Getting Started

First I want to say DO NOT be surprised if your grocery spending goes up the first few weeks of couponing. Why would it go up ? Not only are you buying items you need to feed your family for the week you are also stocking up on the loss leaders. Unless they are free, they will add to your cost. the good news is you wont have to pay full price for those deals when you do need them. That is how your bill will go down. Each week you will need to pay full price for less and less and eventually you will be able to just buy the great deals and a few other things that aren't so cheap.

On to the Tips!

Prepare your shoppers cards

#1 sign up for your grocery store and drugstores mailing list if you haven't already. Kroger sends coupons to its loyalty card shoppers frequently and they usually include a few coupons for free items.(sign up for Kroger's mailing list here, call 1-800 Shop CVS and give them your email address and they should email you a$4 off a $20 purchase coupon.)

#2 load e coupons on your Kroger card (see a list and limits of coupons here )

#3 use New and transferred RX coupons to get extra money for groceries

At the Store

#4 Stack as many deals as you can. Register rewards, Ecb , MIR, Easysaver rebates, manufactures coupons, store coupons, and catalina deals can almost always be stacked! That is how you walk away with a free product and more money in your pocket than when you entered the store.

#5 price match when you can. Even though walmart isn't so great in a few areas(okay many ), they do price match. This saves you time, which is as good as money.

#6 get a raincheck if a sale item is sold out. This will also give you more time to get more coupons.

#7 forgot about your rain check and it just expired the day before you went to the store? Take it to the customer service desk and see if they will give you a break by rewriting it. Also do this if the raincheck is going to expire and the product hasn't been restocked yet.

#8 did you forget to hand over your coupons to the cashier? I usually catch myself as I am walking away from the register so I just go straight to the customer service desk and they look at my receipt and give me cash for the coupons I forgot to give at the cash register!

#9 cashiers giving you a hard time about bogo sales and bogo coupons used together? Check out Mom's Need to Know's handy explanations to give them as to why you are allowed to combine the two(and some other good explanations too).

#10 be nice to the cashier. It does take extra time to ring a couponer up so be polite and friendly so next time you get in their line they don't panic too much;) cashier are also more likely to go the extra mile for customers who aren't pushy or rude .

#11 double check your receipt before leaving the store. Sometimes things ring up wrong and sometimes things get scanned too many times. If that happens, hop on over to the customer service desk to get it fixed.

change your attitude

#12 don't try to find every deal on your own. I look at the ads myself first then look at the matchups online and then double check the ad one more time.

#13 don't drive yourself crazy trying to chase every deal. Get the ones you can and don't stress about the ones you can't. There will always be another deal next week.

#14 don't be loyal to grocery brands or stores! Buy the items that are cheapest and shop where the deals are. Loyalty is for people not things any ways! - sometimes one brand is the best and it is okay to stick to that, but for the most part being flexible will save you money.

#15 buy things that you don't need at the moment. Even if you just bought 2 of X ,if it goes on sale and has a coupon making really cheap or free get as many as you can, that you have room to store and time to use.

#16 buy things you would never use. You don't wear makeup? Buy it any way when you can make money from it or get it for absolutely free(donate it). If you have to pay any amount of money (even .25 ) don't buy it if you wont use it.

Pay to save

(you can coupon with out ever paying for the coupons, jane4girls800dollarannualbudget never pays for coupons)

#17 buy coupons off ebay or from coupon clipping services for items you use a lot of.

#18 want an idea of how many newspapers to buy a week? Check out my post here and check Moms Need to Know's weekly coupon preview here (includes how many newspapers she recommends for the week).

#19 print your coupons at home(cost of ink and paper). Check my left sidebar for a small list of places you can print from(there are a ton of other places too). Also look for printable at the manufacturers website.

Don't pay to save
(I know I just said you should pay)

#20 don't pay for a service like thegrocerygame! You can find free match ups to almost any store you want through hundreds of blogs and hotcouponworld.com.

#21 get free coupons through trades on boards like hotcouponworld.com, dumpster diving at local recycling centers, friends and families who don't use there Sunday coupons, etc

#22 ask for coupons. Call or email the makers of your favorite brands and ask if they have any coupons available.


The list isn't finished, but I wanted to share what I have so far so you can get started. If you see anything I missed leave a comment and I will add it.