Gotta love social media! Nancy and I worked together in publishing in the late 90s. When I left the company, my first born was eight months and Nancy wasn’t even married. Almost ten years later, she and I reconnected on Facebook where we’ve had a chance to see how our children are growing! (She and I have two children each now…wow, how time flies!)
Not too long ago, I read a status update of Nancy’s where she told everyone that on a recent trip to the grocery store, she brought home $90 worth of groceries and only spent $30. This status update peaked my interest and I decided to interview this busy mom of two on how she manages to find time to save!
Would you consider yourself a Coupon Maven!
I prefer the title Coupon Queen, although my friends have been known to refer to me as Coupon Dork.
How long have you been clipping coupons?
I have been couponing diligently for about six months now.
What inspired you to get started?
Like many people, I would use coupons now and then, and was happy to save five or ten dollars at the most. When friends of mine told me about how their “coupon systems” allowed them to literally cut their spending in half for groceries and other household items, I was skeptical. Even if they were on to something, how would I ever find the time to do couponing on a regular basis?
The turning point for me was discovering some online resources that make everything simple. There are several free web sites that list the weekly ads from the various grocery stores each week, along with coupon matchups for the sale items. The whole idea is to find coupons for items that are already on sale that week, to achieve big savings.
How much time do you spend clipping coupons each week?
My initial learning curve when I was trying to understand coupon strategies and setup an organizational system for my coupons was rather time consuming. Now that I have a routine established, I typically only spend one or two hours per week clipping and organizing my coupons and planning my shopping trips.
How often do you food shop and what is the typical length of a shopping trip?
I food shop two times per week. I only keep track of weekly sales and coupon matches at my two favorite grocery stores. I visit each of these stores once per week, to take advantages of the deals at both stores. When I shop with coupons, the actual length of the shopping trip is about the same as before. I do spend more time planning my shopping trip. The night before I go shopping, I spend about 30 minutes preparing my grocery list and pulling the coupons out of my binder that match up with the sales.
Do you meal plan? If so, do you ever use the same ingredient for more than one meal in a week?
I am a “big picture” meal planner. I don’t plan what we are going to have for dinner each night of the week. However, I always have the ingredients for our favorite meals on hand, thanks to my stockpiling strategies and the help of a deep freezer in the garage.
Some favorite meals in our house include spaghetti and meat sauce; hamburgers, fries, and vegetables; fish, rice, and vegetables, etc. Fresh vegetables rarely go on sale, and often spoil before I get a chance to use them. I try to get lots of frozen vegetables when they are at their lowest price with store sales and coupons.
What is the least expensive item you’ve ever purchased?
- Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks (Cost $1, I had a $3 coupon)
- Uncle Ben’s Wild Rice (Free, I had a 75 cent coupon that tripled during triple coupon week)
- Green Giant Frozen Carrots (Free, they were on sale for $1 and I had a 50 cent coupon that doubled per the store’s everyday policy)
What’s your strategy? How do you organize your coupons?
I use a combination of two systems. When the Sunday paper arrives each week, I clip all of the coupons for the items that I would normally buy. The clipped coupons go into the coupon binder that I take with me on shopping trips. My coupon binder is a three-ring binder with clear “baseball card style” page protectors. I store the coupons in the little baseball card pockets. Duplicate coupons all go in the same pocket. I also have tabbed section dividers to organize the different coupons into groups (frozen foods, toiletries, etc.).
I keep the whole coupon inserts with any remaining unclipped coupons, just in case I need them later. I write the date on the front of each insert and place the inserts from that day’s newspaper in a dated file folder. Free web sites such as www.afullcup.com and www.hotcouponworld.com provide lists of the items on sale from the stores’ weekly ads, along with the newspaper dates of coupon matchups for the sale items. So, for example, if an item on the list has the code “SS 9-27-09” beside it, I would look in the Smart Source coupon insert from the September 27th paper to find the coupon that is available for the sale item. This may sound a bit tedious, but it really doesn’t take much time or thought to find the coupons I need now that I have established a routine.
Web sites such www.coupons.com , www.smartsource.com , and www.redplum.com are great sources of free Internet printable (IPs) coupons. New coupons are typically loaded onto these web sites on the first of the month, so be sure to check them periodically. I file my IPs right along with my newspaper coupons in my binder.
What’s the most amount of money you’ve saved in one shopping trip?
My average grocery bill has been reduced by at least 30%. There are certain staple items such as milk and bread that are difficult to find coupons for. When my favorite grocery store has special coupon promotions, such as double or triple coupons, my average bill is reduced by 50%.
Do you shop in bulk? If so, where? And where do you store the extra items in your home?
I still shop at Costco occasionally for some favorite items. There are rarely coupons for items such as fresh meat and produce, so places such as Costco and Sam’s Club can still be good sources for that. I spend much less money at Wal-Mart these days, because many household items (cleaners and paper products, etc.) are actually cheaper at the grocery store with a combination of store sales and coupons.
I find that most of my “bulk” shopping actually takes place at my two regular grocery stores. For example, if Cheerios are on sale for $1 per box because they are Buy One Get One Free (BOGO) and I also have coupons for them, I will go ahead and buy six boxes. The key is to buy enough of the sale items until it goes on sale again. A general rule of thumb is to buy enough to last your family six weeks.
Serious couponers use a storage strategy known as “stockpiling.” I have emptied out my linen closet and stored all the linens in the bedrooms, so that we now have second pantry to store grocery and household items. (Great organizing tip putting linens in the bedroom, Nancy!)
Please provide any added insight or tips that would be helpful to families who want to save money on their grocery bill?
Only buy items that you truly need and use. It’s very tempting to get three boxes of Pop-Tarts just because they are free with coupons!
Once you have a decent stockpile established, you will be able to “shop” from your stockpile and can wait to buy things when they go on sale. This puts you in a position of power! You will no longer have to pay the full price for many items, just because you need to have it that week.
I rarely buy extra newspapers to get additional coupons. My typical newspaper will contain two or three coupon inserts. However, if a certain Sunday paper has many coupon inserts (five or six), I will buy several extra copies of the paper just for the coupons.
Most grocery stores have customer loyalty programs. Make sure to get on the email list for your favorite grocery stores, and present your customer loyalty card every time you shop to receive special savings. Also, be sure to check the stores’ web sites to learn about their coupon policies before you go shopping with your coupons.
Nancy Pennington lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband and two children
Follow @Hotcouponworld and @afullcup on Twitter
You may also want to check out Mary Jo Rulnick’s book for shopping lists, recipes and tips
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I am trying to use more coupons I love the 3 ring binder idea. Thanks
Oh, I wish I could do this. I am so proud of myself when I use coupons at all. It's not that I have money to burn, but I often forget what I have coupons for because I have no system…I need to try some of these tips!
It's a great feeling to have used the coupons you spent time cutting out and carrying around! I admit that I'm not the best at using coupons, but I was inspired by Nancy to keep trying!
I would love to meal plan, but getting started is so difficult for me.
I nominated you for an award: http://movingonfromthedrama.blogspot.com/2009/10/best-blog-award.html