I have always “couponed”, even before it became the latest rage. During good times I admit I was not as studious with my couponing as I’ve been during the bad years, which pretty much has been since 2001. Using coupons is simply a way of increasing your net – as in after taxes – “disposable” income (I’ve found in the past 3 years that none of my money is truly “disposable” at all). It’s like getting a raise, and a sizable one at that. Let’s play with the math.
Salty’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series on couponing. Read the first article HERE.
Spill the beans
Say you spend $100 a week on groceries and basic household necessities. When couponing, my overall goal is to save 20% on all “household” purchases, week in and week out. In this example, that’s $20 a week or $1,040 a year. Applied to my frugal years of 2001 through 2011, say 10 years, that’s $10,200 in after tax additional income.
I’m currently saving more than that. When I pay attention to my business of couponing and really put in the work, I save an average of 40%. That’s when the numbers really start to take off. Now we’re talking $40 a week in savings, or $2,080 a year. More or less you can figure that on a normal 40 hour a week job, you’ve just increased your wages before taxes by about $1.25 an hour. Wow.
Time
Granted, this takes an investment in time and a few resources. People ask me all the time where I get my coupons. The simple answer is “everywhere”. I buy 3 Sunday papers every week. This investment of $6 a week pays off quickly, so I don’t worry too much about that. I do include the $6 as a “debit” to my coupon savings when I keep track of things so that I know I have to make that up with savings. I pre-screen my Sunday papers by going and purchasing them off the rack. This lets me look through the available coupons in each paper to pick out the papers I want, and also allows me to choose not to buy a paper at all if the payout does not appear worth the purchase. This happens probably one week out of six or so.
I get coupons from in-store displays, and I set up a gmail account to use exclusively for gathering coupons and savings from various coupon distributors like Red Plum and Smart Source, as well as direct from manufacturers. I also let friends and relatives know I am couponing, and many of them pass along coupons they no longer need or want.
DIY Couponing
As of this point I’m not using clipping services. It seems to me to be borderline ethical, and I’m just not ready to go there.
I don’t do dumpster diving or any of that other fad-created hysteria. I just do now what I’ve done for years – buy papers, save coupons from magazines and in-stores, and print them off the internet.
There is time involved in couponing. Two weeks ago I spent 2 1/2 hours on my coupons. Last week I spent probably 15 minutes. This week I’ve spent about 8 hours. It kind of runs in cycles. Most of the time I spent this week won’t have to be spent again for a while. I revised my record-keeping system which has been manual and turned it into a spreadsheet to speed things up.
By the way, let me know if you want an Open Office Spreadsheet version and I’ll email it to you. I’ve been using hand-written sheets for the past 10 years, but as the need in my household for savings has dramatically increased, I’ve found I need to streamline my system and maximize my savings.
Organize
I used to organize all my coupons into large binders that I toted with me to stores, much like you see on the Extreme Couponing show…but I found that to be 1) a pain to deal with in-store and 2) embarrassing as all get-out when people stare.
Putting in the extra time to plan each shopping trip ahead of time seems to me to be the key. I have a small coupon file (bought at Dollar General for $1.00) that slips in my purse for fast trips. For complicated trips with large amounts of purchases and coupons, I also pack my clipboard with storage area. These are the back-to-school type clipboards where you can open up the clipboard part and stow pencils and a few papers.
Pre-shopping
I pre-shop by looking at all the grocery store and major drug store/chain store flyers. The grocery flyers here come out on Wednesday; the chain and drug store flyers come out on Sunday. (Keeping track of the expirations and effective dates via my spreadsheet sure makes the sorting of what’s good when easier). On my spreadsheet I enter all of the products I might be interested in. Then I go through my coupons and post on the sheet the coupons I have for those sale items. Those become my “must purchase” list. Added to the “must purchase” list are items I need that week for which there are no coupons and/or no sale (trying to keep those to an absolute minimum is key!).
One of the secrets to really being able to save money in the long haul is “the stash”. I’ve watched the Extreme Couponing TV show and what I call a stash and what they call a stash are two different things. Never in my wildest dreams would I stock up on 48 bottles of hot sauce. Unless you sprinkle it on everything including breakfast cereal, why would you do that? It’s a waste of time, resources and energy.
