What advice would you give to a mom who wants to start couponing?
Take it one step at a time. When I first learned I only clipped coupons that I was going to use for sure. And then I started looking at learning the ins and outs of Rite Aid (closest to my house.) Learned Rite Aid well and moved onto learning my best grocery store (Tops Friendly Markets is closest to me and they double up to $.99 coupons). Moved onto CVS and finally Walgreens.
It's not all about saving as much as you can in ONE trip to get everything you need for the next 6 months. Understanding how much you use of products and keeping track is a great place to start. Figure sales come around every 3 months so you basically need to know how many you use during those months and can plan to have them on hand (like cereal...we go through about 6 boxes in 3 months...) So when a great sale comes up on Lucky Charms and we have 2 boxes left, I will pick up our 6 and know that I'm good for the next 4 months!
Best thing to start doing now, make sure you are getting coupons every week! Buy a newspaper subscription so you won't forget. Ask your friends/family to save you coupons. And start finding some blogs that do ad matchups because we'll help to give you the deals!
