I love coupons. I flip through them when I get the Sunday paper, sign up for mailing lists so I can get good ones in the mail (I even got one for wine today!), and own not one but two little coupon holder thingies (one for stuff I buy at Target and one for the grocery store, of course).
I know the majority of you are rolling your eyes right now, and that coupons are deeply unhip. But seriously, it can be a really good way to save money, especially on things you were planning to buy anyway. It doesn’t take that much time, either -- I flip through the coupon inserts in the weekend paper quickly pulling out the ones I'll use, and then clip and file them sometime before I go shopping. All told, it takes me maybe an hour if I've let the clipping slide for a couple weeks and I've saved upwards of $30 per shopping trip. And the more coupons you use, the more you get – my grocery store will send me coupons for $8 off my whole bill, just because I use my "frequent shopper" card there, and Costco sends us coupons almost every month.
This lady, though, is the Master. According to this article linked through Consumerist, she spends something like $10 a week on groceries to feed a family of five, and frequently walks out of the store having gotten an item for free or almost free.
Now a couple caveats to this –I think if you're going to save big money with coupons, you have to eat a lot of processed food, which I don't. There are coupons for healthy cereal and pasta and organic stuff here and there, but most frequently it is the kind of food that makes me put my head in my hands and weep for America. Thus I rarely experience the "getting an item for free" thing real coupon fiends do.
Still, with food prices spiraling, try using coupons just once. It's beyond awesome to stand at the cash register and watch your total go spinning down once all your discounts are applied.
