I tried a little experiment this last year... couponing. My friend Michelle had been having great success with it, and I decided to give it a go for one year and see if it was worth the hassel.
I followed Michelle's advice and went to My Litter to get some tips. (See the COUPON 101 tab at the top.) I used the binder system (3 ring binder, baseball card pages, and dividers) to organize my coupons. Love this! When I first got married I tried the little coupon folder thing and hated having to search through all the coupons to find what I needed. The binder way makes everything easy to see and find!
I'm definitely not an extreme couponer! I subscribed to a few coupon sites, but it got to be overwhelming, so I unsubscribed. I do not print coupons. I only buy one paper a week,if that! A lot of times I just make due with the free community paper that includes one coupon section. I only cut coupons that I know I will use and are brands that I like. I do not have space to store items, so I do not buy and keep a huge stash of items on stock. I tried the whole CVS thing (see My Litter), but it just confused me, so I only use my coupons at the grocery store. I have never gotten a whole cart of groceries for only $5, although that would be awesome! Nominal couponer is what I would call myself.
Yet even with my nominal couponing ways, I saved $1,100 dollars during 2012. I'd call that a sucessful couponing experiment. One that I will be continuing this year.
P.S. Don't worry, this will NOT be transforming into a coupon blog! I couldn't take that!
