Saturday, February 14, 2009

Coupons, coupons, coupons...

I have been trying my hand at actually using coupons around here... they actually do save money! Imagine that! Especially when you are trying to feed your family the "good" stuff, meaning the organic and such... Why is it that THAT stuff is the most expensive, but obviously the best for us? It doesn't seem quite fair. So I have found a couple ways to get the coupons for the products that you actually use.
The store ads are great, and should be looked at weekly, so you can see if there is a staple that you use on sale. Most stores offer their weekly ads right on line. Just google your store and look for the info. For example, I usually go to Smith's , so I go to their website and look under the "In Store" pull down menu and there are the store ads and coupons. Just last week, we saved over $20.00 by buying stuff that was on sale and planning our menu around that! If you can save $20 a week, that is $1040 A YEAR!!! Amazing! There are some sites for your store that will actually load up coupons on your store loyalty card... that is pretty handy.
Another way to get coupons is to actually go to the products website. For instance, Seventh Generation is the manufacturer of most of our cleaning products and the diapers we are trying to use when we are not doing cloth, so I googled them, went to the website, and signed up for their newsletter. When you sign up for the newsletter, you get updates from the products you use, and you get to use coupons for the products! Win, win! I did this for many of the products that we use consistantly, like Newman's Own, and Stonyfield Farm, Horizon Milk, Silk, and oh so many more... it is limitless!
I keep a folder with pockets in the kitchen cabinet, and I put all the coupons I print out in there, and before I go grocery shopping, I grab my coupons that I want to use, and go. It is something you have to think about, and it isn't completely easy, but hey, things are never easy when you want to save money, right? It is like using your reuseable shopping bags... just something you have to remember.
I hope these tips will help someone.... I am leaving some links below for anyone that might be interested.

http://shortcuts.com/home
http://www.horizonorganic.com/coupons/coupons.php
http://coupons.stonyfield.com/signin_coupons.cfm
http://www.annies.com/home
http://www.silksoymilk.com/
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/coupons

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