Couponing for Beginners

18. January 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Couponing

Welcome to my Couponing for Beginners series! If you want to learn how to use coupons but aren’t sure where to start, you’re in the right place.

Growing up I remember my mom cutting out coupons from the Sunday paper to use at the grocery store. I followed her example when I moved away for college, but I only used a few coupons every week on items I already wanted. I didn’t shop the sales, and I knew that drugstores were more expensive than grocery stores, so I avoided them like the plague.

A short while after getting married, my husband, who had no idea what he was getting himself into, showed me an article where a woman paid only $0.02 for around $380 worth of groceries at Target. Now, for those of you who know me, you know that (a) I can be quite competitive, and (b) I am as stubborn as a mule. After reading this article, I thought matching her savings would be a piece of cake. (I wish.) I’m definitely not as good as she is, but I can tell you from experience that a little bit of work and time will save you a great amount on your groceries and toiletries. It’s also a lot of fun.

Before I even walked out the door to go shopping, I started scouring the internet for articles on couponing and finding deals. There are a great number of amazing blogs that gave me all kinds of ideas and helped me shape the way I coupon today. So before you do anything else, skim through the following list of articles. You don’t need to memorize anything in them, so don’t worry about remembering everything you read. Just get a general view of the world of couponing and the great community you’re about to join.

I read all of my blogs through Google Reader. If you’re not already using one, set up an RSS reader and add blogs that you come across that interest you. It's pretty easy to end up with a bazillion blogs and too much to read, but after some time you'll figure out which ones are helping you and which ones you aren't really reading. I have a small sampling of the couponing blogs I read regularly on my left sidebar. You’ll see that I don't do most of the research for what sales match the coupons; instead, I read the blogs of some amazing women who share their match-ups with their readers, and choose what I buy from their lists. Have fun reading the amazing deals these ladies get; next up in the series will be the basics of coupons.