The Joys of Couponing
Recently we have begun couponing once again. I was tempted by reading accounts of people who have been able to reduce their grocery budget by clipping coupons. This is a fun project that I am doing with my girls and each week we are saving money.
We did this sporadically in the past and it was alot of fun. I remember that we begun couponing after witnessing a shopper in front of us in line at the grocery store a few years back. She purchased around $200 worth of groceries and products. The shopper presented her coupons and I watched the total tick down to less than a dollar. I was completely shocked. So my girls and I began our couponing hobby after this experience. It was fun at first. We had our 3 ring binder with baseball sleeves and each week we would clip coupons and organize them in the binder. We did save money but after a few months I found it to be annoying and slightly time consuming.
I did save my coupon binder and recently I pulled it out again and we began filling it with coupons. My girls are more dedicated at this than I am and so it is a fun project to do together. This week I went to the grocery store and saved $12. This is not much money in the grand scheme of things but every little bit does add up. Plus I used my extra $12 to buy the new Casting Crowns cd. If I could save $12 every week for the next year then that would be nice to add back into our budget.
I have found that couponing continues to improve to the point that it is much easier now than it was two years ago. I appreciate being able to go to coupon websites and print off only the coupons that I plan to use. We like to buy organic and natural products as well and it is much easier to find coupons for these products than I recall in the past. You can google couponing and find all sorts of blogs that discuss this and even find out the latest bargains. For instance, one blogger mentioned that Target has coupons available for wet wipes and after the coupon they would be free. This was a nice tip to find. Evidently this is commonplace among couponers to find free products. I also learned from a blog that Target accepts a Target coupon and manufacturer's coupon at the same time. So this results in a nice discount which can benefit Target shoppers.
Here are some of my favorite coupon websites:
Coupons.com
Red Plum
Coupon Bug
Coupon Mom
Smart Source
Couponing 101
We did this sporadically in the past and it was alot of fun. I remember that we begun couponing after witnessing a shopper in front of us in line at the grocery store a few years back. She purchased around $200 worth of groceries and products. The shopper presented her coupons and I watched the total tick down to less than a dollar. I was completely shocked. So my girls and I began our couponing hobby after this experience. It was fun at first. We had our 3 ring binder with baseball sleeves and each week we would clip coupons and organize them in the binder. We did save money but after a few months I found it to be annoying and slightly time consuming.
I did save my coupon binder and recently I pulled it out again and we began filling it with coupons. My girls are more dedicated at this than I am and so it is a fun project to do together. This week I went to the grocery store and saved $12. This is not much money in the grand scheme of things but every little bit does add up. Plus I used my extra $12 to buy the new Casting Crowns cd. If I could save $12 every week for the next year then that would be nice to add back into our budget.
I have found that couponing continues to improve to the point that it is much easier now than it was two years ago. I appreciate being able to go to coupon websites and print off only the coupons that I plan to use. We like to buy organic and natural products as well and it is much easier to find coupons for these products than I recall in the past. You can google couponing and find all sorts of blogs that discuss this and even find out the latest bargains. For instance, one blogger mentioned that Target has coupons available for wet wipes and after the coupon they would be free. This was a nice tip to find. Evidently this is commonplace among couponers to find free products. I also learned from a blog that Target accepts a Target coupon and manufacturer's coupon at the same time. So this results in a nice discount which can benefit Target shoppers.
Here are some of my favorite coupon websites:
Coupons.com
Red Plum
Coupon Bug
Coupon Mom
Smart Source
Couponing 101
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