I use coupons for our groceries, clothes and anything in between. I'm not as frugal or thrifty as I probably could be, but I try to be as much as possible. I use the www.grocerygame.com for our groceries. It is a service that I pay for every 8 weeks. It will have a list for me almost every week and when I get the list, I choose just the items that I need or want. My husband and I have an agreement, that we only buy the items that are 50% or more on the list. The grocery game uses a system with three colors, black (buy these items only if you need them), blue (best deals for stockpiling) and green ( these items are free). I only buy the blue or green items, rarely do I buy a black item. I organize my coupons by week, ie. 12/05/09, 12/13/09, etc. I keep these in a hanging file box and only keep twelve weeks at a time. When I get my list it will tell me a date and a code for where the coupon can be found. Some codes are: S-Smart Source, R-Red Plum, etc. I will go to that coupon insert and find the coupon and cut it out. It usually takes me anywhere from 20 - 30 mins. a week to do this. It is something my husband can do and has many times, when I'm sick or something is going on. When I head to the store, I only go down the aisle that I need something, there for I'm not tempted to buy extra items or the impulse items. That does not mean that I don't ever do that, just most weeks I don't. There are several stores for my area on the list, but I only do two of them and some weeks, only go to one. I have skipped several weeks over the last month or so. We will just swing by a store to pick up, milk, eggs and bread. By doing this for our family we have been able to save so much money. I must say, my husband does one of the stores for me, he started doing it over the summer and has continued to do it, he likes it because all the employee's in the store knows him now and will come over and watch how much he saves with coupons, if it is not a busy time in the store.
Since we have been stockpiling some of the non perishable items, we are able to share with family, friends and neighbors when they need something. It came in handy during Hurricane Ike we were able to barter with our neighbors and share some of the items we had been stockpiling. That was a blessing.
There are many different web sites available for using coupons and saving money, here are just the ones I'm familiar with. www.hotcouponworld.com - free, www.couponmom.com - free, www.grocerygame.com- pay a fee., www.couponcabin.com, and www.coolsavings.com.
There are other ways to store the coupons and organize them, each person just has to find out what best fits their needs, this is what is best for me. When I first started this, it was very time consuming, because I would cut out all of the coupons each week and file them in a three-ring binder according to the item, ie..Frozen foods, Dairy, etc. Many times, I would fall asleep on the couch, only to have my husband wake me up early in the morning. That was draining on my health and my families schedule, so we looked for another way to be organized, but effective for our family.
One more thing, it is best to know the stores policy on coupons, each one is different and it also depends on what area you live it.
