Coupon Savings: You Don’t Have To Be Extreme

It’s an age-old domestic activity — with a 21st century spin.

According to recent studies, consumers used 3.5 billion coupons in the U.S. last year, up 6 percent from the year before.

Bend resident Dana Jones considers herself a frugal shopper.

“About two years ago, I lost my job, and in order to make ends meet, we had to start pinching our pennies,” Jones said. “A couple of my friends from church taught me the ropes, and it’s all history from there.”

Jones now teaches coupon classes in the region and blogs for the coupon clipping site, Fabulessly Frugal. Even though she’s a veteran in the couponing world, she says the rookies shouldn’t be intimidated by the extreme couponer popularized on TV. In fact, Jones says those shows send the wrong message.

“It’s given new couponers this unrealistic idea that every time they go to the store, they’re going to save 90 percent on their bill,” she said.

To find out what was realistic, I ventured with Jones to Bend’s Fred Meyer so I could learn a few tricks of the trade.

The first tip Jones offers from Fabulessly Frugal happens before you even cruise the aisles — take some time to make it worth your while.

“Once you’ve narrowed down the stores you want to shop at, you only need to go to the websites and check out the blogs and spend any time doing couponing when those deals are going to be posted.”

Next, you need to get organized.

“This is how i get organized — I put the coupons into sections in a bin and label them by category,” Jones said. “But I know a lot of people who use binders or baseball card holders.”

Jones adds that maybe the most important couponing tip is to use the Internet.

“It’s the best and easiest way to follow couponing online,” she said. “They match up the ads with the sales they tell you the coupons to use. They tell you how much it’s going to cost when you’re done for each product that you’re buying.”

Katie Way of Bend uses Fabulessly Frugal to prove she’s thrifty but not extreme.

“That’s what I go to every week,” Way said. “I look at what’s on sale, see what is a good deal or stock-up price, and then I cater my meals around that to go grocery shopping. It has saved me so much time, because then I’m not sitting there cutting all the time.”

But becoming a coupon clipping aficionado is going to bury you in products you really don’t need that much of. What it all comes down to is finding the right coupons for you.

“Don’t buy what you don’t need –I used to do that, just because it said ‘free’ on the coupon, but it’s a bad habit to get into,” Way said.

At the end of our trip, Jones used nine coupons for about 20 products.

The total: $38 was knocked down to about $30, but Jones said we actually saved more on in-store prices.

“I would say original prices, we saved about 20 bucks at the store today and we spent 31.”

Nothing too extreme, but all very practical and doable.

“In a world where we can’t control the gas prices, you can’t control your doctor bill, one thing you can control is what you spend at the store — and that, to me, is very empowering,” Jones said.

Here are the seven secrets of successful couponing for us to use from the Website featured in our segment:

Secret #1: Start and maintain a stockpile.

Secret #2: Use multiple coupons.

Secret #3: Understand the power of catalinas.

Secret #4: Organization, organization, organization!

Secret #5: Use coupons effectively. Secret #6: Success in the store is up to you. (the do’s and don’ts of successful couponing)

Secret #7: You are not alone! fabulesslyfrugal.com. does most of the work for you!