Step One: Building Your Coupon Stash

So you're ready to start saving money with coupons but don't know where to start. Well, to get the most for your money the first thing you need to do is build your Coupon Stash! I've been using coupons for about 4 months now and have accumulated a very large collection for myself. I was able to start saving a GOOD amount of money in the beginning, but have now reached a new level of savings due to my Coupon Stash.

Where do I find these coupons, you ask?

The first place to look is in the Sunday Supplement section of your local Sunday Newspaper. This is a HOT ZONE when it comes to finding coupons. The weekly inserts in my local newspaper are called SMART SOURCE and REDPLUM, and there is a monthly insert called P&G SAVER which carrries coupons for Proctor and Gamble Products (ie. Dawn, Tide, Herbal Essence, Gillette, Secret, Aussie, Duracell Batteries, etc.) Occasionally there are extra inserts, such as GENERAL MILLS which carry coupons for cereal and Pillsbury Products along with many others.

However, you should NOT expect to find any inserts in your local paper around the holidays, such as Valentines Day. Yup, you got it, if you were hoping to start your collection this Sunday you are out of luck. Now worries my coupon people, our wonderful wonders will be making their return on the following Sunday!

Where do all the coupons go around the holidays? Well, since most stores offer special sales in order to capitalize off the everyday shopper, the manufactures hold off on releasing these coupons in order to cut their own loses. If you've already started accumulating your stash than this shouldn't be a problem for you since you're already on your way.

Where else can I find coupons? The next place I continue my search is on various IP (Internet Printable) coupon websites. Here is a list of websites to start with...

coupons.com
smartsource.com
redplum.com

As we go along I will add more websites to this list. Websites like these will reset the coupons they offer from time to time in order to make room for new coupon offers. So you gotta get them while the gettin's good!

Another place to look for coupons are on the manufactures websites. For instance, right now there is a special promotion for Post Advantage Cereal Brands (Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat and Grape Nut). If you go the their website http://www.postnatural.com/ and register with them they will email you a $2 IP (Internet Printable) coupon. This is a very special promotion because, as you will all see soon, a $2 off of 1 box of cereal coupon is a very rare find. Typical Cereal coupons are usually $1-$1.50 off of 1-3 boxes, or even $.55/$.75 off of any one box. So go get this one asap!!!

If you're lucky like us Floridians, many of your local grocery stores will offer Store Coupons that are only redeemable at that store (if your store allows it you can usually use these store coupons along with manufacture coupons for even greater savings. This is called stacking, but we'll talk about that later)

Many manufactures will send you mailer coupons along with these IP's. Basically, if you register with these sites they typically put you on a mailing list and send you coupons via. snailmail.

Do you ever get the feeling you're seeing flashes of light before your eyes whenever you're walking through you grocery store isle? No, you don't have to have your eyes checked. These blinking lights come from something us coupon people like to call BLINKIE'S!!! The lights are just to get your attention. Why? Because these little boxes of flashing light dispense coupons that you can grab as you shop. YAY for Blinkies!!

Tear Pads are another kind of coupon you can find down the grocery isle. They are usually found on the shelves in stacks that resemble a post-it pad.

Another secret place to look out for coupons is right on the products themselves.

Last but not least, KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN! Coupons are everywhere, you just have to keep your eyes open whenever you're out and about. I'll do my best to share with you where to find these as well as others that night be out there.

I hope this was a helpful way to start your hunt. Have fun looking. It's always a thrill to find these little guys. Coupons are money, and finding money is really fun. So once you look at it that way you'll notice that there are more out there than you thought. Now all you gotta do is go out and gettem!!!

P.S. For anyone having trouble finding inserts or for those who don't want to pay for a bunch of newspapers every week, stay tuned for my next post. I'll be making you all a special offer that will cut even your newspaper expenses in half.

RULE OF THUMB: Always collect your coupons and inserts in doubles!!! you will make a better killing if you collect anywhere from 4-6 papers. (Here's another secret... When your grocery store has sales such as BOGO [Buy 1 Get 1 FREE] you can use 2 coupons, one on the item you're paying for and another for the free one. Some stores don't allow this but most do. I'll explain in a later post how this works, for now just take my word for it.)

