I just take the coupon books out of the Sunday paper and punch holes in them with a 3-hole punch. I put them in a binder and arrange them with dividers by the week of the paper they came in. This probably sounds dumb but let me explain why it work.
A friend of mine recently told me about www.couponmom.com. This is a FREE site that tells me what is on sale for the stores in my area and which coupons give me the most bang for my buck. It also tells me for each coupon, which week and which coupon book the coupon can be located. I just open my binder, flip to the appropriate week, and cut out the coupons I need. This system has made me so happy because I can cut what I need when I need it and not spend every Sunday evening collecting pieces of paper I might never use. It also keeps me from extreme sorrow when I have weeks where I can't keep up with my couponing. I don't have to lament weeks of work gone down the drain because I cut coupons and they have now expired.
Coupon Mom also has a coupon index of sorts so...let's say I need to buy something specific and I just want to know where to find the matching coupon. I can just enter the item name and search for it. The site will tell me exactly where to find it.
I'm not one of those super couponers who pay -$5 for their whole grocery budget every month, but I DO like saving pennies. I figure my role in our home isn't to go out and make the money but I sure can SAVE some! Every little bit counts. This system allows me to save money without a huge front-end time commitment.
Hope this helps someone. It's something that makes my life easier and works for me!
Be sure to check out Rocks in My Dryer for more Works-for-Me Wednesday tips.
8 comments:
Thanks for the tip. That is a great idea. I didn't make it to the store today precisely because my coupons are not yet clipped and the process of looking through the paper seemed daunting. If I had your system in place it would have been easy to find the coupons I needed.
I've been using TheGroceryGame.com for the same kind of system (they tell you which coupons give you the most bang for your buck, based on a 12-week sales cycle) but it's not free. I'm definitely checking out CouponMom! Thanks for the link. :)
Coupons are not such a big deal over here. I know of one store that will honour coupons from other stores, but even with that it is usually cheaper to buy the supermarket own brands, so we do that.
Can you give some more pointers as to how to use the Coupon Mom site? I currently use the Grocery Game (not free, but easy to use). I went to the Coupon Mom site and couldn't find anything! It is kind of a confusing site, I think. Can you give a specific page link for the page where you find grocery deals for the week? Thanks!
Love the idea THANKS =D
Jennifer
I'm going to try this out. My problem is that I always forget to take my coupons with me to the store. So they are all nicely clipped and organized. And at home :)
Thank you so much for posting about this site. I had read about it and made a note to look it up later. I lost my note.I have been looking for it for 4 weeks and could not remember the name of the site it. I am doing the happy dance. Thanks again.
What a fantastic idea! I can never seem to keep all those odd shaped pages together and cutting coupons I don't end up using is a huge waste of time!! Thanks for the tip.
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