artofthecoupon.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Now that you have organized all your coupons, as instructed in Step 1, you need to figure out when is the best time to use them!  Ideally, you want to use them when there is a great sale that makes the item cheap or free.  When this great sale happens, you want to buy a whole bunch of the item so that you never have to buy it when it isn’t on sale.  So, how do you match up the sales with the coupons?  You could pay money to do it, to a service called the Grocery Game.  Or, you could spend a few minutes looking at all the great free material that is available, and you can do it yourself!

Obviously, I highly recommend doing it yourself, especially because it just doesn’t have to be that hard.  There are a lot of great websites out there that essentially do the work for you, you just have to access them.  The level of ease that comes with this varies slightly depending on how large your grocery market is, but there are resources out there for everyone to take advantage of.

The first thing you need to do is figure out which stores are feasible for you to visit.  You are going to want to visit as many as possible, without sacrificing gas and time.  At a minimum, you will want to see if you have a Rite-Aid, CVS or Walgreens close to you.  These stores are required for maximum savings.  Next, you will want to figure out which grocery stores are convenient.  If you can include two grocery stores on your list, you will be doing well.  You also want to make sure you check and see if you have a Wal-Mart or Target near you that has a grocery store, as these big chains can be important sources of deals.

Once you have your list of stores, you want to get the scoop on the deals at these stores.  There are 2 sites that I frequent that offer really good deal information.  

The first is Slick Deals.  They have a drugstore forum that posts the ads for Target, Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid, CVS, and Walgreens.  The CVS, Walgreens and Rite-Aid ads are usually up well in advance, sometimes even months in advance.  Each week has a different thread in the drugstore forum, and the monthly deals also have their own separate thread.  When a really good deal shows up, sometimes a separate thread will be started for that amazing deal within the same forum.  The Walgreens and Target threads consist of 1 big long thread for each store, which is updated as deals are found or on a weekly basis (as opposed to separate threads for each week). 

There are a couple of different ways to browse threads and look through information at Slickdeals.  I personally have subscribed to the RSS feed for the drugstore forum (subscribe by going into the appropriate forum and then going up to the little RSS icon in the address bar of your web browser) .  Each time someone opens a new thread in that forum, the thread comes to my reader.  Once it shows up, I click on the thread if I am interested in reading it.  

If the thread is something that I feel will be very useful (like someone has put up a new CVS weekly ad for a few months down the line) then I will subscribe to it on my slickdeals account.  Once you are a member of Slickdeals, you subscribe to a thread by selecting Thread Tools in the top right corner of each page.  Select “Subscribe To This Thread”.  You can elect to have email notifications sent to you if you want (I don’t).  You can also just elect to subscribe without email notifications, which is what I do.  I subscribe to every thread I am interested in, and then I can get that list by clicking on User CP on the left of the top menu bar.  It lists my subscribed threads in that window, and I can go to my first unread post by clicking on the little box with writing in it next to the plus sign that is next to the name of the subscribed thread.  

If the thread is not one that I feel will be generally useful, but it has one or two tidbits of information I want, I just copy the relevant information and email it to myself.  I have a separate folder set up in my gmail account called “DEALS” and I have a filter set up so when I send an email to myself with “DEALS” in the subject line, it bypasses the inbox entirely and goes directly into that folder.  So, when I email the information to myself, I will label it DEALS and then the week and the store (ex if there was a thread that pointed out that CVS would be giving away free Q-Tips the week of 9/5 I would send an email to myself with the subject “DEALS: CVS 9/5 Free Q-Tips).  This way, I store the information as it comes in, and have it all in one place without having to bookmark a bunch of pages or subscribe to a bunch of stuff that isn’t that useful.  

Each week when I am ready to plan my shopping list (I do it on Saturday nights) I go to my USER CP on Slickdeals and open any of the threads that I am subscribed to that pertain to that week, or that month.  I copy and paste to a file in my email named for that week, making a master list for each of the stores I want to visit.  I copy everything from that week that I want, and I also copy stuff from the monthly thread if I know I haven’t done the deal yet.  I also look through my deals folder to see if I have emailed any notes to myself about that week.  Finally, my family members know that if they want something to be on the shopping list they send me an email with “DEALS, the week and the item they want” in the subject line so that when I make my weekly shopping list, that item gets added.  (I also do the same thing when I find a recipe online I am planning to make that week or if I’m in the kitchen and run out of something form the pantry, it really streamlines my grocery list).  Thus, my master list gets made each week for CVS, Walgreens, RIte Aid and Wal-Mart based on my Slickdeals User CP with bookmarked threads, and my “Deals” folder.  For Wal-Mart, which doesn’t get updated all the time and which has some deals that run infinitely, I don’t create a new master list but rather add and delete from the previous weeks email. 

Slickdeals provides me with the info about the drug stores and the national chain stores, but they don’t have my local grocery store.  Hot Coupon World does, in their Grocery Store forum, so I am also subscribed in my reader to the 2 local grocery stores I shop at. When a new thread opens in that subforum for my particular grocery stores, it also comes to my reader.  Then, I usually email it to myself right away and if I am interested in the thread I just “Star” it so it remains in my starred folder of my reader.  That way, I don’t have to visit Hot Coupon World on Sundays as well as slickdeals, because the information is already in my DEALS folder and because if I want to refer back or ask a question in the thread, its there in my reader.  I do this because the grocery store pages on HCW don’t get updated as frequently as the weekly drugstore threads on Slickdeals, and I want to streamline my info gathering and maximize my time spent making shopping lists.  

So, that is pretty much it.  If the item is not in my DEALS folder in my email, or my Slickdeals.net user CP for that week, it doesn’t get onto my list.  But if it is, it does.  The whole thing takes about 15-20 minutes a week, depending on how comprehensive I want my list to be.  

Once I have my online list made, it is time to print it out and match up the coupons.  Slickdeals and HotCouponWorld both match the sale ads with the available coupons and give you the insert and date.  This makes it easy to pull coupons from your hanging file folders that we made, and also easy to check your master list to see if you have a coupon. Slickdeals and HCW also include links to any applicable printable coupons, so while you are printing your list go ahead and print any of those that you need and keep it right with that list.  If there is something on your list that wasn’t from Slickdeals or Hotcouponworld but that is just there because you need it, check to see if you have a coupon on your master list for that item.   

Now, pull your coupons.  Cut the appropriate coupons from the appropriate file and update your master list to show that you have done so.  Make a separate envelope, labeled for each store, and put the appropriate coupons inside of it.  Paperclip your list to the envelopes containing your pulled & printed coupons.  Now, you will be taking this into the store with you when you go. If something is out of stock, then ask for a raincheck and paperclip the appropriate coupon to it right away. Keep it in the appropriate envelope, and then next time you are in the store you will have your coupon and raincheck right there and ready to buy the item.  

Now you have your list made and you are ready to shop.  Check back tomorrow for some more advice on Couponing Simply!