Huge Coupon Savings

Times are tight for most everyone and money is something that should be "saved" instead of wasted or used to get "out of debt". Because I need to do both I have to figure out a way to reduce my monthly expenses. Since grocery's and incidentals make a huge dent in our monthly income and it's not a fixed cost; I should start here.

So what to do? I have seen people save tons of money using coupons; even get a shopping cart of stuff for cheap or even free. There are tons of blogs that are dedicated for this purpose. I was motivate! Besides who doesn't want to save $$$$?. So I got some coupons and went to the store... well I saved a few buck, but nothing "free" or even really close. Not much to write home about. Then, there was the problem that most of the coupons we really didn't use the products. Now what?

Well, I did much more research and found several mistakes I was making. First, it's all about stalking up. Getting "free" items or really cheap to supplement future needs. Second, not always is the "bargain bigger" size the best use of the coupon. For example I often buy the biggest package of wipes and diapers for two reasons. The first, is I need a lot and second, they are cheaper by the volume. Well the best I can do with the coupon is get money off the huge box and can only use one coupon per purchase. Not much savings. What I found is there is a better way to use the coupons. If I buy the small box's and have coupons I can get the smaller for really cheap or even free. By buying multiple quantities of the smaller item and using more coupons I can save even more money and get almost the same volume. With this you need to match up sales with the coupons. When the coupons work best is went the coupons are used during a "sale" of an item so it ends up being free.  Hope this makes sense.

Also, I found a ton of "free" samples on-line. Of course they usually come in a trial size and not really worth the effort, but I found if I put them in my 72 hour emergency kit or use for traveling then they are worth the time and effort and FREE is FREE!

Ok, so with my new found enthusiasm I went shopping the other day and hit the jack-pot... I spent $148.32 in grocery sales and after using coupons I only paid $74.32... That is a SAVINGS of $74.00 dollars. Now who couldn't use and extra $74.00? Now this was just my first outing. I since have found a few more ideas and plan to put them to use this week. I will let you know the outcome soon.

These are just a few things I have learned. Stay tuned to find out more ideas and tricks to saving with coupons.