What can I do with expired coupons?

Here's a great way to help our military!  Donate your expired coupons to be used by military families.  Commissaries and PXs overseas accept expired coupons up to 6 months after the expiration date.  Coups For Troops has lots more information about which coupons to send on their website.
I always have coupons that expire before I can use them.  Now I don't have to throw them away.  Instead, someone else can benefit from them!
If you want to send them your expired coupons, use the address below.  Coups For Troops only asks that you cut out your coupons.  You don't have to sort them or total them which makes it easy to donate. 

Coups For Troops
PO Box 147
Winnabow NC 28479

Coups For Troops has a giveaway going on right now too on their Facebook page.  They reached 1000 fans and are giving out a couponing kit with a binder, calculator, baseball card pages for your coupons, newspaper inserts, and lots of other great stuff.

What a fantastic way to help support our soldiers!

Coupon Class II

Several people have asked me how to maximize their couponing.  I wonder the same thing myself.  Last week during Harris Teeter's super doubles I made three trips to the store and saved a total of 43% for the week.  That's the best I've done so far.  My goal for this year is to reach a savings of 60-75%.

Here are a few more pointers for getting the most out of your coupons:
-I've heard if you get the paper delivered, the coupon inserts aren't included.

-You can stack coupons. Stacking coupons is when you use multiple coupons for the same item. You can't use the exact same coupon but you can use a store coupon and manufacture's coupon.

-The best way I've found to organize the coupon inserts from the paper: use a file folder to organize the inserts by date. You'll see on Southern Savers lists it gives a date to find the coupon. That way you don't have to cut out all of the coupons, only the ones you'll use when you need 'em.

-The whole point of using coupons is to never pay full price for an item.  Items rotate and go on sale about every 6 weeks.  Wait to buy the item when it's on sale and use a coupon.  That's how you maximize your couponing.

-Initially you need to work to stock up and make a surplus of groceries.  This may take you about 3 months to get together.  Hopefully after that, you have enough in your surplus you only buy what's on sale and what you also have a coupon for. 

If you're still confused after reading my first Coupon Class post and this one, go over to Southern Savers and maybe Jenny's explanation will help.  She's super!  Jenny also travels around the southeast teaching coupon workshops.  Here's a link to her calendar of classes.
Something else I dig on her site....she has a spreadsheet to keep track of how much you're saving.  Yeah, I totally have one downloaded.  As soon as I get the groceries put away I sit down with my receipts and enter the total spent and total saved.  It's so great.

Proctor & Gamble Coupons

Sign up to receive the new Procter & Gamble Home Mailer.  The coupon book contains over $35 worth of savings.  I requested one for us, Carlene, and Maw.  Expect the coupons in 4-6 weeks.

-Thanks Jenny

Coupon Class

Tonight I went to Couponing 101 taught at church by our friend Jodi.  I left slightly overwhelmed but excited by the challenge of saving money.  With two babies on the way we need to save in every way possible.
Here are a few tips Jodi shared with us (I'll just give out a few, she gave us tons!):
-Buy a big city newspaper every Sunday, maybe two (for us that means the Raleigh paper)
-Check out SouthernSavers.com for a list of weekly sale items at several different stores and where to find coupons for each of those items.  That's how you save your money, using coupons for sale items!
-Make sure you know the coupon rules for your store (ie double coupons everyday, 20 coupons per day limit)
-Just because a coupon says "Do Not Double or Triple" doesn't mean it won't double or triple at the register.  If the first number in the bar code (on the coupon) is a 5 it will usually double, if it's a 9 the coupon will probably not double.

Thank you Jodi for lots of great, useful information!