TIME TO SHOP - NOT QUITE!!

Now that you have your coupons and they are organized, the next thing you will need to figure out is what is in your pantry. In order for you to reduce your overall spending budget for the long haul you will need to create a stockpile of your most used items. Once this stockpile is developed, (try to acquire at least a 3-4 month supply) you are on your way to reducing your overall budget by at least 50%. With your stockpile list in hand, start looking through the local store ads in your area. If you do not have any of the local ads on hand, you will find most if not all the stores listed here.

When using your coupons, make sure that the item is on sale and you use your coupons in conjunction with the sale price. For example, if you find toothpaste on sale for $1.99 and you have a coupon for $1.00 off, then you will only pay .99 cents for the toothpaste instead of $1.99, and since you have made sure that you have multiple coupons for the same item, you will be able to buy more than one item at this price (adding to your stockpile).

You do not always need to drive to several stores in order to get a particular item on sale. If you do most of your shopping at Wal Mart, for example, then just bring in your ad from the competing store and Wal Mart will match it. For more information on Wal Mart policies go to their website or call the store for more details.

ORGANIZING COUPONS/COUPON BINDER

The next thing you will need to do once you have coupons is to organize them. This is extremely important if you are going to be successful at using coupons to save money. The best way to utilize your coupons, once you have them clipped, is to create a "Coupon Binder". To find an organizing system that works for you, I recommend that you do a "google" search for "Creating/Organizing a Coupon Binder" or look at a "youtube" video on the subject.

Once a month dispose of all of your expired coupons. If you have any expired coupons at the end of the month there are some military bases stationed overseas were military families can use your expired coupons for up to six months. If you would like to send your expired coupons to an overseas base, please read more on this here.

COUPON STASH

I have been looking online for several months now but could not find anyone here in Northern California who could tell me were the best resources to build your coupon stash where. So from trial and error I have found that the top three resources can be found in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle Newspaper, Coupons.com (link listed to the right) and a magazine called, "All You" (available at Wal Mart). If you use these resources, you should be able to build up your coupon stash in no time at all.

I always purchase more than one copy of the newspaper or magazine if I find that there are some good coupons in them. My rule of thumb is for each person in your household, purchase 1 (one) newspaper or magazine (ex. if you have 3 people in your household, purchase 3).