Are you a coupon clipper? I used to be a coupon clipper before I found my internet addiction. I would collect all the newspaper coupon inserts and mailer inserts throughout the week and would sit and organize all my coupons on Sunday afternoons. I never read the Sunday newspapers that I bought, but always used my savings to pay for the paper itself and still came out way ahead. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent clipping coupons, organizing my coupon binder and sorting out the expired coupons. It was a lot of fun at the register, but I quickly found that some shoppers get really irritated with you when they are behind you in line and you pull out a handful of coupons! They may be irritated, but when they hear how much money you saved on your bill, they turn from irritated to VERY curious!
There were items that I could get for free and then make a little money on top of my free item. It was nuts, Kroger had the triple coupon deal and I had 33 cents off, which turned into 99 cents off a product that was on sale for 75 cents. This meant that I got the product for free and also made 24 cents! Before long I knew which products came with the best promotions and I started trading coupons with my neighbors and buying multiple items when I found the best sales. One time I came home with 10 boxes of cereal and my neighbor teased me and asked if I was planning on storing them all under my bed!
Now that I have a “blogging addiction,” I no longer subscribe to the Sunday newspapers for the coupon inserts. There was a time that the newspapers were piling up in my kitchen corner because I didn’t have the time to go through them. Here I was paying for a Sunday newspaper subscription and going in the hole each week because I wasn’t using the coupons! At this point, I decided that I didn’t want to give up coupons entirely, but it was just silly for me to buy the papers when I didn’t have the time to sort through them. I have decided that printable coupons are the easiest way for me to continue using coupons without the need to organize them in an ongoing coupon binder. Since I am familiar with the coupons that are available for my favorite products, I print them off right before I leave for the grocery instead of spending time digging through a huge coupon binder before entering the store. I can’t tell you how many times I used to sit in the parking lot digging through my coupons before being prepared to enter the store.
Printable coupons are definitely for me, how about you? When you go shopping do you usually have one or two coupons with you or do you have a handful? What is the most money you have ever saved on a shopping trip with your coupons?