How To Extreme Coupon

So this week I want to talk about Finding & Organizing Coupons.
Coupons can be found in your local newspaper, online or even on phone apps nowadays. Here are the details on each of these sources.
1// Your Local Newspaper. Atlanta had the best coupon section of all of the cities I have lived in. You will generally find that large cities also have great coupon sections, so if you live in a small town, you may want to subscribe to the nearest metro area's newspaper. I would definitely check out that city's newspaper before you do, but when I was in Colorado Springs, I had to get Denver's.
Usually there are 3 main coupon "booklets" that can appear in your newspaper: Red Plum, SmartSource and P&G. Different weeks will have different "booklets".
2// Online. There are various wesbsites where you can find coupons. The companies above that offer printed coupons, also have websites where you can print ones as well. On top of that, you can find sites like coupons.com. Also, stores like Target have printable coupons and so do manufacturers like Revlon and Neutrogena.
3// Phone Apps. The only successful source for phone app coupons that I use frequently is the Cartwheel App for Target. There are other coupon apps, but they usually provide the same service as websites - you still have to print the coupons at home, from the app, to use them.
There is a strange place that you can find coupons: a newspaper dumpster. This isn't a typical dumpster with trash - it only contains paper and newspapers. I used to have one behind a church, 5 minutes from my apartment in Atlanta. This will freak some people out, but every week my roommate and I would go by the dumpster and grab out any newspapers/coupons we could reach. It's not stinky or gross because there is literally only paper in there, but we would sometimes get 8-10 newspapers for free! You can search here to locate one of these dumpsters - look for "newspaper". Just be sure this isn't illegal in your area, or you could get in trouble!
So now you know some sources for finding coupons, but how do you organize them? A lot of people will tell you to cut out all the coupons each week and organize them in a binder. From my experience, this is an incredible waste of time! This is where helpful websites will come in to play.
Southern Savers and Krazy Coupon Lady are the BEST tools you can use to teach yourself about couponing. Even though they may offer a lot of info for a specific region of the US, I've found that a lot of the sales and coupons are still accurate for other regions as well.
What you do is get a minimum of two newspapers on the weeks you know there will be coupon inserts. Those sites will generally tell you a few days before if there will be coupons in that Sunday's paper or not. You want to get newspapers in even numbers so you can use them on Buy One Get One deals. So I always buy 2, 4, 6, etc of them. Then, take out the coupon booklets and stack them together. Place a piece of printer paper on the top of the stack and write that day's date on it. Wrap a rubber band around the coupons and paper and store your coupons away until you are ready to use them.
Then, when I am ready to coupon, I check those sites above and see what I can coupon for the week. They tell you which week's newspaper has the coupons you need and also give you links to any printable coupons. By doing it this way, you don't waste hours cutting out coupons that you will never use or need. I would cut out hundreds of coupons that would end up getting thrown away once they expired. It was such a poor use of time.
Every week I also skim through the coupons and also write on the printer paper any coupons for items I know I buy frequently. Sometimes you are in a crunch and want to know if you have a certain coupon. I know we like Chobani yogurt, so if I ever see a coupon, I jot it down on that front printer paper. This lets me know about the coupon, but still doesn't waste the amount of time I would if I cut every single one out and put it in a binder.
The other thing you can do is search on one of the two above websites. They have "coupon databases" that let you know what coupons are out there and available at any given moment.
Everyone has their own system for finding and organizing coupons - this is just my system and what works best for me. If you can adopt this form of organization, you won't waste a ton of hours clipping coupons that you never get around to using. I've found that the "clipping" is what deters a lot of people from trying couponing. They just don't want to set aside all of that time.
So there is a very simple look at how to find and organize your coupons! Next week I'll be sharing on things you can/can't coupon, things you should never pay for, and finding store policies.