Coupons. Can You Really Save That Much?

I'm sure you've seen or heard about these super coupon gurus that go into the grocery store and knock a $150.00 grocery bill down to $2.50 simply by handing over a pile of clipped coupons. And I'm sure you've wondered if what you were seeing was real.

So what do you think? Is it real? Can you really save that much?

The answer is - yes and no – yes, you really can save a lot. But, no you probably won't be able to cut your weekly bill down to pennies on the dollar. You see, whenever they challenge a coupon guru for a news story she will usually only purchase items in which she has a coupon for and you'll notice a hodge podge of different items in her cart. The point of the news story is to demonstrate the potential of coupons, not to show an average mom using coupons to feed her family for the week.

Realistically, you'll probably never have a coupon for EVERY item you need to buy and probably not even for most of them. The majority of food coupons are for packaged goods so if your cart tends to be heavy on the fresh produce, meat and bulk dry goods you'll probably not have enough coupons to get the results those gurus do.

But, don't let this chase you away from coupons. There is a real savings potential here. I have personally saved $100's of dollars just in this past year alone by using them. I've benefited from them so much that it is honestly hard to spend money on an item without first checking to see if I have a coupon for it.

There are a few tips and “tricks” that should be learned to maximize savings (and I'll be writing more about them in the weeks ahead), but really it's pretty simple. Buy an item, hand over a coupon... $AVE! Pretty cool.

Stretching His Blessings,

Cristine