How to Be an Extreme Couponer

Did you catch the recent show on TLC called Extreme Couponing? It profiled four coupon users who were able to save hundreds - or even thousands - of dollars in a single shopping trip by using coupons. Even if you missed the TLC show, chances are you have seen people profiled on your local news or in women’s magazines who do the same thing.

You’ve probably clipped the occasional coupon or two yourself and then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble for the money it saved. If that’s the case you’re probably wondering how these extreme couponers are able to save so much. The truth is that ethods these people use are not complicated and can be duplicated by anyone – even you!

When it comes to saving big money with coupons, clipping the coupons is really just the first step. The key is to save the coupon and use it when you can combine it with a store sale. In coupon lingo, this is called “stacking” a coupon with a sale. If you used even this one step, you could dramatically increase the amount of money you’re saving on that one item.

Here are other things you can do to make your coupon efforts go farther:

1.  Find a store that doubles coupons. You may have to do a little research, but you may be able to find a grocery store in your area that will double the value of your coupon up to a certain limit. If you stack that doubled coupon with a store sale, you can easily reduce the amount you are paying for an item by 50% or more.
2. Stack a manufacturer’s coupon with a store coupon. Generally speaking, there are two issuers of coupons: manufacturers and stores. The slick inserts that come in the Sunday paper are manufacturers’ coupons. So are most coupons you find in magazines or in store aisles. But some stores issues their own coupons as well. And if that’s the case, they may be willing to let you stack a store coupon with a manufacturer’s coupon on the same item.  Target is a great example of this. They issue store coupons and will let you combine one of their coupons with a manufacturer’s coupon. If the item is also on sale, you’re now saving three ways on the same product. That equals big savings!
3. Use coupons at deep discount stores. Walmart accepts manufacturer’s coupons. So does Dollar General. These are two examples of stores that offer rock bottom prices to begin with, and also accept coupons. Your couponing efforts can go a long way at stores like these.

Coupons don’t just come in the Sunday paper anymore, although that is still a good source for them. There are a variety of other places to find coupons.

• Magazines (primarily women’s magazines). Be on the lookout as you flip through the pages of your favorite magazines. Some of those ads may actually contain coupons that you can clip. On great source for coupons is All You, a Walmart-produced magazine that has dozens of coupons in every issue.
• Store mailers. If you’re a frequent shopper at a store, you may be receiving coupon mailers from them occasionally. Target and Costco are examples of retailers that regularly mail out store coupons to their customers. If you’re not receiving them, inquire at the store or on the website.
• Blinkies. Blinkies are those coupons you find in small dispensers in store aisles. If you’re ever taken a child shopping, they can usually spot a blinkie from a mile away because they like to watch the dispensers spit out new coupons.
• Catalinas. Catalinas are the coupons that print off after your register receipt at some grocery stores and places like Target. Pay attention to these and save any that you think you might use.
• Printable coupons. There is a whole new world out there of coupons that you can print from your home computer. It’s like printing money. Some great sites to find printable coupons are Coupons.com, SmartSource.com and RedPlum.com. Target also has a printable coupon site with both manufacturer and store coupons.
• Friends and Family. Statistics show that a very small number of people actually redeem coupons. That means that you probably have friends and family who are receiving coupons – particularly in the Sunday paper – and not using them. Consider asking them to save these coupons for you.
• Buy your coupons. Serious couponers are not afraid to buy coupons from places like eBay or from coupon clipping services. This way they can get large quantities of a single coupon and take advantage of a great sale.

Most of make our grocery list based on what we need. Extreme Couponers make their lists according to what’s a great sale. That means their building a stockpile of items that they will use in the future, but they can buy now at rock bottom prices. I’ve heard many a couponer say that he or she will buy what’s on sale that week, and then fill in with things like milk and produce that are hard to stock up on. That becomes the weekly shopping run.

When you’re just beginning to coupon, it will be more difficult to do this. If your family needs juice, meat and eggs for the week, you can’t very well feed them with your deals on yogurt and deodorant. But if you begin to adopt the stockpile strategy and start to stock up on that yogurt and deodorant, even though it’s not an immediate need, you can slowly move toward the type of shopping that extreme couponers do.

For some of the couponers profiled in the Extreme Couponing show, the stockpiling seemed to have crossed over into hoarding. That’s not surprising; reality shows seek to shock and show the extreme. The idea is not to hoard items you don’t need, but to create a supply of items that your family does use so that when you need something in the future, you’re pulling it from your own shelves, instead of the store shelves.

One of the great things about extreme couponing, however, is that many couponers find they’re able to donate items to food pantries and other charities, because their couponing skills and habits are allowing them to get these items for very cheap or even free.

Chain drug stores like CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens are popular with couponers because they offer lots of store coupons or rebates and rewards that can be used in future shopping trips. Each store has it’s own reward system and coupon policy, so they’re worth studying carefully. But many extreme couponers claim they haven’t paid for health and beauty items for years because they’re able to get them free at these stores. Again, they’re buying what’s on sale that week and stockpiling for future use.

Does all of this sound a little overwhelming? There is definitely a learning curve involved with extreme couponing. The good news is that couponers tend to be a very sharing bunch and there are many, many blogs online that detail exactly how to do all this. Even better, they’ll do the coupon/sale matchups and tell you exactly where to go that week to stack your coupons and get stuff cheap.

All you have to do is do a search for ‘coupon blog’ or start at Money Saving Mom. I promise once you start looking for them you’ll find tons of help.