Couponing in the 21st Century

As food prices have been creeping ever upward, I’ve returned to the classically frugal pastime of coupon-clipping. Although I’ve made a number of other changes, such as growing my own veggies and cooking more from scratch, in order to stop my grocery budget from hemorrhaging, I’ve found that I could still save a significant amount on non-food items, and even some basic foods like eggs and cheese, with coupons.

I’m not really new to couponing. At other times in my past when money has been tight or I’ve been feeling particularly budget-conscious I’ve pulled out my little coupon organizer and scissors and set to work. Coupons did save me money, but at only 25 cents here and 50 cents there, the savings were slow to accumulate. So whenever time became tighter than money, my coupon habit went by the wayside.

But now that I’m back at it, I’ve discovered that while I wasn’t looking, the world of couponing changed. First of all, like everything else, it’s moved online. Just Google the word “coupons” and you’ll find enough sites with printable coupons to keep your scissors flying for hours. You can search out coupons by brand name, by product type, or by merchant. Planning a trip to Home Depot? Google “Home Depot coupons” and you’ll be able to download and print coupons for whatever special deals the store’s currently running. Want to save some money on your pet’s favorite food? I Googled “science diet coupon” and found a coupon for $5 off my next purchase.

Which brings me to the next thing I’ve discovered about couponing today: the savings are much bigger. It’s not hard to find coupons for $1, $2, $5 or more off of items you purchase regularly. Last week I saved $13.95 off of my $38.82 purchase at Petco. That’s a 35% savings. Today I’m heading back to the same store with another $7 in coupons. As for groceries, coupons alone saved me $9.90 off of the $66.28 I spent on groceries in the first two weeks of this month (and even more when I count shopping sales and using rebates). That’s a savings of 15%.

But how much time does couponing take? That’s the other improvement I’ve discovered: Using the Internet to find, print, and organize your coupons makes couponing so much quicker and easier than it used to be. There are a number of web sites that pull together coupons, freebie and sample offers, and other deals, but the one I like the best so far is CouponMom.com. It functions as a great hub for coupon sites like CouponBar and goes the extra mile to help you match your coupons to the weekly sales in your area. It can help you take advantage of rebate offers as well by matching them to the weekly sales at some of the major chain stores such as Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS. You can also download two free e-books from CouponMom that show you how to maximize your couponing efforts. Membership to CouponMom is free but you must register.

I estimate that I will save between $45 and $50 this month with coupons, and that’s just on my usual everyday purchases. If I do that every month, coupons alone will save me at least $540 per year. I have no problem coming up with ideas for what I could use that $540 for—building up savings, paying down debt, or maybe investing in some small home improvement. So ask yourself what you could do with the money that you could save by using coupons. And then ask yourself—where are my scissors?