Couponing

Since moving to Washington I have been trying to figure out the best way to coupon.  It was a lot easier in North Carolina where I had several stores within fifteen minutes of me.  Between Bi-Lo, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and Wal-Mart, I could get some good deals.  Plus Bi-Lo and Harris Teeter doubled and tripled my coupons which resulted in free food.  Things are very different here.  In Leavenworth I have two stores - Safeway which is a chain store and Dan's Food Mart which is locally owned.  Dan's is not good for couponing.  For one thing they won't take internet coupons which is a big source of my coupons and secondly their prices are so high the coupon just makes the products the same as Safeway's normal price so I might as well go there to coupon. 

My other problem besides lack of store choices is that the local paper only carries the Smart Source coupons.  You won't find Red Plum or P & G coupons here, unless I get the Seattle Times and then I have to remember to get it before it sells out.  Aargghh! 

What I have found which has been very helpful is electronic coupons.  Electronic coupons is where you can add coupons from the internet straight to your grocery store cards.  No more paper coupons to cut and organize in your notebook.  Just go online to your favorite coupon site, click on savings card, and add coupons to your card.  It is that simple.  Then print out a list of what is on your card so you can match up the sales with your coupons and save big.  Also, Safeway has their own site and I can get coupons from their site for their products to add to my card.  For example, right now they have their chocolate chips on sale for $1.69.  From their website, I was able to add to my Safeway card a coupon for $.50 off the chips, so that when I swiped my card at the register I got the chips for $1.19.  My savings were a total of $1.10 from the original price.  Pretty good deal.

Some locals would tell me I just need to drive 21 miles down the road to Wenatchee where there are several stores, one of which, Albertson's, doubles coupons;  and then I could probably get a lot better deals than Safeway, but for me and for now it is not worth the gas and time it would take to shop there. 

I really like the convenience of electronic coupons.  You can do it with all your grocery store cards.  You might want to check it out.  The site I got started on was http://www.shortcuts.com/.  You can also do it from http://www.coupons.com/ and I am sure coupon mom does the same thing.  Also check out your local stores own website.   You can always get extra good deals there as well. 

Good Luck on Saving!