Collecting Coupons

• 1). Locate coupons in the newspaper and online. The paper from the major city closest to you will feature the best selection. You can expect to find one to four fliers in the newspaper each week.
  
  If you can buy multiple copies of the Sunday paper, then you can use duplicate coupons to get more items at a good price.
  
  Also keep the local ads that feature store coupons and sales.
  
  
• 2). Cut out a coupon for any product you would use if it were free. If you bought more than one copy of the paper, you can save time by stacking duplicate flier pages together to cut through all the copies at once.
  
  
• 3). Organize your coupons. Sort your coupons by category so you can easily find them when you make your list. Accordion-style coupon organizers are available in stores. Or you can file the entire flier or stack of fliers by date. Write the date the flier was issued on the outside with a marker so you can reference it later.
  
  As an alternative, create your own coupon binder. Use a three-ring notebook with tabbed dividers for different categories of items. Insert baseball card sleeves for each category to sort individual coupons and easily see each one.
  
  

Using Coupons to Get a Deal

• 1). Combine coupons with store sales. Use a coupon website to find the items that are on sale and can be combined with a coupon for a super low price. For example, if a brand-name mustard is on sale for $1.09/bottle, and you have a coupon for $0.50 off of one bottle, then you can purchase this item for $.09 if grocery store doubles the coupon.
  
  
• 2). Check your local stores and verify if, and when, they double coupons. Also, ask if the store's "buy-one-get-one-free" (BOGO) sales mean that their items are actually BOGO or if the items ring up as half price. This will affect how many items you are required to purchase and if you can use a coupon on one or both items in a BOGO deal.
  
  
• 3). Use a store coupon combined with a manufacturer's coupon to save more money. Many stores allow this.
  
  
• 4). List the items you plan to buy (many of the coupon websites feature a "list and print" option), and gather the coupons you need from your organizer or flier file (pull the flier with the date referenced on the coupon website and cut the coupon at that time).