I've Moved!

Today I am laying to rest this blog and have moved to my new .com home. Please see all the excitement at http://www.theobsessiveshopper.com/

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Trick of the Trade #2

As promised I am letting you all in on the 2nd Trick of the Trade when it comes to coupon use.

Maximize Your Coupons

Did you know there is a right way and a wrong way to use coupons? In my previous coupon use I would happily clip the coupon for the product I wanted, go to the store with great thoughts of savings and find what I wanted on the shelf only to be disappointed that even with my coupon savings the generic of the product I wanted was cheaper! Has that ever happened to you?

Let me illustrate this with my favorite example. We use Campbell's Cream soups as a staple in many recipes.

Wrong:

I would have gotten my coupon which was a savings of 10 cents on a can. Went to the store and saw the can I wanted was $1. With my coupon my end price would be 90 cents. The generic next to it was 69 cents so of course I would choose generic in order to save.

Right:

I organize my coupons like I explained in this post. I look on the Grocerysmarts website at the stores I want to shop at that week and what do I see? A screaming stock up deal on Campbell's cream soups at 50 cents a can but if I spend $10 I save another $3 instantly at the register. With all these saving I get *20 cans for $7 or 35 cents each. Now I use my 10 cent off coupons, (remember I know where they are because I used the Grocerysmarts website and filing system) and I get the same soup for 25 a can!

This example is true to life and actually happened to me a month ago. By Maximizing your coupons, and using them the right way you are enabling your self to Buy in Bulk and save more money!

*Trick of the Trade #3 will explain how I got so much at such a low price

Trick of the Trade #1

One of the things I teach at my classes is tricks of the trade with coupon usage. The first trick of the trade is:

BUY IN BULK

You will typically save 10-15% when you buy in bulk at big warehouse stores. When you use coupons and combine them with sale prices at your grocery store you can expect to save 50-70% and even up to 100% at times!

I am not the only one who recommends buying things in bulk when they are on sale. I was excited to see in the Procter & Gamble booklet this past Sunday(found in the Sunday paper, once a month). They had tips from John & Kate Gosselin from TLC's John & Kate plus Eight (I love this show by the way) on how to save money. One of the tips was buy in bulk.

"If your family has must-haves, make sure you keep them in the house and buy them in bulk on sale to save."

I am not saying that Kate uses coupons to save, I have no idea. However I have found that when you can combine sale prices with coupons you save ton's more.

This is where the FREE Grocerysmarts website comes in. The website takes all the store ads and lists the sale items from each store while also listing a coupon if one is available so you get the best price possible (look for the 4-5 star items). Then you can make the decision on what your family uses and buy as much as you can while it is on sale. In one of my previous posts (you can view it here) I explained how I organize my coupons so I can find them using the code from Grocerysmarts. That information is helpful too when using Grocerysmarts.

Watch for 2 more tricks in upcoming posts.