GO GET YOURS!!!!

how it all started

Hi again! Well, I thought that for my first post I would tell you all a little about myself and how I've come to use coupons in order to save money for my family. The truth is that I was never really good at saving money. Although my husband and I knew what was required of us to pinch pennies we weren't really exercising the discipline it took to cut the corners we needed in order to thrive financially. As most of you know, Ken and I moved our family to a small town here in Florida about 1 year ago. Before that we were living in Queens, NY where we worked 9 to 5 Corporate America jobs making a combined income of $60,000 annually... just out of college. Although many of you don't find this the most comfortable of incomes, our expenses weren't very high so it was quite comfortable for us. We had a 3 bedroom apartment just outside the city that cost us less then $700 a month. After all our bills were paid we still had about $2,000 a month to save and play around with. Although many times we found ourselves not saving what we had promised we'd save. We even failed to tithe on MANY occasions, which is mistake #1! In many ways our spending and lack of saving was not only dishonoring to each other and our family, but we were dishonoring to GOD.

After some time of living like this the unthinkable happened. Last January Ken and I were doing really well with our jobs, which were quickly turning into possible careers for us. We were both expecting promotions along with even more comfortable pay raises. As we all know, what we expect isn't always what we get, especially when our country is in the middle of "The Great Recession" At the close of a long and busy winter business day my boss called me into his office and broke the news to me. "I have to let you go" he said, as my heart fell into my stomach and all my plans of saving flew out the window. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Up to that point I was being promised the world in a silver plated platter, but due to cutbacks my dreams were quickly shattered. My husband and I mourned over this for a few days, but we quickly reminded ourselves that things were going really well for Ken, so how bad could it really be, right? Well, about a week and a half later Ken met the same fate that had just introduced itself to me. We had no idea what we were going to do.

To shorten a long story, we felt God impress on our hearts that it was time to make a new start for ourselves, and the first step was to surrender every aspect of our lives to Him. The second step was to move our family to Florida. We wrestled with this one for 2 days. When we finally decided to submit to this direction we began to make plans to move within a months time. The next morning after making this decision we received a phone call that pushed up our plans of moving to Florida that same week.

I must say, living on unemployment in an unfamiliar small town in the middle of nowheresville has been a stretch and a struggle. Although the cost of living is way cheaper, there are still so many other expenses that we were unfamiliar with and were not prepared for. For one, there was no more Q19A bus or E train to take us to work. We needed a car, which needed insurance and gass and new windows and air conditioning and... well you get it. Also, finding a place to live for the budget we had was impossible. There were just so many things to overcome.

As we rode this roller coaster called life I kept hearing stories of how my sister Keilah was saving butt loads of money by using coupons, and how she was coming home with 8 or so free bottles of snuggle fabric softener. I thought to myself, how accurate can that be, I mean how much can 1 coupon save you, 35 cents? Man was I so off. I finally saw with my own eyes how much she was saving when we went to her house for dinner. When I say her pantry was full I mean her pantry was FULL. Her laundry room had bottles upon bottles of cleaning supplies. Her refrigerator had no space to move things around. Then she showed me her grocery receipt. She managed to get over$400 of groceries for $180, and she was just starting out with this whole coupon thing.

After that night I JUMPED on the band wagon and my wallet hasn't been the same since. Little by little She taught me the ropes and I managed to pick up some of my own tricks along the way. When I first started posting pictures of my savings I had no idea that so many people were going to reach out for my help. My husband kept telling me that I should start blogging as a way to share everything I've learned and am learning with everyone that has asked. Initially I didn't think that I could do it. I wasn't sure that I had the ability to follow something like this through, and I didn't want to disappoint anyone if I sucked at it. Thank God for my wonderful husband who believes in me and sees me through the eyes of God. His love, belief in me and Godly encouragement has brought me to believe in myself. So here I am, taking a chance and seeing where God will take me as I trust this in His hands. So once again, thanks for reaching out to me and taking this chance with me. I look forward to sharing all I know and hearing the testimonies of how you've all been able to save money and have been able to experience new things in life due to those savings. God bless you all. HERE WE GO!