Learning to Use Coupons Day 3- The Binder

One of the most time consuming things about couponing is organizing them.  Some people use a card file with dividers others use an accordion file but I have decided to use a 3 ring binder method.  This is definitely  more time consuming but once you get in the store it's the easiest to use because it is so organized.  I have all the coupons in baseball card sleeves and I have them divided into sections. I have a lot of dividers so that its more organized. For example I have all the food in the front separated into Meat, Dairy, Produce, Cereal, Snacks, Canned, Frozen, etc. then I have the non food items in the back separated in sections labeled soap, shampoo, medicine, razors, lotions, etc...  you get the picture.  If I have 10 of one coupon they are all together in one slot. That way when I'm in the store I can see at a glance what I have and I don't have to thumb through a bunch of coupons. It also helps when I look on Southern Savers for the deals at each store because she list the deal and the coupon or coupons needed for each deal, with the binder method I can find the coupons very quickly. So if you got your papers today I would suggest cutting your coupons by taking each insert apart and stacking like pages to cut, so that you only have to cut each page once. Then organize them whichever way you think will work for you. You can also read Southern Savers article on Organization.

So get cutting and organizing. You will have a much easier time in the store if you do. 

Triple Coupons Last Week at Kroger

I am so excited. I went to a couponing seminar last Friday night at the Radissson with my friends Val and Regina. It was held by Jeanie from www.southernsavers.com. It was very informative and I learned a lot. I had heard before the seminar that the Kroger in Bellmeade was tripling coupons, so when I got home I started planning my trip to Kroger. Well I went today and below you can see how it went. It took me 9 transactions because they would only let you use 20 coupons per transaction. Believe it or not I had the friendliest cashier ever. He could not believe how much I was saving. I kind of felt like a celebrity because people were watching each transaction just to see how much I saved every time. What is really funny is after 6 transactions I thought I was done and headed out to car just to realize I had locked my keys in the car. I called Allen, my husband, to come and rescue me but I knew it would take about an hour in traffic for him to get there, SOOOO.... I decided I might as well make the most out of this waiting. The bag boy wheeled my cart full of groceries to the dairy cooler so nothing would go bad and I was off for another three transactions. Below you can see that I saved a whopping $370.52 and I came home with a coupon that printed to save $4.50 off my next trip so really I saved $375.99. I don't think I have had this much fun in a long time.


Spent------------------------Saved

$7.02 -------------------------$14.00
$13.33-------------------------$41.80
$11.16 -------------------------$38.89
$10.77-------------------------$51.91
$12.32-------------------------$50.10
$15.02-------------------------$41.72
$30.07------------------------$58.24
$0.58--------------------------$21.86
$8.70--------------------------$52.00
______________________________________________

Total Spent $108.97----------Total Saved $370.52

I got $479.49 worth of groceries $108.47.