Headache by Petr Kratochvil
In order to maximize your savings using coupons first you must have coupons. For tips on where to find coupons besides the Sunday paper CLICK HERE. One of the top complaints I hear from people is that they can not find coupons or the coupons they do get are for items that they do not purchase. I highly recommend reading the article above as well as researching on your own to find coupons for the items/brands that you prefer.
Once you have coupons the next most important thing is that you are able to find your coupons. If you can not find your coupons you obviously can't use them. How many times have you found something on sale and knew that you had a coupon for it somewhere but you couldn't find the darn coupon? That is very frustrating and time consuming! Some stores will allow you to use the coupon if you find it if you bring it in along with your receipt (I know Kroger will allow you to use the coupon up to 7 days after the purchase if you bring the coupon in along with your register receipt) but what a hassle! For instructions on How To Make Your Own Coupon Organizer CLICK HERE. For help on how to use the coupons once you find them CLICK HERE.
If little effort in at the beginning but it is so worth it in the end! Now that you know where to find coupons, how to use them, and how to organize them, you have to keep up with your coupons which can be the stressful part if you are like me. I am a single mom with a full time job and sometimes depending on what other things are happening in my life at the moment I find that even a few hours a week to clip and organize my coupons is tough to fit in. This is when you can get in a coupon "stress mess" which has a snowball effect and can be very overwhelming. If you find that you have coupons piling up and no time to manage them... DO NOT GIVE UP!!!!! Have you ever taken a "mental health day" from work? Try this with your coupons. Let all thoughts of your coupons go out of your head. Don't even think about them. Forget they exist. Then, when you have a clear mind devise a quick plan of action. You will need to take some shortcuts but that's okay! There are several approaches you can take to get back on track. The first (which I can't even believe my keyboard will allow me to type this) is to get rid of the coupons that you have not had time to go through and start from scratch. You should already have a good system for finding, collecting and organizing coupons so you just have to start over with the actual coupons themselves. Instead of throwing your coupons away (which to me is just like throwing money away because... well that is what you are doing), I would recommend sorting through your coupons quickly, making two piles... a pile to pass along to someone else and a pile that needs clipped. You can have your kids clip the coupons for you or you can do this yourself but I find recruiti you have read all of my articles you should be ready to start using your coupons. Couponing is not easy at first. You have to put ang a little help is always best. Next organize your coupons as quickly as possible. Just sit down and power through it... pretend you are at work and you are on salary so no matter how quickly you get done you will get paid the same and you can take the leftover time to do something else (like go shopping so you can use all of your newly clipped and organized coupons!).
The most important thing to remember when your coupons seem to be overwhelming is that you can not save money without them! Throwing coupons away is like throwing money in the trash... and who can afford to do that??? So if you get frustrated and give up you will lose a lot more than if you take my advise and just regroup and power through!
Thanks for reading my post and have a great day!!!
Tina
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