Money Saving Mummy: Putting ‘Couponing’ into Practice

Money Saving Mummy: Putting ‘Couponing’ into Practice October 31st, 2011

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Now that I have been back from New York a couple of weeks, time to report on how I have put my newly acquired savings skills into action.

For those of you that didn’t read my earlier post, here again is the link to the video of the Extreme Couponing class, delivered by Jenny Martin of Southern Savers at the recent SaveUp11 conference. The video is about 25 minutes long – great to watch just to see how much one very entertaining and energetic speaker can pack into such a short time. Some of it is universally applicable to the USA and to here – some of it is unfortunately only relevant to our American cousins.

For those of you that haven’t got the time to watch the video – here are the main points that I took out of it, which do transfer to the UK and which I am now using in my own shopping:

Watch Out for Deals – Retailers are falling over themselves to get us through the doors at the moment – there are money off offers all over the place – you just have to know where to look for them.
Know What You Want – You need to be very well aware of what your family actually eats and uses. If you won’t use a product, it doesn’t matter if it is 5 for the price of 1 – you are not saving money by paying for anything that you don’t need. Also, know the base price of the products that your family uses, so that you can recognise a good deal when you see one.
Shop Around – Try not to be a brand snob – be open to trying different branded items, whichever has the big money off savings. Try different tea, coffee, washing powder, cleaning products, toothpaste… The retailers are happy to give you a huge slab off your first purchase of something new in order to get your loyalty. So play them at their own game – take the big discount then go back to your regular brand (or a different deal) next time.
Buy in Bulk When you do see a good deal on a non-perishable or freezable item, buy several weeks supply of it. Jenny recommended six weeks worth, although I think that was based on the offers coming round every six weeks in her supermarket. You will need to see how often the offers come round in your own supermarket to get an idea on how much to buy. Some of the American stockpiles on the Extreme Couponing show were a bit extreme, but a few weeks supply of non-perishables does make sense with winter on the way…
Subscribe – Sign up for all the online retailers’ newsletters, pick up free magazines in stores and look for supplements in magazines and newspapers – even the stuff that drops uninvited through your door. When you are not particularly thinking about saving money, all these retailer newsletters just seem like so much spam. When you are looking to save you realise that they are teeming with money off offers. Use a separate email account for them, then dip in before you go shopping.
Share the Love – When you do find good offers, share them with your friends on a site like Savoo. As A DealPro with Savoo, I’ve been posting up all the deals that I have found over the last few weeks (and there have been loads of them). Then I can see what everyone else has posted, plus the exclusive discounts that Savoo has managed to negotiate for its regular customers and save all over again.

So far, just in the last two weeks, I have saved a huge amount on a mattress (which we were planning to replace anyway) with Groupon, saved 20% off personalised gifts and labels with Stuck on You, and saved £20.00 on a £100.00 shop at Ocado, just by shopping the offers pages first and filling in with essentials later. I’m sure I’ll be able to improve on that – I’m working on it.

With Christmas looming, I have now decided that I am not going to pay full retail price for any of my Christmas presents, food or decorations (I already bought my cards back in January). I’m really enjoying the thrill of the chase – saving a few pounds here and there. Savoo have tipped me the wink that they have got a load of specials coming up in November, and I’ll continue to feed in my own deals that keep popping up everywhere. Once you get started this whole couponing and sharing mentality can get a bit addictive.

If you would like to hear more about how I am saving money this Christmas, or would like to be informed when I start teaching couponing in the UK (scheduled for the New Year) please sign up to my new Money Saving Tips newsletter. You could win £30 of John Lewis vouchers.

Tags: couponing UK, Extreme couponing, Groupon, Jenny Martin, Savoo, Southern Savers
This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 11:16 am and is filed under Money Saving Mum, Sales Techniques, Stay at Home Mum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

17 Responses

October 31st, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Adrienne Says:

Hi Debbie,

It’s funny that my first visit to your site is about extreme couponing. My next door neighbor announced to me two weeks ago that he’s entered into the new realm of extreme couponing. My Mom is a huge saver and I use coupons too but have found that a lot of the ones I get don’t fall under what I need at the store at that time.

I know I need to get online and search for coupons for what I do want to buy and could save myself a whole heck of a lot of money that way. I might have to practice this as well.

Thanks for sharing this post and the recent video. I appreciate this!

