flustered........

[zingercan]

earlier in the week i was on a high about couponing.......setup my coupon box -- gathered some coupons........started to prepare a list..................today.......i feel flustered..........the coupons i have don't match any sale items........now i'm not sure i'll be able to pull this off anytime soon; since nothing matches. i'm guessing i need to search for more coupons - as the more i gather the higher my chances are of matching? i feel like the wind is out of my sail...................

[loladooder99]

couponing seems to go like a roller coaster. one month your at the top the next month no deals. You just gotta keep up with printables and your sunday paper and stuff. Going through the forums for sneak peaks of ads for drugstores will give you a good idea if any of your coupons will match up. Its what I do. i keep on to my coupons till they expire even if i don't think i'll get any use out of it. Because a few times I've thrown them away and then a deal came up and i didn't have it. My coupons never match up to say walmart/grocery store deals. my grocery stores are terrible. i don't have any of the good ones like krogers,safeway,albertsons,heb,etc. I find all my deals at walmart,target and the drugs stores. Just hang in there. Keep up with the forums!

[blossomed]

Use the database to match sale items to coupons. So take the sale ad and type in whatever is on sale that you would like to buy. Toothpaste - Colgate - in the coupon DB it shows there are 3 current inserts and 3 printables as well as 14 other options! One thing I do if there is a product I like that I can't find coupons for, I contact the company and ASK for coupons. Also make a list of the the products/brands you like and then start specifically trading for those. When I started I had a 10 month old so diapers, wipes, baby food, and formula was really important to me. Now I have juice, cereal, canned sodas (I stock a snack bar at the office), cheese, paper towels, yogurt, you get the idea...

You can also check the forum for your local store and look for matchups that way. I find that helps for the "HOT" freebies but not the things that are on my list that are just good deals. (last week was soy sauce - wierd I know).

You have weeks where you do really well and weeks where you do so -so! The most important thing to remember if you save just $10.00 per week over what you normally spend that is an extra $500.00 a year which about pays for holiday shopping or 2 airline tickets or whatever.

HTH