How I Use Coupons To Help Me Prepare For Emergencies

Momwithaprep.com

Before you roll your eyes and click the <X> on your tab to leave this site forever, thinking I’m some weird Extreme Coupon crazy woman who is the reason 1. you can never find a product on the shelf because it’s sold out or 2. you can never use your coupons on the items you want because someone has shelf-cleared the stash, bear with me and see what I’m talking about!

I do have a confession. I was one of those big binder-packing, visit all the stores everyday, dragging the kids in to make extra purchases kinds of couponers. However, what I wasn’t was a couponer who filled her pantry with massive amounts of cheap, overly processed foods that I would probably never even eat, or my linen closet with a bajillion kinds of skin and body care products I didn’t want to put on my body or my kids’ bodies.

What I am is a SMART couponer.

And I say that because I don’t waste my time on things I’m never going to buy and that I know are beyond my budget or that I won’t use. If I can get something relatively inexpensively and know we won’t use it, I’ll put it in our food pantry giveaway bag to take to church the next time we’re in. I also don’t waste my time buying papers every week, combing through them in order to find out what I might need. I just don’t have time for that life anymore.

12 Tips to Using Coupons to Help Prepare for Emergencies

Subscribe to Couponing Blogs

There are quite a few blogs out there like Southern Savers, Stockpiling Moms. Be aware that they may also include a lot of affiliate links to other deals, but get past that stuff that you don’t need to just the coupon deals that make sense to you.

Subscribe to Coupon Preview pages

I use this to determine if I’m going to buy a newspaper or not. Here’s one I use – Sunday Coupon Preview If there are only one or two coupons I might use, I don’t buy the paper – the cost doesn’t make sense. But if it’s full of ones I’ll use, I’ll buy one or two that week.

“Like” Your Favorite Brands & Stores on Facebook

Many brands give awesome coupons away on Facebook, Google+ or even their own blogs. My rule of thumb is that unless a coupon is at least .50 off, I don’t print it because the cost of ink+paper doesn’t balance out. However, if I lived in a double/triple coupon area, that rule would be .25 cents.

Read More Here