Month One

This is your first month to begin using coupons, don't stress out! Take a deep breathe and don't overwhelm yourself. Just dig your heels in and go.

ITEMS NEEDED:

• Scissors
• Pen
• Small Envelopes
• Index card holder/filer

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This month you will begin by gathering coupons from sources all over, learning all the sources, and just taking in as much info as you can. It's important that you begin doing your homework. I say for now spend no more than a couple hours a week preparing your coupons and your shopping list.

Another important key, which goes hand in hand with Organization, is making a list. Write down the exact item, how much it is, and underneath write down the coupons you have for that item. Do this with all your items. Then take the coupons you have written down for the items, and place them in the enveloped marked with the store's name.

This month I recommend concentrating on just grocery stores for the time being. Later when you start building a stockpile and understanding coupons a little more, we'll start talking about Walgreens (aka Wags), CVS, & Rite Aide. It just gets to be too much, and we want to keep things simple for now.

Once you have your list and all your Qs from that list placed in the envelope file the envelope in the index card holder/filer to have it ready to go shopping.

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Rule of Thumb: your list will contain both need and stockpile items, this is fine for now. Here's what I suggest. Make sure that your need items are no more than half your list AND that they are at least 40-50% off the original price (this includes sales &/or Qs). Then be sure the remaining items are at least 51% or more off the original price. You may have items that are not marked down and are a true necessity right now. Please before you buy without a coupon or without a sale contact me and I will do some research to see if there is a sale or coupon for that item, it's better to save even a teeny bit than nothing at all, but these items should be kept to no more than 10% of your list, and preferably less. Items that you will save at least 60% or more are GREAT stockpile items, and get as many as you can, the higher the savings, the more you should buy.

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RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Make a list of ALL items you plan to buy and write prices down
2. Total out the overall total with coupons and sale prices
3. Have coupons ready to go in their prospective envelopes and filed for safe keeping
4. Stick to your list, if you stray too much, I promise you your savings will go down.
5. Take cash with you and not your debit card or credit card, this will help ensure you stick to your list as well, also helping you save money.
6. Make sure that at least 50% of your list contains items that are on marked down by no less than 51%, and that the your non-sale/non-coupon items are no more than 10% of your list (again preferably less, but this may be hard to do in the beginning), and that the other half is at least marked down by 40%.