices at Aldi's.
Coupon Lingo:
SS= Smart Source insert found in Sunday newspaper
RP= Red Plum insert found in Sunday newspaper
P&G=Paper and Good insert found in newspaper
BOGO= Buy One Get One Free
RR= Registered rewards. It's like currency from Walgreens that you can get by purchasing certain promotional items. Register Rewards act like a coupon. So use 1 printed RR towards 1 item. You cannot use a RR and a manufacturer coupon for 1 item. You have to choose which one will be the better of the two! Sometimes the cashier will ask for a filler so you can do a deal so be prepared and pick cheap items that are only a few cents worth and give to cashier when needed. There is no limit to a product but there is a limit on how many times you get RR on that same product. To use RR you will have to use them every other transaction after you get them.
ECB= Extra Care Bucks. It's like currency that you get from CVS by purchasing certain promotional items. Limit 1 product to earn ECB per promotional deal. To use ECB you will need to use them in a different transaction from the one you got them.
Overage = It's like money that you get back by using a coupon/s that is/are worth more than the sale price of the item. The store usually will just put it towards credit towards another item in your shopping total.
Couponing dates:
05/22 is an example of a date that an insert came out. In this example this would be May 22.
Couponing Techniques:
There are two techniques I will discuss.
*Weekly Coupon Match ups: These are weekly store lists that I post with sales and coupons that can be used with those sales. I use couponing lingo and couponing dates (as explained above) with each of the lists. Follow the list weekly and clip the coupons found in the list. Clip only after you read the list. Find a couponing site that is from your area through the internet. Follow their weekly store match lists and cut coupons according to date listed in their lists.
* Binder technique: Some couponers use this technique. They will clip all the coupons in the insert on a weekly basis and organize it into a binder by different categories such as food, toiletries, detergents,etc...
The benefit is that you may carry coupons that the store did not advertise in the ad but has a sale for on the day you go shopping. It also works great for places like Wallmart on roll back prices that are not advertised.
* Envelope technique: You can carry the coupons that you believe you are going to use by category. These also carries the same benefit as the binder technique.
I follow the first technique mentioned. I also have handy envelopes that I labelled the following way:
Handy Peelies: You get those coupons from the little machines as you walk by a product in the aisle at the store.
Handy Printables: You print these from trusted sources and keep them handy when sales or coupon match ups call for them. I have a category called "Handy printables" by week under categories on the home page.
Handy Coupons : These are coupons that you know you need. I usually clip them while clipping other coupons after following a coupon match up or by paging through the inserts that arrive weekly. I divide them by category within the envelope.
Coupon strategies:
Use the store coupons. Publix has coupons in their weekly ad and throughout the store, specially at the entrance. take a couple Yellow and Green Advantage Publix coupons. I have several manufacturer coupons for Tabasco that I found at the entrance to Orange City Publix. Manufacturers coupons can be found at Publix. Keep your eyes peeled!
Use the Albertson's $5 off $50 coupon and any other Publix competitor coupon as such to get even more savings at Publix. Use this big and *HOT* coupons from Friday to Sunday. Keep your eyes peeled for Publix competitor weekly ad coupons or manufacturer coupons. This week Albertson's has several manufacturer coupons in their ad and you can take those to Publix.
Super Deals are those that will involve a BOGO ( Buy One Get One Free) sale where you can use a store coupon AND a manufacturer. You will get food and stuff for very cheap this way! At Publix you can use a Publix store coupons or a competitor store coupon (My Publix accepts Target, Wholefoods, Windixie, Albertson's store coupons). At Target you will save the most with this "Super Deal" strategy using their store coupon and manufacturer coupon!
Target has great deals where they offer a $x on a sale. Use cloth bags and earn .05 ¢ per bag. Get a target card and get 5% on your purchases.
Check out Wholefood coupons online and at the store. Print coupons from Mambo Sprouts
Create a motto that you will stick with weekly. I like to use something like this: If it doesn't have a coupon, ain't gonna to buy it! I use that motto for most items.
Always check on the sales and compare prices. 10/$10 is not always a good deal. I buy (2) 32 oz. organic yogurts and pay less money than 10 yogurts summing up to 50 something oz!.
