海角大神

I鈥檝e long been an advocate of using coupons at the grocery store. I often clip coupons for toiletries and household products and, when there are opportunities, for some food items like organic milk (I had a great coupon for this a while back). I鈥檝e also used coupons for bigger purchases as well in the past.

Because of this, I hear almost every day from people who have great coupons or great coupon-offering websites. 鈥淵ou should try this!鈥� they鈥檒l say, or they鈥檒l suggest that I feature the site on The Simple Dollar. A very recent example of this is ; other examples include and 鈥� and I won鈥檛 even touch on the plethora of 鈥渃oupon blogs鈥� out there.

I don鈥檛 link to these things. In fact, I usually don鈥檛 visit them beyond simply adding them as a bookmark to a 鈥渃oupon鈥� folder in my browser.

Some of you are probably surprised by that (others might already know why). After all, on a site interested in saving money, why 飞辞耻濒诲苍鈥檛 I hunt down coupons?

Here鈥檚 the truth: visiting coupon sites for the sole purpose of 鈥渟aving money鈥� will cost you money.

Let鈥檚 walk through the reasons for this. Almost every coupon you see requires you to spend some money in order to bring home the 鈥渟avings.鈥� Any time you spend money on something you don鈥檛 need, you鈥檙e taking money away from something that鈥檚 actually important to you.

If you go to a site that lists nothing but a bunch of coupons (or look at a coupon flyer), you鈥檙e not looking at coupons 鈥� you鈥檙e looking at lists of stuff to buy.

For me, successful coupon use takes a very different approach. Rather than simply looking through lists of coupons and identifying ways to 鈥渟ave鈥� on items I don鈥檛 really need, I start with lists of the things I do need or truly want independent of the coupons.

In other words, I do use coupon flyers and coupon sites, but I don鈥檛 bother to look through them unless I鈥檓 looking for something specific.

So, for example, I鈥檒l look through coupon flyers once I have my grocery list together. I鈥檒l look at coupon sites once I鈥檝e come up with a gift idea or two for a friend or family member or when I鈥檓 considering a specific purchase.

Another example: I have a special email address that I use to sign up for coupons from retailers I regularly visit. When I鈥檓 considering a purchase, I visit that email account and search through the emails (Gmail makes this kind of searching very easy) for ones that match the item I鈥檓 thinking of or the retailer I鈥檓 thinking of visiting. Almost always, I鈥檝e got a coupon right there.

Aside from that, the coupon flyers remain unopened and the coupon sites remain untouched. Looking at lists of stuff to buy 鈥� even with a nice discount on it 鈥� is just spending time thinking of spending my money on stuff I don鈥檛 really need and don鈥檛 really want.

Let what you actually need lead the way. That way, you鈥檒l never find yourself spending your hard-earned money on stuff that you really don鈥檛 want 鈥� and you can conserve that money for stuff that you really do need or want.

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