I’ve been writing about how to save money at the store for over 15 years, but sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics. At this time of year, many people are trying to get their finances back on track. How much you spend on groceries is something you can control to a degree, and couponing is one way to do it.

Hear me out—you don’t have to go to an extreme. You can focus on the things you buy regularly at one or two stores and make a huge difference in how much you spend each month. If you’re new here, I hope you find these 7 tips to get started couponing helpful. If you’ve been here a while, then consider this a refresher!

Coupon Basics | 7 Tips to Get Started Couponing

Understand how coupons work

Coupons can seem confusing when you’re dealing with store coupons, manufacturer coupons, rebates, and more. Knowing how you can use them together and what the coupon terms means is key to actually saving money with coupons. I have a whole page on coupon facts that you can review any time you need to.

Understand sales cycles

Stores obviously don’t put everything on sale at once. They put items on sales in cycles in an attempt to get you into the store. Some sale items they lose money on (loss leaders) some are actually paid for by the brand, they do this because they hope you will buy lots of other things that aren’t on sale. This is where knowledge is power! If you can slowly build up a stockpile, then you will only have to buy items when they go on sale, and you won’t ever pay full price for them. You’ll really save big when you combine coupons with sales cycles!

Buy what you’ll use in one sales cycle

Sales cycles usually run about every 6-8 weeks. The exceptions to this are seasonal items, which you can keep up with in our monthly “what to buy” posts (see What to buy in january). Let’s use the example of cereal. Maybe your family goes through 2 boxes of cereal each week. Thankfully not all cereal goes on sale at the same time, but that particular week you may want to grab 4 boxes to get you through a few weeks when something you like isn’t on sale.

Choose a favorite store

When you first get started with coupons, stick to one store. This will allow you to learn the basics of couponing as well as become an expert on that store. While you may be able to save more money by going to multiple stores, this takes time. You want to make sure that you know what you’re doing before you spend extra time driving to different stores.

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