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SCOTT AND LISA'S COUPON PAGE
Lisa and I wanted to give you some info on "couponing". We dont want to seem like those "crazy coupon people" but, Its hard for people to realize how much money can be saved on almost everything that you buy. Most everybody thinks that its a great idea, yet almost nobody does it. If you take the time to do it, you will never go back to paying full price for stuff.
First, Couponing is hard. Its not just a few hours per week. It takes a LOT of time but if I told you that you could save $400.00 this week on groceries for 10 hours of work, would you do it? If the answer is yes then you will love couponing.
There are three main components to couponing. First, you have to get the coupons. One coupon doesnt help because the concept requires that you "stock up" when the deals come along. I always suggest 12 papers to start with. Get used to 12 and if you want to go bigger later, after you get the hang of it, you can. Second, is comparing the deals and finding out whats on sale and where to go to use the coupons. Third, is having the space to store items and getting some extra freezers and fridges to store the perishable stuff. Basically, you need a coupon room for computers, coupon flyers, and all of your stuff.
COUPONS-
85% of the coupons that you will use come from the Sunday paper. The main ones are RED PLUM and SMART SOURCE but occasionally proctor and gambel or general mills will include coupons too. The question obviously becomes "how do i get the papers to get the coupons"..the easiest way is to buy them..12 papers cost about $20.00 if you buy the doubles on sunday afternoon...but, there are other ways..lisa and i tracked down the paper guy and on mondays when he picks up all of the unsold papers, he comes to us and we pay him $25 to get all of the flyers out..we usually get around 100 or so...also, there are printables that can be printed from your computer and add on flyers that you find in the stores (publix always has 2 or 3 good flyers floating around)...lisa and i would be willing to help you "build your book" which means we can give you a dozen or so of each coupon flyer from the last 6 months..that means that you get up to speed immediatley and have ALL of the coupons that are out there and havent expired instaed of slowly having to build up your coupon stash as you get new papers each week. we would be happy to give you papers each week if you wanted to drive up and have lunch but the cost of 12 papers is roughly the cost of gas to get to moreland so, we can just talk about that later...the point is you somehow have to get papers EVERY WEEK for this to work...some deals this week use coupons that came out in august or before...
PUTTING THE DEALS TOGETHER-
we use 2 main sites...www.couponmom.com and www.southernsavers.com . they do all of the work and show most of the deals that we get. Once you get used to the sites its not hard..90% of all we buy are found on these sites..Ocassionally we find closeouts or unpublished deals but most of our big deals are found on one of these two sites...they just match the sales prices to the coupons and show you what the net price will be....
STORAGE- you have to get a good spot to put all of the stuff..A room is best where you can close the door and cut the coupons, look on the computer, print out coupons and just get your deals together...you will need more fridges and freezers!! we have 4 freezers and 3 fridges.....just be thinking about that stuff.. STOCKING UP: we no longer run to the store to get stuff weekly...we stock up and have a years supply of most things here at the house...this weeks biggest deal was vegetable oil (and i brought you some coupons for this deal!!)..48oz. crisco vegetable oil is normally $4.66 per bottle...publix has it on sale buy one get one free (BOGO)..making it $2.33 each...we have a .50 coupon that publix will double for an additional $1.00 off which makes the cooking oil $1.33 each..It doesnt get better than that so we will buy a years worth at that price..Lisa rougly calculated 15 bottles would last us a year so thats what we got...Thats like 72% off..So for around $16.50 we got oil that over the course of a year we would have spent over $70.00 on...its not always about free stuff..sometimes its about getting the stuff you use a lot of really cheap..this week we got $4.66 oil for $1.33, $4 batteries for .50 each, $2.50 brownies for .34..$2.88 flour for .87, $2.50 5# bag of sugar for $1.00, $6.99 per pound coffee for $2.75, 1/2 gallons of milk usually $3.00 for $1.00 each and a few other things that i cant remember..LOL! over $300.00 worth of stuff for less that $50.00!! bottom line is start stocking up and after 6 months you realize that you have almost everything that you need!! PUTTING TRIPS TOGETHER_ dont run to the store every day to get deals...it kills the savings by using all that gas...just try to make your trips once or twice a week...for example:in our town publix and food lion get new deals every wednesday so we go on wednesdays to publix and food lion...ingles and kroger get new deals on sunday so we go on sundays to those two...also, publix has penny items on Wednesday so..if you buy $10 worth of stuff (pre coupon price) you get a that days "penny item" for a penny...so to maximize the "deal" we went to publix and bought 5 vegetable oils each (5 X 2.33=11.65) which qualified each of us for the penny item which was peanut butter this week with a retail price of $4.25 so we got 10 oils worth $46.66 plus two peanut butters worth $8.50 or about $54.00 worth of stuff for around $14.00...so, that made the "deal" even better at about 75% off counting the peanut butter.. STORE POLICIES_ no shortcut on this one...you just have to go to each store and find out what their policies are..as example here is the publix and kroger policies in our town- PUBLIX- they accept manufacturers coupons up to a maximum of 10 items (you cant buy more than 10 of any like item and must have a coupon for each item), they allow you to use store coupons WITH the manufacturers coupon up to the same 10..so if you have a 1 off publix coupon and a 1 off manufacturer coupon you can use BOTH on the item up to 10 max.. they do not accept competitors coupons (like target or kroger) and you can use printed or computer generated coupons up to 10 max per each like item..KROGER only accepts 5 like coupons as a max...they only accept 2 computer coupons on any like item, and they do not match any competitors coupons...and you can use a kroger coupon and a manufactuer coupon an an item up to 5 maximum.....so, what do you do if you have this great deal and when you get there you find the shelves wiped out and none available (which happens a good bit if you dont get to the store early on sale days)? RAIN CHECKS!! no worries just get a rain check on the items you want and they guarantee that sale price for up to 30 days...when the items gets back in stock use your rain checks and coupons to get the item at the original low price...just make sure that your coupon doesnt expire while you are waiting for it to get back in stock!! THE DREADED BOOK- the absolute hardest part of couponing is cutting the coupons and putting the book together. lisa cuts 12 of EVERY COUPON known to man and puts it into a book using sports card binders (i will show you)..that way she always has every coupon with her and if she finds a closeout deal she can do it on the spot...never getting mad because she left a coupon at home or needing to run home to get a coupon. the book is the most effective way to get every dollar out of every deal....the other school of thought is "cut as you go" which is what i am leaning towards..you get your deals together and then just cut the number of coupons that you need before you head out..you can decide which works better for you...
