How I Coupon

 This post will explain my personal couponing philosophy. I call it "Real Life Couponing" as opposed to "Extreme Couponing" because, as I've said in the past, you can't live on toothpaste. Couponers coupon for different reasons. I coupon to primarily reduce my overall cost of living. I have on rare occasion resold items but that is not my main goal. Once you understand how to coupon though you can scale it to do whatever you want. This is how I personally coupon but there are no hard and fast rules.

My cardinal rule: Don't Buy Anything You Won't Use!

The only exception to this rule is if you are getting paid to buy something.

In that case I will buy an item and either donate or give it away.

I can't tell you the number of people that have started couponing and quit because they realized they were spending MORE money rather than SAVING money. This happens when you are enticed to buy things just because it's a great deal. That cereal you never eat might be 80% off but if you buy it and never eat it you are just wasting your money.

Couponers are organized hoarders because one of the key tenets is stockpiling. Here's how it works...

Every household has stuff they NEED all the time or use on a regular basis. Examples include things like toilet paper, paper towels, trash bags, shampoo, or pantry staples like canned foods or pasta. So, let's say trash bags are on sale this week for $2 (normally $3) but this week you can get it for $1 using a coupon. Instead of buying just one box, you buy a 6 month supply - so let's say 6 boxes. That way, when you finish your box of trash bags next month, you don't HAVE to buy another box at the regular price. As you stockpile more and more items, there will be less stuff you HAVE to buy at the regular price. Instead of spending money on stuff you have to buy, you can focus on buying just what's on sale.

This is how it saves you money. Going back to the trash bag example, you just bought 6 boxes of trash bags for $6 - that's $2 sale price minus $1 coupon for each box. Regular price is $3. $3 X 6 = $18, but you only spent $6 so you saved $12. Repeat this process with lots of other items and the dollars add up.

When you are starting out the easiest things to stockpile are nonperishable household goods and health and beauty aids. We're talking paper products, toothpaste, shampoo, laundry detergent, feminine products, etc. If you are not brand loyal you can get most of these things for free.

Take a moment and figure out how much stuff - detergent, paper products, shampoo, etc - your household uses in a month. Then, next time one of these products go on sale buy a 6 month supply. The way sales cycles work those products will most likely go on sale again within that time. I also recommend a 6 month supply because, if those products go on sale for even lower during that time, this leaves you room to buy more at the lower cost. This is called dollar cost averaging. When I first started out I actually kept a notebook to keep track of what I paid for stuff so that when a sale occurred I could figure out whether it was a good deal or not.

Everyone's list will be different. For instance, my husband has sensitive skin and for some reason he can ONLY tolerate Arm & Hammer laundry detergent therefore that's the only detergent I buy. I used to get it for $1 a jug. Now my "buy" price is $2.50 or less. Toothpaste on the other hand, I'm not brand loyal, and will use anything. Toothpaste is always free.

So how do you buy things that you need that don't go on sale or offer coupons? Overage.

Back in the paper coupon days overage was a term used when the value of your coupon exceeded the value of the item you were buying and the store gave you back the difference, essentially "paying" you to buy something. Well, the stores caught wise to this and now a days you can't get back cold hard cash but there are other ways...

Some store will have their own form of "fake money" that can only be used in that store. We're talking Extra Care Bucks (ECBs) at CVS, Walgreens Cash (WC) at Walgreens, etc. You can spend their fake currency in store on anything. You earn it by buying certain advertised products every week. If you can figure out how to buy the advertised products for little to no money then you will "make" money in the form of the store's currency to buy other things that you need.

Here is an extreme example...

This week CVS has a promotion where you buy $30 total on certain products and you get back $10 in ECBs, and Airwick products are included in the promotion.

There are coupons available for a free Airwick warmer.

So, if you had 12 of these coupons, you could buy 12 of these in separate transactions.

Separate transactions because you do NOT want a second one to ring up half price.

ECB offers at CVS are cumulative so they do not need to be in one transaction.

Total cost pre-tax would be $31.08 (12 x 2.59), thus qualifying you for the $10 ECB.

Manufacturer coupons are considered a form of payment so you get credit for spending $31.08.

Use the coupon to get your item for free. In Indiana you end up paying $2.18 for tax for all 12 and get back a $10 ECB, thus "making" $7.82.

And yes, there are ways to get 12 of the same coupon but that will be covered later.

This is an "extreme" example because, really, who needs 12 Airwick warmers? 

But you get my point. This is how you game the system.

I will be going in depth on each of the drugstore programs in another post.

Another way to "make" money is via rewards apps. Ones I use are Ibotta, Shopkick, Fetch, Checkout51, Swagbucks, and Coupons.com. These apps will give you money or points back for buying certain products. You send them a picture of your store receipt to get your money/points. The beauty of this is that sometimes multiple apps will have offers on the same product so buy one item and get money back from several different programs, resulting in a profit.

Fetch Rewards is covered HERE. I will be writing about the other programs in a future post.

I'm gonna stop a moment here and ask a favor. All the knowledge I share here is always free and I have no affiliate links in this blog, meaning I don't make any money off the blog. As I start posting about the day to day deals that I do I will be referencing these apps. If you don't already use these and want to sign up I would appreciate it if you could use my referral codes so I can get a little something back for sharing. 

Ibotta: nshhsjp, you get $10 with your first receipt and I get $10

Fetch: 51JURA, you get 2000 points with your first receipt and I get 2000 points

Shopkick: NICE762443, you get 250 points when you earn 10 points in 7 days and I get 250 points

I hope this is a good intro to understanding the basics. Let me know if you have any questions. Lots more to come but I'm trying to break this up into bite size pieces.