Living in a tough economy as Americans have been doing for the past several years has pushed everyone to saving as much money as possible in ways that they never thought they would be using. One of the biggest ways that people are saving money at the grocery store is by using coupons. There are many ways to get grocery coupons and this is an overview of some of the easiest ways to get coupons that will not cost you anything at all, except for your time and perhaps some ink for your printer at home. Using coupons wisely will allow a person to save a huge amount of money on the groceries that their family consumes.
Sunday newspaper
The Sunday newspaper is perhaps the most well-known avenue of collecting coupons. An average newspaper on Sunday will have over $100 of savings from the enclosed coupons. There are typically at least two inserts of savings, one from Red Plum and the other from Smart Source. Many of these coupons are to save money on health and beauty aids, but there are also coupons for food as well. By simply clipping the coupons that will be used on an ordinary trip to the grocery store, the subscription or stand price of the newspaper will pay for itself.
Internet
The internet has become a great resource for getting coupons for the brands that your family uses on a regular basis. There are many different coupon websites that offer printable coupons, such as coupons.com, redplum.com and smartsource.com. In addition to using these coupon websites, internet searches for coupons for specific brands will typically pull up results for coupons for those brands that are used the most often in your home. Facebook has also become a great source of coupons recently, in many situations you can have access to great coupons from major brands by simply clicking like on the brands that your family uses frequently.
At the store
While doing your grocery shopping, there are many places at the store where you might be able to find coupons. The first to look for is the flashing red coupon dispensers in the aisles of the grocery store. When you see these dispensers, grab several of the coupons if they are a brand that your family uses on a regular basis since the expiration date is typically a couple months away. There might be coupons attached to the packaging of the products that you will be purchasing. If this is the case, remove the coupons when you are putting the products into your cart so that you don’t forget to redeem them when you are checking out. Finally, many grocery stores offer coupons that are printed at checkout for future use. These coupons are typically printed based on the products that you’ve made during that purchase and can be used on a future purchase. Additionally, if there are trash cans right beside the checkout, it never hurts to glance in there to see if other people have tossed coupons in there since those coupons are like found money.
Coupon exchange
Within a city there are many people that use coupons and not all people use the same coupons. It is beneficial to find out if there is already a coupon club in your area and join that if there is one to exchange the coupons that you won’t be using for coupons that you will be able to put to use. If one does not exist, simply talk to some of your friends and start your own coupon exchange. This will save you tremendous amounts of money and by participating in a coupon exchange you might also make some new friends.
There are many sources of coupons that won’t cost you very much to acquire. By making wise use of the coupons that are available, your family will be able to save a tremendous amount of the grocery budget so that this money could be used for other needs of the family. Though it might seem tedious at first to find the coupons, getting in the habit of using and gathering coupons will soon become second nature.