Your Sunday Paper Can Save You Big Bucks at the Grocery Store

Everyday, shoppers' mailboxes and doorsteps hold hundreds of dollars worth of savings at the grocery store. They come in the form of newspapers, sales papers, and circulars. If you know which coupons to keep, your monthly grocery bill can decrease dramatically.

Coupons have actually been around since the 1800's when Coca Cola and Grape Nuts figured out that they could use them for advertising strategies. In the new millennium, customers save almost $5 billion dollars per year on their grocery bill by using coupons.

Although it takes time to go through the papers and look at all of the coupon options, using the coupons found in your local newspapers can save you as much as 50% on your overall grocery bill if you stick to a shopping list and find the right coupons for the products that you are going to buy.

To maximize your savings, before you leave for the store, make a shopping list. Then, go through your papers and search for coupons in order to find savings on the products that you are planning to buy. If you go through the papers first, you might wind up purchasing items that you don't need. You actually end up spending more money this way, not saving money.

Your Sunday paper is an excellent source for coupons. Sunday papers generally have inserts as well, which contain coupons for a wide array of products.

Customers can generally get a discount on the Sunday paper if they buy an annual subscription. Some papers will allow you to get "Sunday only" subscriptions. It saves on the overall cost if you get a subscription instead of buying it outright every Sunday.

Circulars, those papers that come to your mailbox throughout the week, can also be a source for coupons. Because they come more frequently, you might want to clip them as you receive them and store them in an organizer for later use.

Your Sunday paper, as well as circulars, are good for coupons because they are generally locally based, meaning they are targeted to your area stores. This is good when using coupons because they're more likely to be accepted.

Also, don't forget to check the grocery stores themselves for coupons. Some grocery stores keep copies of the stores specials near the entrance of the store. This is also a good way to see what is on sale within the store, even if the papers don't contain coupons.

Remember, when clipping the coupons, to take notice of the expiration date. You don't want to get to the checkout lane only to find that your coupon has expired and is no longer valid.

Last but not least, watch your newspaper for double coupon days and value days. If you use your coupons on those days, you can get even more savings.