A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

Let's talk money today.  If you know me at all, you know that I love a good deal - aka saving money, not spending it!  I will confess to clipping coupons and even to the fact that I have a binder to keep all of my coupons organized in that I take to the store with me. (Yep... I'm that girl in the check out line.)  But, shame and embarrassment aside, clipping coupons and scouting out deals has saved us a good bit of money in the little time that I've done it.

Now, I realize that couponing takes a fair amount of time, and not everyone can make the commitment to keeping up with lots of coupons and organizing a binder periodically, but I will say that once you get started, it is pretty easy to maintain.  However, if you have seen the TLC show "Extreme Couponers" you know just how crazy people can get with coupons.  They spend every waking moment searching for deals and coupons, and I find that ridiculous.  But I won't go into detail about that hear.  (Jesse may beg to differ at the fact the I made this comment, but I promise I am not an extreme couponer!)

My point of this post is to share a few websites and tips with you that I find useful. 
> How do I find deals? I let other people do most of the work for me. My favorite website to check is hip2save.com.  This is run by a lady named Collin and her gang of deal-seekers.  It is one of the best websites to go to for current deals and coupons.  I don't know how they know about all the deals, but they do a great job updating the site many times a day with new deals or coupons to print. Other websites that have been suggested to me are iamthatlady.com and southernsavers.com.  I check these occasionally.
> These websites I have mentioned are ones that I trust not to post anything sketchy or suspicious on.  When you click the deals they post, you will be transferred to another website. There are lots of freebies you can sign up to receive from different websites to try their product.  Even though I trust the deal websites mentioned, but I do use common sense and proceed with caution when entering my personal information to outside sites.  Usually a name, address, and email are required to receive a trial/freebie.  Sometimes a phone number (usually entering 000-000-0000 works).  I have a separate email account that I use for things such as this so that my real inbox is not loaded with junk.

What kind of freebies have I received?

Most are trial sized samples.  I've gotten toothpaste, dog food, Burts Bees chapstick and lotion, an Xacto blade, and laundry detergent samples to name a few random ones.

Lots of times these will also come with coupons for that product = double score!

These are my general rules for coupons:
1)  I print or clip any coupon that I think I might use.  (Better to keep it just in case and wind up throwing it away, than not have it and miss a really good deal.)
2) I print coupons from the websites mentioned above and clip them from the Sunday paper.  However, I only buy a paper when I know there are coupons inside that make it worth buying the paper and saving on the products. Hip2save.com does a "Coupon Review" every Saturday to let you know what coupons may be in your local paper. I always look through the paper before buying to make sure the coupons I want are in my paper because sometimes they may just be sent to certain regions.
3)  I only use coupons on products that I normally buy or that I would like to try.  I do not use every coupon I clip just because I have it.  If I have a coupon for Depends, I do not need Depends, and therefore do not even bother with the coupon. :)   Sometimes a really great deal may pop up where I can get something I don't normally buy for really cheap (or free!).  For instance, we normally buy cheapo Ivory soap, but I came across a good deal on Olay soap (thanks to those websites mentioned above).

3 2-packs of Olay soap at $2.57 each = $7.71

savings due to 3 $2.00 per item coupons = $6.00

total spent for 6 bars = $1.71 (woop woop!)

3) I do not use all my coupons as soon as they are clipped/printed.  I hold onto them for a little while, in case there is a store deal to match them with.  Such as this deal on Right Guard deodorant (the kind Jesse already uses):  Walgreens had Right Guard on sale for buy one (at $4.58) and get one free.  I happened to have 2 coupons that were $2.00 off when you purchase 2.  Here's the breakdown:

4 deodorants at $4.58 each = 18.32

savings due to BOGO sale = 9.16

savings due to coupons = 4.00

final cost for all four items = 5.16

cost per item = 1.29

(I realize there are 5 deodorants in this photo... one of them came from another BOGO+coupon deal. So Jesse will not need deodorant for a long time!)

4)  Coupons are going to be for name brand items.  So sometimes they are not worth it to me to use. For example, we don't mind using Great Value brand toilet paper.  If I have a coupon for Charmin that does not make the same amount of toilet paper cheaper than buying Great Value, then I don't bother using it.  I would rather pay less for Great Value than getting a few cents off of Charmin.  But that's just our own preference. If you would rather have Charmin, go ahead and grab it and save a little money while getting a product you love!

5)  The best deals are not going to be found in Walmart.  I had to learn to face this fact. I used Walmart as my one-stop-shop because they do usually have the lowest price for just about everything. But I absolutely hate shopping at Walmart.  It seems they are often times out of the product I want, or do not have the price displayed (which makes me really angry, because they have also removed those handy price-scanners that used to be throughout the store).  And don't get me started on the lack of cashiers. Stepping off my soapbox and back to couponing.... they are not going to have BOGO deals, which leads to the best savings.  Ideally, you want to stack coupons with store deals to get the best deal.  These are going to be more prevalent at stores like Winn-Dixie, Publix, Kroger, Walgreens, CVS, and even Dollar General.

There are many more in depth rules to couponing (such as store policy, etc.), but these are just what I consider the general basics.  If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section and I'll get back to you.