Friday, April 29, 2011

Getting Started with Coupons


Last week, the only thing I got for free was a small bottle of Listerine at CVS. Small bottles were on sale 5 for $5. I had a coupon for $1 off from my dentist. Boom...free Listerine. Well, almost free. I paid 7 cents tax. No biggie. I love getting deals like this!

For anyone interested in getting started with coupons, this weekend is a big weekend! The Sunday paper at the beginning of the month always has the most coupons. I'd recommend 2 - 4 papers this week if you can pull it off. You can just get the coupon inserts from your non-couponing neighbors and people who go to Starbucks to read the paper often ditch the ads right away. I'll probably end up with 2 papers. Should be good enough for my current lackadaisical approach.

For the record, I am not an "extreme" couponer like you see on TLC. There are some real benefits to be had by couponing all you can. Every penny counts in my book and I'm all for getting good deals! However, what you see on TLC isn't necessarily something to aspire to.  Jennifer Derrick over at Person Finance advice sums it up. This is a great article pointing out what you don't see on this show.

1 comment:

Jackie said...

I also love to use coupons to save where I can and I also use codes for saving money when online shopping. I don't think I could put the time and effort that the extreme couponers go through to save that kind of money.