Coupons Are A Students Best Friend!

While you know all about your laptop, student meal plan and dorm rules, you should become more acquainted with coupons in order to stretch your meager budget as much as possible.

According to Stepahine Nelson of The Coupon Mom -

The average family can save $5000 a year by using coupons and shopping strategically.

You certainly won’t need to buy everything that a household consumes, but even if you save $1000, that’s an extra grand in your pocket to use on something else, like tuition or a better car. Here are three pointers to get you started saving more money today.

Get Free Coupons: Don’t let paying a buck or two to buy the Sunday newspaper stop you from acquiring a nice stash of coupons. You can go to restaurants and your local and school libraries to ask for the coupons from their papers. Ask people you know to give you their unwanted coupons or go to the stores around 11:30 on Sunday night and ask for the coupon inserts. Most times they’ll gladly give them to you since they can’t sell the papers on Monday.

Learn to Play the Drugstore Game: As a college student, you probably have seen that drug store prices are a bit more than your average supermarket prices, but serious couponers shop at major drug stores like CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreen’s to save on everything from shampoo, cough syrup, school supplies and even dorm staples like instant noodles and hot cocoa mix.

The key to saving big is to compare their sales to your coupons and also know how to take advantage of their rewards programs. Each store has its own program and it’s best to just learn one store at a time to save you from getting frustrated. At Walgreen’s you can often get an item free each week, though you do pay for it upfront. The deal may be that you buy a $4.99 bottle of laundry soap and then get a reward receipt for $4.99 in return. This piece of paper can be used on your next transaction and works like cash.

Use Coupons on Sale Priced Items:To further sweeten a deal like the above scenario, use a coupon to save more money. If you have a coupon for a $1.50 off a bottle of that laundry soap, you’ll only pay $3.49 out of pocket and still get back a reward for $4.99! Unless stated otherwise on the coupon or sales flier, coupons can be paired up with sale priced items. If you see shampoo on sale 3 for $10 and have a coupon for $5 off of three hair care products, you can get those three bottles for just $5 instead of $10.

Get Started
Make it a goal to find twenty coupons before the next weeks ads come out. Then choose one store to try shopping at using your coupons and their rewards programs. Just choose one or else you’ll get overwhelmed and quit. As you get the hang of couponing, start shopping other stores to maximize your savings. Good luck!

Article submitted by Isaac who writes about various student, finance and investment opportunities for clients such as Richmond University, the American University in London where you can study an international relations degree, worth also checking out is their BA Economics degree.