Stock up on basics
I DO however stock up on basics and staples when the price is right. For example, this past week I stocked up on deodorant and now have enough to get us both through probably 9 months or so. I was able to use available sales to get the price for name-brand deodorant down from $1.88 and $2.47 at discount stores by using the sale price and available coupons to $1.00 even on every stick. Doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a 47% to 59% savings off of discount store prices.
Those deodorant sticks go into my “stash” area and whenever we run out of the one we’re using, we go pick one out of the stash instead of adding it to the shopping list. Chances are good that sometime during the year I’ll find another coupon/sale event that will allow me to replenish.
Stash
Other items I like to stash include:
Shampoo & haircare
Bandages
OTC medications (not more than a year’s worth though – they do expire)
Razors & Shaving Cream
Cleaning supplies – no more than 2 spare – they make more and certain chemicals don’t like to be stored
Paper towels
Napkins
Toilet Paper
Canned goods (rotated constantly)
Dry goods (including pasta, dry mixes, again…rotate)
My stash was basically eliminated during the time I was recovering from my accident. There was a period of time of about 5 months when I could not go to the store. In my opinion, this is exactly what God had in mind when he beat it into my brain that I needed to create a stash! I had enough basic staples of most things that going to the store was not necessary, except to replenish perishable items (which The Man of the Place did weekly).
Process
The actual weekly process I go through to set up my shopping trips (I try to do one, but most weeks I must do two in order to spread the money out. If you have adequate income and aren’t poor like me, one will do fine) is as follows:
As mentioned before, I post all the sale pricing and coupons available on my spreadsheet, and using that sheet create my purchase list (another “sheet” on the same spreadsheet). When my coupons arrive either via the paper or internet or however, I clip them all out and put them in my master binder at home by category.
I think it works best if you set your categories up yourself rather than using predetermined categories set up by somebody else. Some people only shop at one store and organize by aisle; I shop mostly at one store (guess which one!) but always at several, so I organize by type of product (meat, dairy, refrigerated, canned, boxed) with subcategories (fresh meat, processed meat, milk, yogurt, ice cream, vegetables, fruit, soup, etc). I use a large binder filled with baseball card sheets – those page protectors that are clear and divided into little squares) to store my coupons at home.
Lining it up
When I match the coupons to the spreadsheet and put the item on the purchase list, I remove the coupons needed from the binder and put it in my little coupon organizer which goes into my purse, along with the printout of the purchase spreadsheet (if it’s a really small shopping trip), or I put the file and list in my clipboard (if it’s a regular/large trip). Most trips are the latter. When I get to the store, I can rest assured that I have all the coupons I need, none I don’t, etc. I pull the spreadsheet out and clip it to the front of the clipboard. When I pick an item out and put it in my basket, I write the shelf price on my spreadsheet.
This does two things. First, it helps me keep track of regular prices for budgeting. It also allows me to later calculate all my savings for this item for future planning. If I regularly save 5% on an item, I’m not nearly as interested in that coupon than if I save 30% on that item. This helps me think through whether I want to buy those Sunday papers or not. Example: a 25 cent coupon off of 6 rolls of Bounty costing me $8.99 is not worth much. If I need Bounty and it’s the best I can do, I’ll use it….but if it is one of only a few Sunday coupons that week, I’ll pass.
Wrapping it up
That’s about it. Several of you have emailed me and/or FB messaged “How do you do that?” This is how. I’m not concerned about saving 95% when buying 40 bottles of hot sauce, rather I’m concerned with making the best buys possible to have the most meaningful supply of needed product in my household at any given time. It’s not entirely fun. It takes some work. It takes a bit of time.
I average about 3 hours a week on all my couponing and sale documentation. This week my savings will average about 48%, and I’ll have purchased $130 worth of product. Taking out 5 of the 8 hours I spent building my spreadsheet (only need to do that once), I’ll have spent 3 hours to save $62. That’s $20.66 an hour after taxes…say $25.00+ an hour in gross wages (while watching TV and chatting with The Man of the Place). Not a bad way to “make” a living!