More on saving money.

I have a few more links for you:

www.sundaycouponpreview.com
Get a preview of what coupons are coming in the next Sunday paper. I print this out and keep it with my coupon inserts so I can just scan it and know what's inside. You can subscribe to get the lists sent to your email every week.

www.coupons.com
Print your own coupons!

www.grocertsmarts.com
This is very cool. By entering your state/region, you can see a page that matches up the local ads with coupons. Search by individual stores or list them all. It even provides links to printable coupons. By matching up sales and coupons you can save a lot of cash.

The Chief Family Officer website that I suggested last time had a couple of great links to help you get started with a price book. Now this is a bit of work to set up and takes a bit of discipline to keep up, but it is an invaluable tool if you want to save the most money possible. The only way to know for sure if something is a great deal is by keeping a price book.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, I'm going to point you here:
http://www.chieffamilyofficer.com/2005/10/price-book-best-way-to-cut-back.html and here: http://www.chieffamilyofficer.com/2008/03/creative-strategies-for-coping-with.html and here: http://www.ncnblog.com/2007/11/07/free-printable-grocery-store-price-book-download-print-save-money-on-groceries/

Basically, I printed the free downloadable pages, cut them in half and punched holes in them and put them in a small 3 ring binder. I filled in the price info from my receipts from the month. Follow the instructions from the blog I linked above.

I have built up quite a stash of loose coupons, so I needed a better way to organize them. Instead of my small coupon caddy, I now have a 4 x 6 index card box with dividers. I try to keep the coupons in order by when they expire within the categories I set up.

I am using my coupon caddy (13 pocket) for non-grocery coupons, such as restaurants, craft stores, entertainment and recreation, auto services, etc.

I also have a large expanding file that I use to keep my coupon inserts, weekly ads, and rebate forms organized. I print the Sunday Coupon Preview pages for Smartsource, Redplum, and P&G separately, and use them to divide my inserts by date. The pages are essentially a table of contents for the inserts.

And finally, the last tool I want to pass on to you is found here:
http://www.thecouponproject.com/the_coupon_project/2010/01/free-downloadable-2010-savings-tracker.html Every time I shopped this month, I entered a few numbers and this wonderful tool tracks my savings. Click the link and see how easy it is.

I signed up for lots of freebies by mail this month. I've received one so far. It was a sample package of pantyliners with some generous coupons. I'll start posting about what arrives in my mailbox. I also got a nice 8 x 10 photo collage for FREE at Walgreens earlier in the month. It took about 10 minutes to make online, and I picked it up at the store.

Over the weekend I'll post about the best deals I got and how I did overall for January.

c