If you are just joining in the fun, start at the beginning!
Monday-Cut, file, and sort your Sunday coupons (unless you are filing by insert, then keep them in tact and label them).
Don’t forget to make a menu plan this week with items from your stockpile or that are on sale at the store. It helps you make more affordable meals, so that you can concentrate on building your stockpile.
Tuesday-You should have a small, but inexpensive stockpile started. Here are some tips to help you build and organize your stockpile.
- Don’t go overboard with stockpiling and go over budget. It should take you 3-6 months to build a well-rounded stockpile.
- Only buy as many items as you have coupons for, because if you don’t have the coupons, it isn’t as good of a deal.
- Rotate your stock. (I am bad about this.) Always put new items behind the old ones.
- You are probably starting to wonder where the room for all this stuff is. Get creative.
- If you have room, start putting a little money back each week to buy a deep freeze. It has really helped me in my meat and vegetable stockpiling.
Your assignment today is to continue to make sure your stockpile stays neat and organized.
Wednesday- So you are off to a great start with coupons, and you already know to find them in the Sunday paper. Where can you find specific coupons you you need? First, check out the Coupon Database. You can search by brand or by item. What if there is not a coupon in the Sunday paper for the item you want?
- Free Samples: Signing up for free samples is a great way to get some great coupons. I’d advise creating a separate email address for “freebies.” I use an old email account for this, and I get 7-8 emails from freebie companies per day.
- While Shopping: You can often find coupons called “blinkies,” which are the little machines that spit out coupons. There are also “tear-pads”, as well, which I usually find most at Food Lion. You can sometimes even find “peelies” right on the products.
- Printable coupons (other than coupons.com, redplum.com and smartsource.com):
- Manufacturer’s Websites: If you use a lot of a particular item/brand, check their website to see if they offer coupons.
- Cool Savings and Ever Save: There are some great coupons here, but these are another source of a lot of emails, so use a junk email account.
- Vocal Point: This is a site that sends you free samples and high dollar coupons on occasion. They also have occasional printable coupons.
- Magazines –The best magazine to subscribe to for coupons is All You.
- Clipper Sites and Ebay: There are tons of sites out there to order coupons. Just be very cautious and check out the seller first.
- Store and Restaurant Websites – Make sure you sign-up for your local store’s programs and register at their websites so you can get emailed coupons or have coupons loaded onto your shopping card. Several restaurant’s, like TGI Fridays, now have programs too.
Thursday-No matter how good you get at couponing and savvy shopping, there will still be weeks that just get to you. Read my guest post on Kaley’s blog on how I deal with budget busting weeks. Make a plan to deal with your next budget buster, write it down, and then you won’t have to worry as much!
Friday- Yard sales and thrift stores. Do those words make you think, “Oh Yea!” or “Ughh!”? Either way, these two resources cannot be ignored, if you really want to become a savvy shopper. Your assignment is to stop at one yard sale, and find a local thrift store this weekend. These are great places to find kid’s clothing, furniture, books, decorations, and even adult clothing. Give it a try. I am not much of a “yard saler” myself, but if you have any extra time, you can find some amazing deals. (Now if only the decorating taste came with it!)
We are halfway through with the course!
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