Starting out couponing can be very over whelming. Most people who've seen the new show Extreme Couponing on TLC seem to think they can't hop into this task and succeed the first try. Well guess again... if you go into this with that state of mind you will be very disappointed after your first shopping trip. All that preperation and hard work only saved you $10. Wow... How is this all going to be worth it? I'll just go ahead and tell you that we've all been there. My first experience was at Walmart and I saved a whole $12. I thought for sure when I left the house I was going to walk out with a ton of groceries and little OOP expense. I sure got a good slap in that face that day :) Now that I have become more coupon savvy I am able to finally stock up on product and actually leave a store without paying retail.
My very first suggestion to all people starting out is to pick one store and focus on their sales and their coupon policy. Knowing their policy will be a very good piece of information you need before walking into any store. I'm not saying you need to memorize it word for word but you do need to read over it and maybe even print it out to have with you in case you run into any issue during checkout. I will be very happy to answer any questions you may have as far as understanding the policy goes. Once you have mastered or feel that you are getting the concept of couponing down then moving on in your journey is a great possibility. From my experience my favorite stores to start out with are Target and/or Smiths (Kroger). Those grocery stores that you would typically not shop at because their prices tend to be higher than Walmart are usually going to be the best ones to start at. They always run sales which can make great for deals when matching up coupons and having their weekly ad to compare coupons to is much easier than trying to conquer Walmart.
A great question that most people have in the beginning... Is Couponing really worth the cost of ink and paper that it takes to print all the coupons and policies out? This is a question I personally asked myself before I really started and now I am 110% sure it is worth the money. Since I've started my coupon journey I have yet to pay for paper :) Staples runs deals very often for free paper. You simply pay the 4.99 or 5.99 OOP for the printer paper and then they give you an easy-rebate that gives you a check back for the purchase. The easy rebate only takes a few minutes. The simple process is going to their site and imputing 2 sets of number off your receipt and then giving them your mailing address or pay pal e-mail to give you the rebate back. That's it!!! No stamps needed. As far as ink goes it really does last a lot longer than I expected it to. Staples also pays you $2 in rewards for every empty cartridge you turn in (limit 10 per month) These rewards are bucks that you can use in the store for a future purchase and we all know ink will be on the list for a future purchase. Other people choose to just get their ink cartridges refilled which can be a little cheaper OOP than buying new. I honestly prefer not to do this because there have been many horror stories I've read online about people getting refills and it ruining their printer or that the cartridge is simply just not as full as a brand new one so it doesn't last as long. I can honestly say give it a month and calculate all your savings you will have just from couponing and then you can make the decision about whether its worth it or not. I'll bet you'll be on my side once you stock up on all the FREE deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrushes.
The best question of all... Coupons usually state One Coupon Per Purchase. This simply means one coupon per item per purchased. So if you have four items then you need four separate coupons. There are some coupons that only allow so many per purchase and that is when separate transactions come into play. If the coupon states only four per purchase per transaction then you will only be allowed to get four items using four separate coupons. That is when you put the little stick between your items and separate then into more than one transaction. Most stores won't object to this unless you have a large line of people behind you. If you do then finish up the transaction and politely just step back into line and do the transaction over again.
Initial savings isn't going to be as fantastic as you would like it to be. For example you would typically pay OOP 3.00 for just one box of cereal. Couponing you now see that you can get cereal for only 1.00 a box and sometimes less than that. When items are able to be purchased at a stockup price then you simply have to stock up! So yes this means that you would buy as many as you can for this great price. example ( Retail 1 box of cereal= 3.00 10 boxes @ 3.00 each= 30.00 ) (Coupon 1 box of cereal = 1.00 30 boxes @ 1.00 each= 30.00 ) . So moral of the story is that getting your stock-pile started is going to cost you basically the same OOP as you are paying now but you will have a lot more product to show for it and soon your OOP expense will drop drastically before you realize it.
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