Coupons, coupons, and more coupons...

Being a follower of Christ means that I also try to live out His attributes in my day-to-day life…I simply try to be a good steward of the resources given to me. OK – what I’m really trying to say here is that I clip coupons! Betcha didn’t see that coming! Really, I have been an off-and-on coupon clipper for a while, but I decided to take it seriously here as of late. During the current economic times, it certainly can’t hurt to shop a little smarter even if it might take a little work. So, I did a little online research, talked with a few friends, and now I have created a system that’s really beginning to work for me and one that saves our family quite a few pennies. What am I doing? Allow me to share…

1. I buy the Sunday paper, and pull out all the coupon inserts (anywhere from 1-4 inserts generally). I don’t subscribe to the paper, but I find that I easily get back the $1.50 that I spend on the paper just in coupon savings each week.

2. Thanks to a sweet friend, I now have a wonderful way of organizing my coupons to make them more accessible to me. I’ve included a couple of pictures here. The basic idea of this system is that you take a 3-ring binder, divided by coupon categories (i.e. dairy, frozen foods, hygiene, household products…) and you place coupons into baseball/football card holders behind each of the dividers. It allows you to easily see what coupons you have on hand and the expiration date. Additionally, you can get something like a pencil zipper case to put in the front of the binder, and you can use it to store the coupons that you’re planning to use while you shop. They’ll be ready to hand over to the cashier in a moment’s notice.

3. Six weeks ago, I also began playing The Grocery Game. I had never heard of it until then but found it to be wonderful! You can read more about it at http://www.thegrocerygame.com/. I won’t go into lots of details here, because the website really explains everything you need to know. Allow me to just point out that it has been very effective for our family!

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. It takes a little time to get organized and start up your system, but it’s well worth the investment.

How about you? What good stewardship ideas do you have? What works for you? I’d love to hear about it. Be blessed my friends!