Is couponing really frugal?

Sure buying the paper is yet another expense, but you can also get the same coupons for free online, the only thing is that now it uses your ink from your printer so we certainly cannot catch a break. Can we??

Maybe. The trick is to not stop looking for a better deal on products when you have coupons for them. I print coupons from the internet for products I use and am planning to buy. When I go to the store, I always make sure to compare prices between the product I have the coupon for and the other brands on the shelf. A lot of the time, I find I'll save more by buying the store brand than by using my coupon, and I end up leaving it there on the shelf for someone else to use. Do you normally end up with a large number of coupons you don't use from your Sunday papers? A lot of people seem to make a bit of extra money by offering them on eBay. It's something I would consider doing if I purchased the Sunday paper. I've started buying beans, rice, and oats in bulk at Sam's Club. I also buy spices in bulk, and stock up on meats when the Extreme Value packs are on sale at Safeway. I use Supercook to find recipes that use only ingredients I have at home. It really helps me save money on groceries and plan meals for the week. No worries about getting bored with the same old thing, either! http://www.supercook.com/

I never use coupons because I always find the generic brand is cheaper. And most of the stuff they print them for these days I am not interested in. I am trying to clean up my family's diet of processed foods. That said, there is a system I read in a book once. I can't for the life of me remember the title, but he said that he always bought stuff if it was $1 or less. That was a good deal to him. And I think its a pretty sound bit of advice. It does however, limit your diet a lot. Meat is hard to find under a dollar a lb, but I have seen it.

It can go both ways. No sense spending money to drive around town to save money on certain groceries that are on sale at different stores. YOu just spend in gas what you save at the store. That only works if there are two stores right near you and you could go to each of them for their sale items. But couponing...again..only good if there are coupons for things you use and if the store/generic brand is not cheaper than the name brand with the coupon. My problem is that last few years...the coupons that come out are for things I don't buy, don't want, and evne with the coupon they are to expensive. You just have to look at what you are buying. Often, I'll have a coupon for a name brand and I know the store brand is just as good, and without a coupon, the store brand is still cheaper than the name brand. It helps to watch sales and match up your coupons to the sales. Gotta watch expriation dates tho. It takes about a month or so of collecting and using before you can know that it is working for you. Don't expect to go tomorrow with a few coupons and come out with a cart loaded for only $5 cause of coupons. It takes time for things like that to happen. And now a days the coupons are not like they used to be. Used to be $1.00 off one item. Now it is 25 cents off 3 items! Not to much savings there. I can't afford "healthy" foods. And seldom see coupons for them either. When I had kids I used to do coupons faithfully and it saved me alot, but these days shopping forjust two and the coupons not being so great all the time...I just do it generally speaking and watch more for sales and buy/stock up while on sale.

I think it depends where you live. If you can double all those coupons and get a deal where it's cheaper than a store brand and or Aldi then go for it. If you can't then you are wasting your time. But that's just my opinion. As my mother used to dumpster dive when I was a kid for coupons and soda cans. You know she did ok w/ the coupons because there were not alot of store brands then and no Aldi's at the time. Like I said if you can get an awsome deal on things then do it, if not then it may not be worth your time to even bother.

I think you should stop getting the papers because I don't think it's worth it. There are other places you can find coupons that will actually pay you to use their coupons. Two off the top of my head are Inbox Dollars and Swagbucks. You can just print them off your computer. You shouldn't buy food you wouldn't otherwise buy.

I try to just buy things in bulk. Sometimes we get good coupons for clothing stores and shoe stores, and these are things we need to buy anyway. Like we just used a coupon for $10 off $50 for a clothing store where we bought two Christmas presents. That helped a lot. And coupons for things like diapers and cleaners can be useful if we actually use that kind. I avoid coupons for processed foods, etc.

it is to a certain point but i have often found that the store brand prices are cheaper than the brand name item is even with the cents off coupon so i generally go with the store brand.

Some grocery stores like Kroger will let you load their coupons right onto their super saver card. I don't remember what they call their card, but it's a store card you get for free and it entitles you to store savings. But, you can also visit the Kroger store website online and select the coupons you want and those coupons will go right into your store card. Of course, you have to register your store card with the site first, so they will know where to send the coupons and that way you don't even have to use ink. Most of the coupons are for highly processed foods as you mentioned. But, if that's what your family likes, then it's probably what you will want to buy. So that works out. As for eating healthy, there are a lot of basic things you can buy and prepare including beans, chili, homemade soups, cornbread, etc. Every meal doesn't have to be fancy. Just nutritious and beneficial! Good luck with your hunt for the ultimate money saving technique.

There are a lot of factors to consider. My sister and I had been buying a newspaper each week from the store. That meant that we were paying full price! Not very smart. Instead, I finally signed up for my local Sunday paper. We are sharing the coupons. For a 26 week subscription, it cost me about $21 dollars. I got my first newspaper yesterday. I used 2 of those coupons and already saved over $10. I used 2 manufacturer coupons and a store coupon. That meant that I paid $2.76 for 2 bottles of shampoo and 2 bottles of conditioner. They were Pantene and Herbal Essences. So they are good brands. That means I am already halfway to the cost of my newspaper and I only use a couple of the coupons from 1 newspaper! I already have plans to use another $1 coupon tomorrow. CVS has Dawn soap on sale for $0.94. I have a coupon for $1 off two!! That will mean that each of the bottles of dish detergent will be only $0.44. And that is only the coupons that I am using! I will pass the coupons onto my sister - the ones I wont use. So she can pick out which ones she wants. She will pass the remainder onto another person. It really does add up!! That said, Im not sure if it is worth getting 8 newspapers. I would keep track of your savings from coupons each week to determine that.

I tend to be of the school of thought that coupons are a great thing if you are using them on items that you are going to be buying anyway. However, I do think that getting four newspapers is a bit excessive. I would try to cut that down to just one newspaper and see if there is a coupon exchange or even friends and family members that don't use their coupons that would be willing to give them to you. That, in my opinion would be the more frugal option.

No, I call it smart. I think that its really just spreading your financial resources as much as it can. There are times where things are available in bulk. Therefore I really do purchase them in bulk whenever I can. It is just the best thing to do. It is not a cheap thing, it is a smart utilization of your resources. Nothing more, nothing else. Especially if they keep, then you would be kind of foolish not to buy things in bulk.

I order coupons off of sites like websaver.ca (U.S. citizens have a lot more coupon sites than us Canadians do) which saves me the money buying the paper! I sometimes ask friends that don't use coupons if I can take a glance through their papers. To people who don't use coupons, they are just so much junk to throw out, so they don't mind giving them up.

If you are trying to save, why do you get 4 Sunday papers? If all these are free then it is all right but if you are paying for the 4 Sunday papers, I think 1 is enough. In 1 Sunday paper you will have enough coupons for a month. Yes, it is advisable to buy in bulk but it should be non-perishables and watch out for the expiration dates. I tried using coupons on my groceries but I got tired of it. But i still use coupons once in a while. What I do is just buy things enough for 1 month so I do grocery only once a month. It saves time and money.

not really... if the coupon is really useful and we can use it, why not??? even if it means that we are being frugal, i don't see what is wrong with that... especially in nowadays economy... we need to save every single penny that we can in order to survive... take care and have a nice day...

I don't purchase newspapers. I live in a small town so our two newspapers (one twice weekly, one once weekly) are free delivered to all households in and outside of town. But I think buying in bulk or no name products are probably cheaper than using the coupons for popular name brand products. I try to use the coupons when the items are on sale to get better value but that's the best I can do.