How to Coupon: A Beginner’s Guide

In this day and age where inflation rates keep on rising and basic necessities are on their way to become as pricey as luxury goods, coupons have become more essential than ever. However, what people fail to understand is how to coupon.

A 2021 study says that $176 billion worth of coupons were distributed in 2021. This simply goes to show how much you can save if you begin utilising coupons to make everyday purchases.

However, many people seem to think that the age of couponing has died with the emergence of digitization. As coupon books became a thing of the past, people began to think that coupons are also diminishing, but that is not the case.

Contrary to popular belief, couponing still exists, but only on a different platform. This beginner’s couponing guide will help you understand this in greater detail, helping you understand how to coupon for groceries effectively, while talking about extreme couponing as well.

Couponing for beginners: the benefits

High savings

The first and most obvious reason why you should begin hoarding them right away is because of how much you save on coupons.

There are many sites like EMUCoupon that contain countless coupons that you can use for all kinds of companies. From apparel and food to jewellery stores like Step One discount codes an underwear store's discounts, you can find all manner of discount coupons on EMUCoupon.

Coupons can slash away a huge chunk of your bill that you can put into your savings, which is why they are so valuable to people who like to live frugally.

Coupons encourage you to try new things

Everyone considers trying new stuff as a gamble, especially if you live frugally. However, coupons encourage you to try something new.

When trying to understand how to coupon, you must remember that you need to hoard coupons every chance you get. This way, you might end up with discounts or buy one get one free offers for items that you have never tried before.

Normally, you would hesitate to try something new, but the coupon might entail a huge discount or an amazing deal on it, so might as well try it.

How do coupons work

Understanding how a coupon works is something that you must know on your journey to realise how to become a couponer.

There isn't much rocket science needed to understand how you can use coupons. If they are physical coupons you can find in newspapers or inside magazines, all you need to do is cut them out and take them to the store they are meant to be used at.

Grocery store coupons are great for saving money as, instead of offering a percentage discount on the bill, they straight up offer to slash some money off of it, for instance you might get a coupon that offers a discount of $5 dollars on the total.

The reason that these types of coupons are amazing is because they usually come with very few restrictions, as opposed to your percentage discount coupons. These coupons can be stacked on top of each other which means that you can essentially go grocery shopping for absolutely free, provided that you have enough coupons.

How stores make money from coupons

Now, you might be wondering how are coupons beneficial to stores if they are such losses? Well the key lies in what happens behind the scenes once you use the coupons. Well, the answer lies within the fine print behind the coupon.

Initially, when you cash in the coupon, it is just a useless piece of paper. However, the fine print on the back of your average coupon states that the store will be reimbursed a certain amount when they are mailed to an address mentioned by the manufacturer.

On paper the amount reimbursed is just peanuts, with the manufacturer only offering a few cents per coupon. However, when you consider the millions of coupons that big grocery stores send over, it ends up becoming an incredibly lucrative way for stores to make money while providing customers an incentive to shop at their store.

How to start couponing

Now comes what you are waiting for, the actual meat of couponing: how you can efficiently coupon. They might seem simple, but there is more to couponing once you start looking at it.

Stack coupons

The beauty of grocery store coupons is that, usually, there is no set limit as to how much you can use at once, and you can save massive amounts of money if you take advantage of that.

In order to maximise your savings, it is suggested that you gather coupons and use them all at once to make sure that you save as much on your total as possible.

Find a couponing site

Although you can still find coupons in newspapers or magazines, they have grown to become scarce.

However, there are many websites on the internet like EMUCoupon that are filled with thousands of coupons for numerous categories that you can take advantage of.

How to extreme coupon and maximise savings

Stacking coupons on top of another is known as extreme couponing and is one of the most effective ways to save more than 80% on grocery shopping!

However, in order to be able to extreme coupon effectively, you need to understand the terms and conditions associated with them so that you can exploit them for maximum savings.

If you want to learn how to coupon to the extreme, you must stock up on as many coupons as possible because you will need a lot of them, scour couponing websites, newspapers, magazines and any other place where you might find them.

Grocery store coupons are an extreme couponer’s best friend since they have very lax terms and conditions for usage and normally, there is no maximum limit as to how many you can use.

Final Words

There is much more to couponing than simply coming across a discount voucher and using it to save money on a purchase you are making.

Sure, you are still saving up even if you use up a single coupon, but you need to learn how to extreme coupon and platforms where you can find a surplus of them to utilise their full potential.

It may seem difficult to understand, but this guide offers all the information you need to find the best coupons and start saving up on your purchases.

Published on: September 04, 2023