Free with Coupons

Read (follow) only a small number of blogs or sites. There are a lot of sites out there about super couponing.  Limit your self to 2 or 3 at the most to start with.  Then, just read and follow for a while.  When I was learning how things worked, I read a couple of blogs for about 3 months before I went shopping with my newly learned skills.

For your first couple of shopping trips, pick a couple of the best deals and stick to exactly those deals.  I suggest selecting one or two items (or deals) from one store for your first outing.  Pick something that you know you’ll use, and preferably something you would buy anyway.  That way, if the deal doesn’t work out quite like you expect, you’ll still have a product you would have purchased anyway!

Make a detailed list. I often include details showing exactly how the deal works  For example: Buy 4 toothbrushes @ $1.79 each, use 2 – $2/2 MQ, pay $3.16 + tax, get $4 RR.  That way I know exactly what to look for in the store, exactly what to hand the cashier, and exactly what I should get back.

Prepare all the coupons. In addition to your detailed shopping list, make sure you have gathered all the coupons you will need for the trip.  I do not take all my coupons to the store with me, instead taking only the coupons I will need for one trip.  Don’t forget to include any loyalty cards, RR, or ECB that you can use when paying for your purchase.

Keep your cool! So long as you are buying items that you would purchase anyway, there is no need to get flustered while standing at the cash register.  Worse case scenario: you buy something at full price….which you would have done anyway before finding this site! (If you really don’t want to keep the purchase, you can usually ask the cashier to return the item.  Make sure to ask for your coupon back too!)

Always remember: There will always be another deal. The drug store deals seem to rotate about every three months, so if you missed a deal today, remember that it WILL come around again.