Thursday, October 13, 2011

Couponing for Beginner (Part 1 of a lot)

This is where I began:
http://thekrazycouponlady.com/beginners/

     She gives you TONS of information about where and how to begin the process. I watched some of her videos where she takes you through her transactions and it helped quite a bit since I am a visual learner. The next thing that I did was just get ONE newspaper and sat down and cut out the coupons just to learn about them in general. I did not try anything funky, I just took them to the store (WalMart) and used them. No frills, no doubling coupon weirdness, just made a list of what I had coupons for and bought it. This really helped because I saw how much I could save with just a little teeny bit of planning (seriously 20 min here).

     Once I had gotten the "bug", I began looking into what coupon inserts were offered and when and then began dabbling into the world of printing coupons via this website: http://thekrazycouponlady.com/print-coupons/

     This is when I got to the point that I HAD to organize everything because it was just too unorganized otherwise. I did not wanna be the lady scrambling for cat food coupons at the register and digging through her umbrella bag purse! ;-)

     To organize at the beginning, I just had envelopes that I labeled with "Frozen Foods" "Female Hygeine" etc etc etc and would stick the coupons into them when I found them. Before a trip (at this point) I would search the weekly meal deals at Winn Dixie, the serious good deals at Walgreens, and normally forget about the madness known as WalMart. I would make a list for each store (also Dollar General is amazing) and write down ONLY those items that I was buying with the coupons. I would write down what the sale was and what my coupon value was. This helped me to stay 'on target' and not get confused when I was in the store. At this point I was still only buying one paper a week and printing just a few coupons weekly. On average I would save about 25% off of my weekly grocery bill and I had not (yet) begun to dabble with a stockpile or an organizing binder or anything like that.

     I know this might sound foreign because it is A LOT to take in. Stay tuned for (Part 2 of a lot)!

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