Is your family starting to feel the pinch of this tough economy? Seems more and more Americans are in the same boat of trying to lower their bills and save money in the process. In this series I will discuss the best coupon to help lower your monthly grocery bills. By taking a a little time each month it can literally save you thousands of dollars wasted and thrown away food, food you didn’t really need, and food that spoiled.
Did you know according to a study conducted by the New York Times Americans throw away over 96.4 billions of food a year? Can you even imagine how much money we could have saved? If you think about the last time you cleaned out the refrigerator how much food did you throw away because it expired, was never used or maybe no one liked it? It is incredible if you think of how much food we waste! By being frugal and only buying what you need, and what your family will eat and by buying it on sale and using coupons you would be amazed how much you could save.
Now before we get started let me state an honest fact, most people who decide to jump into couponing will not see a HUGE decrease in their bill at first. Reason being is you have not saved up enough coupons yet, or saved up enough rebates and store incentives to save those huge figures you hear about. Don’t get discouraged, within a short time you will start to see your grocery bill start to dwindle away and the satisfaction you will receive from saving all that money can be contagious!
Now before you get started couponing you will need to figure out what stores are in your area. Using a notepad write down all the local grocery stores, and dollar and discount stores that will accept manufactures coupons. If you are not sure simply call the store and ask them what their coupon policy is so you know before you walk in, they may have double or triple coupons on certain days of the week. By informing yourself you are then able to save even more money. A lot of Dollar Stores these days also accept manufactures coupons such as Family Dollar and Dollar General. These can be great places to get HUGE deals. Since most items in these stores are around dollar each, and with your coupons lot of times you can walk out there spending just pennies.
Here are some of the things you need to know before hopping into your car and running to your local grocery store:
1. Do they offer Coupon Savings- Some stores offer a particular day of the week where they offer DOUBLE or TRIPLE coupons? These can save you a ton on your overall grocery bill, Most stores will only double your coupon up to a $.50 value so for example if you had a coupon for Ragu Spaghetti Sauce for $.50 off one jar, and your local store offer double coupons, your $.50 coupon is now worth $1 off one jar of Ragu Spaghetti Sauce. If you combine this with a sale they are running you may now get your spaghetti sauce for next to nothing.
2. Do they accept Printable Coupons- Most stores in this day and age DO NOT allow you to use printable coupons or coupons you found online and printed. The reason being is they are too easily manipulated by using computer programs such as Paint Shop Pro. One place that does allow printable coupons is your local Wal-Mart, if you go to their website under policies go to coupon policies and print that page off and take it with you so you are prepared in case there is a problem.
3. Can you stack your coupons with the stores coupons-A lot of stores such as Walgreen’s, and CVS will allow you to use manufacturer coupons on top of their in store coupons. This could lead to double savings on items and can save you a ton!
4. Do they accept competitor coupons? Let’s say you have a coupon from Shop N Save for a $1 off toothpaste but today you are going shopping at Schnucks do they accept and acknowledge a coupon from their competitors?
Now that you have all of your questions answered and written down you are ready to start stockpiling and collecting your coupons to get you’re started. In the next part of our series I will explain to you about stockpiling, where to get your coupons for free or low costs, and places to find online printable coupons to use.
