Beginner’s Guide to Coupons (Week 4)

By now you should be starting to feel pretty confident about your coupon skills. You’ve created a system for organizing your coupons, you’ve mastered the process of making your shopping list, and you are even getting good at filling your cart with sale items, and then making sure they ring up correctly. You’re starting to save a lot of money on your grocery bill, and you like it. You may even be surprised at how fun and addicting using coupons can be.

Up to this point, we have mainly focused on the “how” of using coupons–how to get organized, how to make your list, how to shop, how to check-out. It has all been very practical, step-by-step advice on the physical process of saving money with coupons.

In order to take your coupon savings to the next level, you have to also understand the “why.” Delving into the “why” too soon can just be confusing, too much information all at once. But now that you’ve got the basics down pat, I think you’re ready to dig in a little further.

Saving signficant money with coupons happens only when you change your whole way of thinking. Most people, (including me, pre-coupons), simply make a list of what they need before going to the store, and then buy what’s on the list, regardless of whether it is on sale.

Savvier shoppers may try to pick the cheapest brand, or even make an impulse buy on a sale item, but the general process is the same, while the more relaxed shoppers among us just go to the store and buy what looks good. You know who you are.

Extreme coupon shopping is completely different. The goal is to buy as few “needed” items as possible, while mostly just stocking up on the items that are on sale. The key is to stock up when items are at their lowest price. Done cumulatively and consistently, week after week, you will soon have a well-stocked and pleasantly varied pantry of food to choose from.

As your stockpile grows, you will find that your list of “needed” items goes down each week, resulting in lower and lower grocery bills each week. (But don’t get your hopes up, it probably won’t ever make it all the way to $0)

If you’ve watched TLC’s “Extreme Couponing,” you may think the only way to have a stockpile is to dedicate a whole room of your house to creating your own mini-Walmart.

That is just not true. You do need to have a good variety of items to choose from in your stockpile, but it isn’t necessary to buy everything on the shelves every time it goes on sale.

There is a big difference between smart shopping and hoarding!

After 2 weeks of coupon shopping, you may have managed to get your stockpile off to a good start. This week you are going to keep working on building that stockpile, following the shopping guidelines from last week, as well as work on creating a functional stockpile somewhere in your home.