Jamie Chase - The Lazy Couponer: How to Save $25,000 Per Year in Just 45 Minutes Per Week with No Stockpiling, No Item Tracking, and No Sales Chasing!

the lazy
COUPONER

How to Save $25,000 Per Year
in Just 45 Minutes Each Week
with No Stockpiling, No Item
Tracking, and No Sales Chasing!

Jamie Chase

2011 by Jamie Chase
Published by Running Press,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and
International Copyright Conventions
Printed in the United States

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known
or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases
in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations.
For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the
Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or
call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail .

ISBN 978-0-7624-4291-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011925651

E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4357-4

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

Cover and interior design by Amanda Richmond
Edited by Kristen Green Wiewora
Typography: Gotham and Archer

Running Press Book Publishers
2300 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

Visit us on the web!
www.runningpress.com

For Frank W. Jackson
and Joanie, too.

Id like to thank:

Justin, for believing in my earliest idea, setting up the computer table, designing www.lazycouponer.com , and for so many other reasons, including Poppy Joan.

Jeff Silberman and Frank Weimann at the Literary Group for pursuing my written word and for wonderful representation. John Paine, for his word refining and willingness to gamble on me, and Elyse Tanzillo for dealing with John and me. Special thanks to Diane Mancher of One Potata Productions.

Greg Jones, Craig Herman, and Kristen Green Wiewora at Perseus, along with Nicole De Jackmo, Donna Gambale, Rick Monteith, Amanda Richmond, and Alice Sullivan for turning my manuscript into a reality.

Matt Mendolera at Matter Communications, the Extra Care Team, and CVS Pharmacies for what began as an inquiry and transitioned into a relationship.

Jay Blackman, for his post-Olympic in-flight reading, along with Natalie Morales, Paul Green, and Jeff Kleinman of the NBC gang who made the Nightly News segment possible. Also, the team from ABC News 6, Taryn Plumb and Mary Schwaim of the Boston Globe, and Lynn Hendricks and Jim Vaiknoras of the Newburyport Daily News, without all of whom the Literary Group would not have pursued me.

Mary Shattuck, Ernie Greenslade, and Vanessa Pepin at NECC for employment, encouragement, and promotion.

And for support in many kinds, I thank the Amesbury Public Library, all the gals at Newburyport Pediatric, Nick Ault, Drake Bennett, Larry Bucyk, Chris and Jeanette Cattan, Dick and Paula Chase, Leonidas Fernandez, Emily Fichera, Kathryn Goulet, Cindy Giusti, Tim Jackson, Cathy MacDonald of Catalina Marketing, Kunal Patel, and my awesome coupon buddy, Jenn Peetz.

Finally, I need to thank Derek and Bradley Chase for being patient; now we can play.

Chapter 1:
Couponing A to Z

Chapter 2:
Getting to Know Coupons

Chapter 3:
Finding Coupons

Chapter 4:
Using Coupons

Chapter 5:
Understanding Catalinas

Chapter 6:
Shopping for Groceries

Chapter 7:
Redefining Drugstores

Chapter 8:
Navigating Supercenters & More

Chapter 9:
Making Time Work for You

Chapter 10:
Keeping It Organized

W ELCOME TO THE WORLD OF COUPONINGa wonderful place where numbers are your friends. Thats because these numbers add up in your favor until youre saving over $25,000 a year. By what means? You guessed it: couponing! Now you understand why coupon earns the right to be a verb. The Lazy Couponer will teach you how to save that kind of money in just 45 minutes a week. Thats right, 45 minutes to save more than $25,000. The money I save is a rough estimate per year, post-taxes, and if I can do it, so can you.

I am terribly lazy, so once you learn my techniques, I suspect youll do even better. After you have a solid foundation of couponing, you can choose how much of what youve learned you want to use. Go full throttle or easy breezy; its up to you.

My methods are unique: no chasing sales, no stockpiling, and no tracking prices. Instead, The Lazy Couponer will teach you the simple steps to maximizing your coupons in the shortest amount of time. Youll also learn easy strategies such as scenario-building where you can stack coupons together and hopefully turn expenditures into profit. With scenario-building, I will show you how to combine your coupons so, like me, you can make a $167.00 grocery run and pay only $0.42 cents.

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS

When I decided to cut and use my first coupon, I had no idea that it would lead to thousands of dollars in savings, teaching college coupon classes, or being featured on the NBC Nightly News, but the fact that its all happened is a testament to peoples desire to save. Being a smart shopper, however, doesnt have to mean a lot of work, which is demonstrated on the Nightly News clip where Natalie Morales and the NBC crew documented as I clipped coupons, organized and shoppedpaying $0.42 for over a weeks worth of groceries. And in case youre thinking that I spent many hours prepping for the shopping trip to get my total so low, you should know the shoot was rescheduled three times and we only confirmed the film date the day before. Short time and a little organization is all thats needed to realize incredible savings, and thats why Brian Williams called me, The Master.

While other couponers preach about running from store to store in order to catch every sale and buying massive stockpiles of items when theyre marked down, I encourage you to include coupons almost effortlessly in your already hectic everyday life. Ill further show you how to skip stockpiling shackles and render yourself free by gifting or donating what you dont need. Furthermore, reading this book will help you achieve huge savings while avoiding mail-in rebates or, worse, the sales chase. You know what I say about chasing? Who has all that time and energy? There will always be another sale! Thats the kind of spirit that I encourage on this couponing journey. Youll be able to turn your savings into actual cash back, making cashiers blink in amazement.

How will you incorporate an extra five-figure income into your lifestyle without going to an office? In my family, the savings enabled my husband to make a career change, leaving his successful sales job to teach at a college full-timea job that paid considerably less but enriched our family tenfold. The Lazy Couponer shows you how you can make your own life richer. The students in my couponing classes range in age from 20 to 86 and come from all sorts of economic backgrounds. Each has his or her own reason for taking the class and making my methods work for them, so I am certain there is something in here for you.

Even if you only save 10% on every purchase you make, that is a tremendous bonus to your income, especially if you are continually wondering where all your money went. Or maybe youre already tracking every penny. Then I will help you turn each penny into two through the magic of couponing.