Grocery Couponing for Lazy People

OK, so maybe that's not the best title. I've gone back & forth and called this post "The Simplest Ways to Save Money Using Coupons" or "Couponing Made Easy". Here's how this post came about.

As I've been talking to people lately about couponing and saving money on groceries and household products, I find that many people are overwhelmed at where to start. They know to buy newspapers to get coupons, and look at circulars for good deals - but what then? Do you clip all your coupons? Go to multiple stores? How do you keep organized? How do you make it work without too much work and how do you make sense of it all?

A good place to start is reading this post I wrote a while ago on the basics of couponing. This was written about couponing in general and is a little bit more high maintenance than what I do now. Now I'm going to tell you how I save money on my groceries, specifically, recognizing that the way I go about things may not work for everyone.

I do not spend a lot of time couponing and grocery shopping. I already spend more time than some because my older son eats dairy, soy & wheat free, so buying groceries for him requires visiting at least 3 different stores on a regular basis. Also, having an almost 2.5 year old and an almost 2 month old, I don't have a ton of time to read blogs, and find out all the deals, etc.

So here's what I do on a weekly or biweekly basis:

1. Get the weekly circulars to the stores you frequent. They come in the mail here Thursday, Friday or Saturday, but since most grocery sales start on Friday and many stores do weekend sales or 3-day sales, I sign up to get them e-mailed to me. They usually come on Thursday. I also have one that is snail-mailed to me. I did this by commenting in their contact form on their web page.

2. Buy at least 1 Sunday newspaper a week. The Sunday paper is generally the one that contains the coupons, but this can vary by region, so double-check. The Sunday papers here cost between $2.00-$3.50, so if it's a lean week, I may just buy one, but you can read here about why I sometimes buy multiple copies. You can find out here what the inserts for the week are scheduled to be, so you can plan ahead.

3. Browse the circulars to see what's on sale that you can use. I look not only for frequently-used products, but also any sales that boast a coupon off your next purchase (called a catalina). For example, Shaw's, a local chain, often does a sale on certain lines of products that if you buy $20-$25 in product, you get a $5-$10 coupon off your next visit. That's $20-$25 before coupons, and the products are on sale, so you can often get really good deals. You can see here how much free or almost free stuff I've gotten!

4. Find out if those sale products have coupons. You can find regional coupon lists at Coupon Mom or national lists at Hot Coupon World where you can do a search for a product and see if there an any coupons to match.

5. Only clip the coupons you know you'll use. When time permits, I browse the coupon inserts to see if there are any coupons for products I use often. My son can only eat certain brands of snacks and cereal, for instance, so if I see a coupon for his brands, I clip them and carry them in a envelope in my purse. Otherwise, I do not clip any coupons. I file the inserts in a filing cabinet by date and clip them when I know my coupon matches for the week.

6. Buy what's on sale whenever you can, and match the sales with coupons. This may be stating the obvious to some of you, but buy your staples when they go on sale. Most things go on sale at some time, especially staples such as meat, beans, rice, frozen veggies and fruit, pasta sauce, canned goods, paper products, cereal and milk. I never, ever pay full price for meat, frozen veggies, and most cereals. Since my son is on a special diet, sometimes we do need to pay full price for some essentials. We balance that out by getting other basics on sale.

7. Pick 1 or 2 main blogs, and just check for weekly deals. For grocery shopping, I don't always check for deals. The things we buy are pretty standard. The one exception is if I see that Shaw's (mentioned above) is having a catalina deal, I will go to Hot Coupon World to find coupon match-ups with the on-sale products. I also sometimes go to Coupon Mom for grocery deals. Her site is similar to Grocery Game, but it's free. She organizes the site by region and store, so if you already know you're going to Shaw's, you can select your state, then that store, and find out if anything is free or really cheap that you want to pick up while you're there.

That's it, folks. It may seem like a lot of work, but it's really not. I also don't do it every week. Some weeks all I pick up is produce, which makes up almost 50% of our grocery budget. Otherwise, I shop the sales & keep my pantry & freezer stocked.

Why Do I Need to Buy More Than 1 Newspaper? Why I Get Multiple Copies of Coupons

I recently had someone ask me why I get multiple copies of the newspaper. When I started couponing again last October, I noticed fairly quickly that many of the good deals required you buy more than just 1 of the product, therefore requiring more than one copy of the coupon. Some deals even require that you have 3 or 4 copies of the coupon. Also, when things go on sale, having multiple copies of the coupon allows you to better stockpile items. I actually buy more than 1 type of Sunday paper as well. In my town, we have 2 different papers, and they each carry slightly different coupons, so I get at least one of each.

When I began to buy more than 1 newspaper, clipping coupons became a lot more work! Now, I have a new organizational system for my coupons that doesn't require I actually cut them out of the paper. I mainly use HotCouponWorld's coupon database searching system, which is pretty thorough; they even have links to printable coupons, such as Target store-specific coupons. I also download the list of coupons from Taylortown or another source and put them into a spreadsheet, so I have that for quick reference.

Buying one newspaper is a good start; you'll pretty quickly see that it pays for itself. Buying 2 or more papers, especially on coupon-packed weeks, can really jumpstart your couponing!

Basics of Couponing

Often, I get asked how complicated it is to begin couponing. People have this misconception that it takes hours and hours and tons of trips to the store, but that doesn't have to be the case.

Here are some things you can do today to get started on couponing.

1. Subscribe to blogs about couponing and saving money. Pick a blog reader that works for you (such as Bloglines or Google Reader). I use Google Reader because I have a Gmail account already and I like the way it works. Most bloggers have a "Subscribe to this blog" button on their blog that looks like this:
You can see I have a "Subscribe" feature up on the upper-right side of my blog. If it's a Blogspot blog, like this one, there will also be a link at the very bottom of the blog that says "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)". You can click on that link to subscribe. Also, in Google Reader, there's an "Add a Subscription" link on the left where you can simply cut & paste the blog's URL and add it that way.

You'll learn pretty quickly which blogs are helpful and worth reading and which are not. It's easy to unsubscribe in the Google Reader if you find that blog unhelpful; just click on the blog, and then select "Unsubscribe" under "Feed Settings".

2. Get the Sunday paper. Occasionally, coupons appear in the Thursday or Friday paper, so double-check with your local newspaper to find out when they are there. I used to get it delivered to my house for a discount, and I'm waiting for them to offer me a good deal before I subscribe again. I got this week's paper for free at CVS. So if you can get a good deal in your area, subscribe. Otherwise, pick it up at the store & make sure it has the coupons in it before you buy it.

3. Print coupons off the web. Click on my Coupons.com banner on my site, and I get some sort of compensation when you print coupons :) Also, check out manufacturer's websites. Often, they have coupons for products you use that you can print out. Sometimes, they require registration, so set up a junk e-mail account that you use for those purposes. You can contact companies directly and ask them to mail you coupons.

4. Make a coupon binder or folder. Everyone has a different system for this. Trent over at Simple Dollar organizes his coupons by expiration date. Money-saving Mom uses an envelope system. I used to have an index card box that was similar to Money-saving Mom's system. After that, I had a plastic accordion-style coupon holder. Now, I've decided on a hybrid of Trent & Money-saving Mom's system. I'll share about that in a separate post.

This will get you started. Simply having the coupons, having a system for organizing them, and seeing how others are using their coupons and what deals they're scoring will get you off to a good start! I don't want to overwhelm you, so I'll share more ideas in upcoming posts :)