A Couponing Strategy Where You Barely Have to Pay for Groceries

Be honest; where do you stand on the subject of couponing? Are you like me, where you really do not have good feelings about the idea or do you love it? We all have an opinion, whether it’s the same as others or not. We all have a thought about couponing; for me, it’s the fact that it seems like a waste of time. As often as I see coupons in the paper or online, I never see any that offer savings on anything that I actually purchase. They’re all offering savings on things I don’t use, don’t need and do not even want in my kitchen.

For others, however, coupons offer a savings plan; a way of buying groceries without spending much money. Whereas I hate standing in line behind someone with a million coupons, those people love to see the swipe of each one as it drops the price of their purchase by this much or that much. It’s a personal feeling we all have, no matter which end of the spectrum your feelings lie. But what I if I told you that there is a couponing strategy out there that means you’ll barely pay a thing for groceries ever again? What if I told you that it’s not something that I just made up, either? It’s something that one mom is doing, and she’s raking in the big bucks by not actually spending any bucks at the store? Don’t believe me? Well, here’s her couponing strategy.

Get familiar with all that happens first and foremost

Here’s the deal; you cannot clip a few coupons from the local paper and save hundreds on your shopping trip. You have to get really creative, and it is not an easy job. You have to learn that there are blogs in your community designed to help you save. You have to learn how to use the coupons there, how to use apps, how to use cash back reward programs, how to use digital coupons and how to use store and manufacturer coupons. It’s a time-consuming process, and you have to have some serious time to dedicate to this craft. You also have to be very patient and willing to learn the art of couponing so that it benefits you in the most financially savvy sense.

Search the blogs

This is where the money saving really comes in handy and works for people. Chances are good, especially if you live in a bigger city, that there are some local blogs out there from men and women who will do the legwork for you. This means that they will do the work to find out what is on sale every week, which coupons go with these things and which apps and cash back programs are going to give you the most off your purchase. This is the best way to go about this, since it makes things that much easier on you. Your only job is to track down the coupons and download the apps to make this work for you. And that means that you will save a lot of money. What you’re doing when you find a blog like this is saving a lot of money at the store and letting someone else do all the difficult work for you.

Do it daily

What experts recommend is that you spend time every single day doing your couponing. If you a lot a half hour or so each day to looking for coupons, making your supermarket list and checking out blogs, it makes the entire process feel simpler, more productive and less like the difficult work that it really is. This is something you can do while you drink your coffee in the mornings or before you go to bed in the evenings. It’s not all that difficult, but it does make a huge difference.

Plan

The biggest tip for making this work is planning ahead. This means knowing the sales cycles and knowing things that you use and how long that they last in your home. For example, I don’t coupon in my house, but I do know when Publix is offering $3 per box off of the Starbucks K-Cups we drink. Since we go through almost 4 boxes per week between the two of us, the savings really adds up. We know how often this sale comes around, so we stock up on them the week that they are on sale so that we don’t have to buy them when they are full price.

So if the sale happens every 4 weeks, we’ll buy 16 boxes. At $9.99 per box, that would be $160 at full price for four weeks worth of coffee. When we buy them at $3 off all at once, however, that’s only $112. We save almost $600 per year on those when we buy them on sale. We do the same with the cereal our kids like the best, and the frozen waffles they love so much. It works well for us.

This is the same thing you have to do in this scenario. You will never have to pay for things like cereal and crackers and drinks if you use this concept. Stock up when things are on sale and never buy them when they’re not. When you do this, plan ahead and know that you will not run out of these things, it can save you tremendously.

Add health to the mix

We all know that coupons are not usually something that are offered on healthy foods, and we know it’s true because we see shopping carts filled with cake mix and other unhealthy packaged foods. But you can still save on things you need in these categories and buy healthy food at the same time. Just plan your healthy shopping around sales. When you save a bunch on coupons, you can afford to spend a little more on healthy stuff, and that makes your meals a bit more well-rounded and less unhealthy. Additionally, just look for sales on fruits and vegetables and focus on those instead of others. Furthermore, shop your local farmer’s markets, too, for healthy food. That’s where you’re going to find the real deals so that you can coupon and save your family money.

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