Search coupon database on the internet when you are needing a product and you don't see it on the coupon match-ups provided here. Type the product in the the search box. It will give you the date the coupon for that product is found in the coupon inserts from the newspaper. The date is listed according to the date of that newspaper week.
Healthy Lifestyle and Saving Strategies:
Sun protection is better and healthy when you are covered with cotton fabrics or even surfing clothing and a cute hat. If you are going to buy a sunscreen, consider buying organic sunscreen. Our skin absorbs the junk and it goes against our health. If you can't eat it don't put it on your skin! (Nutritionist advice). Drink Green tea and eat more vitamin C foods or supplements during the summer. Specially if you're exposed to the sun a lot.
Let the tea get the sun not you: sun_dried_tea
Thirty minutes of daily sun is good for our health. That will give us vitamin D. But too much of something becomes unhealthy! That goes for all kinds of matters in life!
We like to leave the beach by noon in the daytime. That is our family motto! There are benefits to going to the beach at other times. At early morning and evening you will have less heat and sun and it's a lovely time to exercise and take photos. I love the beach in the evenings!
When eating healthy you will have to pay a little more than non-healthy lifestyles when it comes to extreme couponing.
But you are what you eat...or is it? I think!!! It works for me!
Save money by buying bulk organic food. Costco has a great deal of organics at great prices. Decide how many items you would like to switch to organic. I can't afford a total 100% organic diet but I am introducing foods weekly making our diet 40-75% organic! What I can't do organic then I will buy labelled "natural" foods. Check the labels and stay away as much as possible from preservatives, food coloring, and antibiotics ( found in regular poultry, meat, and dairy products). If you can't read it, it's because it probably ain't healthy either! Publix has great prices on organic products specially their dairy, poultry, and apples! Whole Foods has sales that are worth getting once in a while. Fruits that you may want to buy organic are those that don't have a peel. Unfortunately pesticides are absorbed by some of my favorite produce.
Here is a great article on foods that don't absorb pesticides: 10-foods-you-should-buy-organic
I only buy organic apples for now. But I want to get to a goal of buying or growing fresh organic tomatoes, strawberries, and grapes. Try growing organic strawberries! Friendly plants should be planted together and enemy plants should be kept away! Enemies will cause a lot of pests to arrive and then use unnecessary pesticides! The plants won't thrive thus ruining your vegetable garden and your desire to even coninue on. Plan, prepare, and buy everything needed to grow successfully.
Lettuce and spinach is easy to grow in the fall. Buy organic seeds when you try growing your garden. Compost your produce peelings and waste. That is a great organic fertilizer! Only grow what you can handle. Watermelon is easy to grow in the summer. It is an invasive plant so prepare a large area just for watermelon. We ate 4 watermelons from our garden last year and did very little work! Another favorite to grow is broccoli. If I can do it so can you! I am a city slicker and can grow these vegetables following techniques in the book I am recommending below. I know people that now own pet chickens to produce organic eggs! Check your local city code!
Try cooking from scratch more often. Processed foods ruin our gut! Eat products with a least 2 grams fiber. Read the label and check ingredients!
Try purchasing healthy cleaners such as Simple Green, TKO (Made from the peel of an orange), and simple Borax and vinegar! They all have multi-uses and can last months. Baking soda works great to sprinkle on carpets for fresh smell! Need to replace febreeze? Dilute a few drops of favorite essential oils with water and pour in a spray bottle. Get essential oils on sale at healthfood stores. Follow their sale days! I use a spray for my bathroom that I bought at healthfood store on a sale day! It is made from oregano essential oil! To rid off a bad smell in the bathrooom you can also lit a match. The smoky smell gets rid of it right away!You can get healthy dishsoap on sale at Publix. Follow the sales!
I have enjoyed shopping at stores that have a $10 off $20 or $10 off $30 coupons in the newspaper. This saves me money that I can apply to my healthy diet!
I read somewhere that the ultimate speed for not wasting gas while driving is 60 miles per hour aprox. So I am driving in the right lane in the highways more and more! I called myself "Granny" these days even though I am quite younger than grannyhood! This has to do with driving more gas conscientious!