Getting Maximum Savings - Step 3

Finally, we’re to Step 3. If you remember from the last two posts, my 3 main money saving steps are:

1. Watching for sales
2. Using coupons
3. Stocking up

Now that we understand the power in combining coupons with sales, as explained in the last two posts, we can move on the last step and that’s stocking up. Remember that little example I gave about the Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner and that fact that you could get it for 17 cents a bottle? The neat thing about this process is that if you buy in bulk, you can stock up on shampoo/conditioner for months and have plenty until the next sale rolls around and only have to pay similarly to stock up again.

So you're probably asking yourself how on earth can you stock up when you either don't get the paper or only get 1 copy right? Well, the trick to this whole thing is to have plenty of coupons that enable you to stock up. Again, just as a reminder, the internet coupons only allow you to print 2 copies of each coupon. And all the sites are tied together so that they monitor how many you have printed. Not much you can do about that. One thing you can do though, is to start getting the paper and get multiple copies of it. I actually get 5 copies of the paper here in Utah County and that enables me to really stock up when the sales roll around. So for the Pantene I mentioned, I had 5 copies of the coupon - which allowed me to get 10 bottles (5 shampoo and 5 conditioner) for just over $1 out of pocket. For me, that’s almost 6 month’s supply of shampoo and conditioner for just over $1. Not too bad right? That’s the power of stocking up, you need to have enough coupons so that you can buy enough when it goes on sale and it will last you until the next big sale.

So how many copies of the paper do you need? All of the couponing sites recommend that you have 1 set of coupons for every member of your family (so for a family of 4, you should be getting 4 copies of the paper). Now I know that's a little daunting, but there are people who do offer deals, so it's not as expensive as you think it might be (I can give you names and emails when you get to the point of wanting multiple papers). I get 5 copies of the Daily Herald delivered to my house for $16.40 a month. And believe me, if you really do this couponing thing like it can be done, you more than pay for your papers in the money you save. The week of Albertson’s big sale, I spent $50 out of pocket and saved over $260 - that savings alone paid for my papers for almost 16 months! And even though sales like last week's only come along about 5 or 6 times a year, you do save smaller amounts in the off weeks. Imagine all the savings! I used to have a grocery budget around $400 for the month (just buying the things I needed for the month alone) - now that I've been using this system, my actual out of pocket money is somewhere around $200-$250 a month and I'm stocking up on things for months at a time! I’m just now getting to the point where everything is stocked up, so now I'll just be filling in things that I've used and my amount spent should go down even more.

The last thing I want to tell you is how I actually store/clip my coupons. The idea of clipping 5 sets of coupons every week is just ridiculous right? I agree, so I read about and tried an idea on one of these websites. You get yourself a file box and some file folders. This is what I have:



Then you list the date on the folder and put all the coupons from that week inside.



Then when you are making your shopping lists based on the website lists, you know right where to go to clip your coupons - you go to your file box and you clip only the ones you are going to use and leave the rest in there.



That way you are only clipping the coupons you want to use at the time you want to use them and you don't have a bunch of coupons floating around! It's a great system and I love it! I probably spent about an hour printing/clipping coupons in preparation for that big Albertson’s sale - that coupled with the hour I spent putting my list together was only about 2 hours for $260 worth of savings - not too bad! Most other weeks I only spend about half an hour total getting my lists made and my coupons together, so it's usually not that time consuming.

Of course it's perfectly acceptable if you want to clip all of your coupons every week, especially if you only get one paper. It is really nice to have all of our coupons with you when you run into the "unadvertised" and "clearance" deals. A little coupon filer that fits in your purse is one method of storing all of the clipped coupons. I have one and it holds coupons I have been given or ones I clipped by didn't end up using. Just wanted to mention that you don't have to go the file box way, that's just the way I do it and it works for me. As with everything, you have to tailor the process to you and your lifestyle. I just wanted to show you an alternate method to clipping all of your coupons in case you're like me and don't want to clip everything every week. Just keep in mind though, that when you are looking at the Pinching Your Pennies and Grocery Smarts lists that the location of the coupons wouldn't apply and you would have to go through your coupon organizer to find the coupons you need, so that can be a drawback too. Whatever you choose is fine, just wanted to lay all of the options on the table for you.

One other thing I wanted to mention was to have a couponing party with family and friends! My mom, sisters, and I get together and trade coupons and such – that way if someone isn’t using some of their coupons, the others can benefit. So that’s just a thought.

Well, that's it. I know that's a lot, but you really have to get the big picture in order to see the maximum savings you can get. I've been doing this about 6 or 7 months and I’m hooked! I started out using just the websites and the internet coupons - you can save quite a bit by doing just that. Then I added 1 paper a week and saved even more. Then when I realized that the multiple coupons was where you were really able to stock up, I contacted one of the ladies and got 5 papers coming and that's where I've really started to see maximum savings. So try each step if you want and see if it's something you want to get more and more into. And you can step up when you feel comfortable to do so.

So those are my main money saving steps. In the next post, I’m going to walk you through my process on shopping using these 3 steps.