Let me ask you a question and answer truthfully to yourself. If you were shopping and found 25 cents, 50 cents or a dollar on the ground, would you pick it up? How about if you had a quarter in your pocket that was dirty, sticky and could hardly make out that it was a quarter, would you use it or throw it away? How about if I taped a quarter in the newspaper somewhere and you had to just find it and put it in your pocket, would you go look for it?

coupon.jpgIf you get the Sunday paper and throw it away without taking a gander at the coupons, then you are throwing away a possible quarter that could be used toward your grocery shopping. You say, “but Dawn, they NEVER have any coupons for things I use!” True, that may happen on occasion. But again, let me ask you a question, if you didn’t find any money on the ground for a year, would you stop looking?

Surfgirl never used coupons and I grew up around them. It has been a nice learning experience for us both. We used coupons all the time when we were first together. I would keep the coupons in a folder by month and go to the site CouponMom, check my state and see what I could get a good deal on with the coupons. On a good day, I would save at least 60% on my groceries; on a bad day, 20-30% off the list.

As we have become more familiar with the stores around us, and their sales along with eating more items from scratch the number of coupons used has gone down. But that doesn’t mean I stop looking. Just today I pulled out a coupon for 40Â ¢ off a 15 count of pizza rolls (I LOVE pizza) and when those go on sale at Safeway, I will get the coupon doubled and only pay 45Â ¢ for the pizza rolls instead of the sale price of 1.25 or the regular price of 2.59. See it pays to look, especially when you can double the coupons.

Now that you have broken down and cut out a few coupons for items you buy regularly, now you need to get into the habit of using them. First step put them in an envelope so they aren’t left out on the counter or god knows where. Second, put the coupons somewhere that will be handy, I usually have mine either in the car or by the grocery list of things to buy. And finally, don’t forget to bring them into the store and hand them to the cashier. {wink}

Now that you have done it once, take a look at the bottom of your receipt and see how much money you have saved that is still sitting in bank account. Isn’t this fun!?

Something else that you may find interesting: How does the store get its money back from coupons?