On Sunday’s there are anywhere from 2 -5 inserts that you can expect in your Sunday paper. Make sure to check your paper as on Holiday weekends there tends to NOT be any inserts at all. So, before you purchase a paper on a Holiday weekend make sure to look in the paper to confirm that there are coupons that weekend.

Typically you can expect the SS or Smart Source and the RP or Red Plum. Every 4th week we will get the P&G, Procter and Gamble additional insert and occasionally we get the GM or General Mills.

To see a preview of what coupons you can expect to find each week you can go HERE. Coupons are regional and not all areas get every coupon. If there are coupons that you did not get in your area and would like to have you can purchase them from a coupon clipping service.

When I do match-ups for stores the above coupon description is what you will see.

I will have an entire series next week about personally what I did to get started. There are so many different ways and methods, this is just what worked for me.

A few things that you can do and start thinking about are the following:

1. Make a list of your favorite recipes. We all have about 12 main recipes that we use monthly for our families. You can print off a sheet HERE to help you. They are free and it is one that I made.
2. Next, write down all the ingredients for those recipes. You are going to want to start looking for coupons for each ingredient. This might take writing the manufacturer and checking the Sunday papers.
3. Start keeping a list of the prices you see these items. Within a 3 month period of time it will go on sale. For example, the spaghetti sauce I like might be $1.69 this week. Then next I notice it is $1.29, then $1.59. Then my store might offer a 10 for $10 sale and it is $1.00. Because I have been watching the prices I know that this is the lowest price I am going to find it at the store. NOW I am going to want to combine that price with a coupon to get my “buy it now” price. I am going to buy as many as I can at this price. So that I do not have to buy spaghetti sauce again until it is this price again!

Here are some FREE printable sheets to help you that I created:

• Price book sheet
• Weekly Menu Planner
• Pantry Inventory
• Shopping List
• Freezer Inventory
• Monthly Menu Plan
• Binder Pages (I will talk LOTS more about these next week!)

If you are new, sometimes the way that match-ups are posted can be confusing. In the beginning it can frustrating to read posts and not know what anyone is talking about!

The most important thing to understand in my opinion are the individual deal item write ups.

This is what you might see:

Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers, 6.94 – 7.95 oz $1.00
$1/2 Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers
B5G1 Healthy Choice Frozen Meal 1/2/2011 SS Insert (exp 2/28/2011)
Total: As low as $.50

This is what it means:

Tomorrow, we will talk about all the abbreviations that you see.

Crispix – Save $1.50 on pretzels, when you buy 2 boxes of cereal. I also had a $1 off 2 boxes of Crispix ($1/2 Select Kellogg’s Cereals, exp. 1-16 (RP 12/05/10)) It says ANY brand and size pretzels, so I got the ones above for $.28!

I Heart The Mart has a good post on peelies that he found at Walmart yesterday.

When people comment to me that they don’t have the time or HATE cutting out coupons (so do I, I just get through it) I always try and remember to suggest just loading their rewards cards with e-coupons, or looking for coupons in the store.

You store can be a HUGE source of coupons, you just have to keep your eyes open. Most stores have a few different places to find them:

• Look for peelies, they are the coupons that are “stuck” on the package itself. Peel them off and use them right then. Some stores are grouchy and like the cashiers to peel them off, I have only had that happen once. I like to peel them off right away when I put it in my cart and put the coupon with my other ones. I have forgot to take a peelies off before and that bugs me!
• Blinkies – Blinkies are named after those little boxes with the blinking light that when you pull out one coupon another one automatically shoots out after. These are a great resource for coupons that I don’t often see in the Sunday paper.
• Tear Pads – These are usually stuck on displays and you can pull off a coupon from it. It is a nice surprise to find a great coupon this way!
• In-store coupon books. You can see an example of one we found HERE yesterday. These are always on the big set up display’s. They usually have recipes and tips inside along with coupons. You can find them around the Holiday’s, Back to School and Super Bowl time.
• Ask at your store! Always ask the pharmacy if they have coupons that you can have. Most likely they do!

** It can be frustrating to find an item that you are going to buy where you can clearly see that a peelie has been peeled off. Or that people take entire tear pads and sell them on Ebay.  Just take what you need and leave some for others!

You have started clipping coupons and printing them, you are saving a TON of money, then you have to buy MORE ink! This can be frustrating, but in the long run you are still saving money using printable coupons. But there are a few things that you can do to save yourself some ink money.

Here are a few tips:

• Print coupons in 3’s. If you do this it takes up all the space on the paper and no ad print, which can take a bunch of ink.When you print one coupon at a time, often you’ll get a big ad at the bottom of the page.
• Each coupon can be printed twice.  After you print the coupon once, click your back button to print another coupon. If you can’t get back to that page, go back to the original link and try again.
• Do not print in Greyscale, it actually takes more ink. Set your printer to Black & White to save ink. I DO NOT print in black and white. I have found that many places will not take them unless they are in color.
• If you decide to refill your cartridges, get the refill done ASAP. If you wait too long, the remaining ink dries out
• Get a laser printer! You will use less ink! One trick that I learned about was that if you get the low-toner warning signal, at least with my printer, you can take a piece of tape and cover up the little window that the printer uses to determine if your toner is low. I figured if I did that I’d get a few more days out of the printer, but it’s been like 2 months ( Thanks Katie!)
• Although laser printers may cost more initially, they tend to be faster, use less ink, and are much cheaper on a month to month basis (i.e. cost of inkjet cartridges versus laser toner cartridges)
• Use Garamond font in a small size…it takes less ink than other fonts.

What tips do you have?

I like to lay them all out and just get it over with as soon as I get them. If I wait, it never gets done, or I have to kill myself later in the week trying to find a spot and time to do it in.

Spotting a fake is actually more for the stores than you, but you need to know how to show them the coupons that you have are NOT fakes or copies.