Rachel Singer Gordon - The Complete Idiots Guide to Couponing: Clip and Download Your Way to Big Savings!

by Rachel Singer Gordon

A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Dedicated to the community of readers at MashupMom.com, who keep me writing every day.

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Copyright 2012 by Rachel Singer Gordon

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ISBN: 978-1-101-58011-0
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ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

Have you ever watched couponers on TV walk away with carts full of groceries for pennies and wondered just how they did it? Have you ever walked out of the store with your own expensive cart full of groceries and still had nothing in the house to make for dinner? Have you ever struggled to stretch your dollars to buy food, fill up the gas tank, and still pay your bills?

If so, couponing is for you.

Its no stretch to say that couponing has changed my life. Like most of you, I used to spend way too much at the store and have too little to show for it. I used to wonder where all my money went, but then look in my cupboards and find nothing there to cook. I used to worry about how we would feed the family, fill up the tank, and pay the billsnot to mention save for the future!

Then everything changed.

A few years ago, we were in the middle of adopting our second son from South Korea. Our income was down at the same time our expenses were up, and continuing to climb. Not only was international adoption incredibly expensive, we were adding another member to the familyone who would need diapers, formula, and all those other expensive baby items.

I wondered why these things had to be so expensive. As a (former) librarian, my first thought was to go online and start researching how people saved money at the store. I found a wonderful community of people who were eager to share their tips and their trips, took my first tentative steps into the brave new world of couponing, and never looked back.

The cool thing about couponing is you will start to see savings almost immediately. On my first planned couponing trip to the store, I saved 60 percent off my bill with coupons: I was hooked! Some very simple changes in the way you shop and match up coupons with sales will have a dramatic impact on your bottom line at checkout.

And the savings get better as you go along. When you learn how to use coupons together with sales to stock up on items for pennies on the dollar, you never have to pay full price again. When you shop from your nicely stocked pantry, you continue to save every single week you dont have to pay full price. After you have spent a couple of months building up that stockpile of staples, youll really start to see the savings pile up.

In todays less-than-cheery economy, many of us are under new pressures to save. Our incomes are down at the same time prices on everything from food to gas are up. While we have less control over some of our bills, we do have control over what we pay for everyday essentials at the grocery store and drugstore. Take control back from the stores and the manufacturers, and take control of your own finances.

Youll be in good company: couponing today has become much more hipand most of the myths about who uses coupons were never actually true. Middle-class, college-educated consumers are the most likely to use coupons, and the rise of electronic and printable coupons means that you need to have a computer with Internet access to participate fully.