~Adrienne
Adrienne would like you to read ..Why Free Information Is Sometimes More Expensive

October 31st, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Debbie Says:

It was a real eye opener for me. We have made fun of the whole idea in the UK but a lot of what the couponers do makes perfect sense. If US retailers are happy to give stuff away for free why shouldn’t we take advantage. In the UK I can nos save 1/3 off the price of my groceries & I think that is just wonderful!

October 31st, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Fiona ( from nlpmum) Says:

I buy my Christmas cards in Jan too For presents, every year Sainsburys does half price toys in one week around now, they won’t tell anyone when they’re doing it though so you have to watch out for it. I make a load of my presents (knitting lovely scarves which would sell for well over £20) and I’m selling some of them too. Food is trickier, but one of the keys is to not be too fussy about what you eat – it certainly doesn’t have to be turkey! Fiona (I’m linking to the knitting pattern for the scarves in the commentluv – v.easy, knits in a night)
Fiona ( would like you to read ..‘Tis the season to Knit

October 31st, 2011 at 10:58 pm
Debbie Says:

Cool. Thanks for the comment and the knitting pattern. I’m going to do handmade this year too – my daughter is making candles & I’m making chocs, plus lovely gift boxes for both.

November 1st, 2011 at 1:00 am
reese Says:

I work for a sales center in the US. And I know that we all have special coupons all the time but we never proactively offer them to customers. Good for customers who are always watchful of what they get in the email and who do check the website every so often. Always check online for special deals before calling to make a purchase and bargain with the representative.
reese would like you to read ..How to Budget on a Fluctuating Income

November 6th, 2011 at 5:26 am
Maria Pavel from CNA Free Training Says:

There are lots of coupon sites nowadays. Actually, this kind of sites are really helpful for everybody because they can save much of their money especially now that we want to try everything but still want to maintain our expense within our budget.
Maria Pavel would like you to read ..CNA Training Free Grants

November 26th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
TheBoyandMe Says:

Brilliant! When I went on maternity leave I went into money-saving overdrive and was amazed at how much we could save. I now work part-time and constantly wonder what the £1000 a month that we’re not getting any more was wasted on!

Thanks for linking this up to ShowOff ShowCase, would you mind adding the badge to the bottom of your post to make it easier for people to read the other link-ups?

November 29th, 2011 at 2:37 am
dj Says:

there are some fab coupon sites on moneysaving expert – i had lots of free stuff sent to the house too
dj would like you to read ..Mens Cashmere Scarf

December 31st, 2011 at 3:28 am
Soph Says:

I used to shop at ocado and would regularly get £40-£80 off, via special offers on an average £200 main monthly shop (we’d usually do around 4 £25 shops on top of that), like the people on the extreme couponing show-I did often find that buying several of the smaller size of an item actually worked out cheaper than buying the big ‘value’ size not to mention all the offers being on the smaller sized packs. I have developed a bit of a different strategy now though as I have found ocado recently to be out of stock on a lot of the waitrose brand items as well as discontinuing quite a few of their ‘essentials’ line that are still available in waitrose. So we are going to try waitrose delivery but order weekly from them instead and we are going to try to stick to a strict £60 budget. My other half got a ‘top up’ shop from Tesco today and it was astonishing how much pricier their stuff was compared to a supposedly premium shop such as Waitrose.

December 31st, 2011 at 7:20 am
Debbie Says:

It’s amazing how we hold these ideas about which supermarket is cheap or expensive which isn’t always true. It’s interesting to try a supermarket comparison site like My Supermarket, to see where the best prices are for what you buy. I’m still using Ocado as my main shop at the moment, with occasional trips to Tesco and Sainsburys when the prices are better

January 9th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Cashback Says:

Thanks for the great overview!

Also, I sometimes use TopCashback to save money on my online shopping. It is definitely worth checking out!

January 9th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Debbie Says:

Me too! I included them on my favourite voucher code sites – I think they are great!

March 30th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Jenny Brown Says:

Very cute! Im not so aware on how to save money on my online shopping. Extreme Couponing is really interesting.
Jenny Brown would like you to read ..Gas Duster: Effective Cleaning Tool for Delicate Items

March 31st, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Carmel Hill Says:

So that’s how extreme couponing works? Interesting, I maybe try it next time.
Carmel Hill would like you to read ..Girls Clothing Brands and Tips on Mixing Clothes