GETTING STARTED

Image by 1hr photo via Flickr

This information is meant to help you understand what extreme couponing is all about. It is alot of information to take in at once so, get what you can and then come back and re-read this in about a week or two after you have started using coupons.

Remember the key to success is not buying a product because you have a coupon for it.  Keep your coupons until the item goes on sale and then stock up and buy as many items as you have coupons for.  It’s the combo of the sale and the coupon that makes the most savings.  After a couple of months of shopping like this you will have a stock pile in your home of products and you shouldn’t really ever need to buy anything that isn’t on sale except for perishables like milk, fruit, etc.

Terminology:

Stacking – Using a manufacturer’s coupon and a store coupon on one item.  Allowed by any store that prints their own coupons. Example: buying 1 box Honey Nut Cheerios at Target and using .50¢ off manufacturer’s coupon and .25¢ off Target coupon to get .75¢ off.

SS- Smart Source newspaper insert

RP- Red Plum newspaper insert

PG or P&G- Proctor & Gamble newspaper insert

Filler- inexpensive item needed at Walgreens to make the number of items equal the number of coupons. Again this is used at Walgreens only.

OYNO - on your next order

YMMV - “Your manager may vary.”  Meaning what works at one store another manager may say no to at his/her store.

Here are a few ways to get the most savings from different stores:

Target

Target is simple but there can be a lot of savings at this store.  Target offers their own coupons at Target.com.  Most of these are Target coupons and can be stacked and used together with a manufacturer’s coupon. Sometimes at Target.com the coupons are manufacturer coupons so, just look at the top near the expiration date and it will say either “Target” or “manufacturer”. There are no rules as to how many coupons you can have but sometimes they have to manually adjust the coupon “down” for it to work. For example: Chef-boyardee is on sale for $1.09. I have a manufacturer coupon for $1.00 off so that leaves .09 due but I also, have a Target coupon for $1.00 off. The cashier will have to change that 2nd coupon to only .09¢, but you still get it free. Note: some cashiers don’t really care and will just put it in as $1.00 and then you’ve made a profit.

I should add here that stores are not losing money when you use coupons. The manufacturer reimburses them. Another way to combine savings at Target is many times in their add they say “buy 2 and get $5 gift card”. This is really great when you have coupons for these kinds of sale items. If you are on a budget you can buy these items first in one transaction and then in your second transaction use those gift cards to purchase the rest of you items. They don’t mind you doing this at all. If you are like me and you go weekly then you can just use them next week.

Another place to get Target coupons is using your cell phone and signing up here to receive text messages from Target.  According to my text history I’ve gotten one message about every 3 weeks and you just click on the link to take you to a page with about 5 coupons and a bar code.  The cashier will scan the bar code on your phone and the coupons will be deducted.  You can only use it once per item, but you can have different items and it will take off for each of those.  These count as Target coupons so if you have a paper coupon for the same item it will only work if the paper coupon is a manufacturer’s coupon.

CVS

The first thing you’ll want to do is get a CVS ExtraCare Reward Card from here. CVS offers Extra Care Bucks (name change) Extra Bucks (EB’s) on certain items each week. EB’s are store credit that print out at the end of your receipt and you tear them off and use them on your next purchase as if it was real money. So you buy items that generate EB’s and then use the EB’s to purchase items on our next visit that will generate MORE EB’s and the process continues. Once you start the process, you just continue to buy items with your EB’s and when combined with coupons, you save money. At this point it’s like paying with monopoly money. It’s not unusual that I leave with a sack of groceries/toiletries for less than $1.00 actual money!  Once you get your CVS card go online and make sure you check the box that says you want to receive emails (some people have had to go back and recheck this). They randomly email out $5 off $25 purchase.  Just print this out and take it to the store and at check out you need to give this coupon first then give the other coupons. If you give other coupons first it could lower your charges below $25 and then they won’t accept the $5 off $25 coupon.  I’ve gotten one of these every month in my email.   Occasionally they will also, email you a free item of your choice.  At the end of each quarter you will also get an EB worth 2% of everything you’ve purchased that quarter in the store or online.

Another way to get CVS coupons is at the Red Box Kiosk (not the DVD rental kiosk!) There is a red box about 5ft tall at the front of the store (ask if you don’t see it). You can scan your CVS card and it will print out 2-4 coupons, you can do this up to 3 times in one visit to get 6-10 coupons. These are CVS coupons so you can stack them with a manufacturer coupon or sometimes it will be $5 off $X purchase.  CVS accepts coupons at face value, however, you can “stack” the coupons on a single item, like I explained earlier. So, you can have a CVS coupon and a manufacturers coupon for one item.

They also have a green bag tag that you can buy and attach to your reusable bag and scan each time you shop there.  Every 4th visit you get 1 EB that prints out with your receipt.

You can also join the CVS advisory panel and they will reward you with EB’s for providing input for them.  They will occasionally send out requests for people to join the panel so, I will keep you informed when they do.

Walgreen’s

(I do not recommended starting with Walgreen’s. Wait until you have some experience!)

Walgreen’s is a little bit trickier than CVS. They offer Register Rewards (RR), which are store credit/manufacturers coupon. You can’t always use your RR to generate more RR though. For example: you have $2 RR from buying Colgate. You cannot then turn around and use that RR to buy more Colgate and get another RR. You can buy it but the RR will not print. Now if I want to use my Colgate RR to buy Folgers that is generating an RR then I can. They just have to be different manufacturers. Also, at Walgreen’s you can’t have more coupons than # of items purchased. RR, store coupons, and manufacturer coupons are all considered coupons. So always count your coupons and items before checking out and if needed add a pack of gum or a pencil. These are called “fillers” they are inexpensive and can help you get the # of items to match the # of coupons. It doesn’t matter what your items are as long as you don’t have more coupons than items. Once I learned the tricks of Walgreen’s I had success there. CVS is different because you don’t have to count your items and the EB’s print no matter what products you buy or EB’s you use. Walgreen’s is great but I would wait until you learn a little about different manufacturers and have experience with shopping with coupons. It can get frustrating when you are checking out and you don’t know why they won’t let you use your RR or why another RR didn’t print.

Another way to save at Walgreen’s is every month they have a coupon booklet at the front of the store near the ad papers. They are free and they have several Walgreen’s coupons in them that you can “stack” and use with a manufacturer coupons. Also, their weekly ad has Walgreen coupons in them too that can be stacked. Don’t forget at Walgreen’s if you use 2 coupons on 1 item then you will need to buy a filler to have 2 products.

Don’t get overwhelmed with too many stores at first.  Start with one or two and then add a store in a couple of weeks.

Ways to get a coupon stash:

• The newspaper ($5.95 a month for the Lubbock AJ Sunday paper).  If you get one from the bigger cities you will get more coupons than from the Lubbock AJ newspaper.
• Coupons.com
• All You magazine (has tons of coupons in it)
• Ordering Free Samples ( you get the sample plus they usually send coupons with it)
• RedPlum
• Target
• Smart Source
• Coupon Network
• Buy what you want from The Coupon Clippers

Things you will need:

• Coupon organizer (available at Walmart)
• Envelopes or some way to separate each store with the shopping list and coupons you will be using that week for each store
• Folder to keep track of rebates
• A bag to carry it all in
• A printer for the printable coupons (buy according to cheapest ink refills)

One last tip:

Read other peoples Frequently Asked Questions here.

Related articles

• Question: How/Where Do I Start?! Part 1 (Preparation)
• Question: How/Where Do I Start?! Part 2 (Let’s Start A Stock Pile)
• Question: How/Where Do I Start?! Part 3 (Your Shopping Trip)