Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
Did you see the four big coupon inserts in Sunday's paper? If there's one thing that manufacturers know about kids being back in school is that parents start getting back to regular shopping. This means lots of compelling coupon offers to sway those shopping dollars.
In celebration of the wave of new couponers starting this month, I'd like to present my top five tips that will help you cut your grocery bill in half.
1. Buy ONLY the best deals (50% off or better). Buying only what you need week to week is the most expensive way to shop. Why would you buy full-price products when there are hundreds of others you can get for 50-80% off? Unless you want to grow all your own food, the best way for the majority of Americans to significantly cut your grocery bill is applying very high value coupons to great local sales. I wish I could tell you there was another way, but nearly every expert I've studied on this subject all agree on this point. Coupons are designed to do one thing: get shoppers to buy their product. If you time the coupon redemption correctly, you'll get to try all the latest products for pennies on the dollar.
2. Stock up!
Let's say that you can get Cheerios for a dollar a box by applying a high value coupon to a great local sale. Let's also assume that based on what your family eats, you will need a second box of Cheerios in three weeks. Doesn't it make sense that you would go ahead and buy the second (or third or fourth) box today when you can get it for 75% off? You will save five to nine dollars on Cheerios, alone, by employing this strategy. This is the same plan we apply to nearly everything you buy on a regular basis and as a result, our total grocery bill drops by 50% to 75%.
3. This is not your Mother's couponing system. (Use technology!!)
Not everyone can clip hundreds of coupons every week. I would guess that only a small percentage of shoppers will realistically do this. This is why we use technology like SavingsAngel.com to do the “˜mass clipping' for us. When a coupon comes out, many shoppers take that coupon out to the store and end up saving a small percentage on a full-price, brand-name product. What they didn't realize is they should have waited three weeks to redeem the coupon when the product was on sale for half price. How would you keep track of all this without a system in place to do the work for you? It would otherwise be a lot of work. Watch TLC's Extreme Couponing if you don't believe me. While the Extreme Couponers may save a great deal of money, they can also spend ten to twenty hours a week to get those results. For those of us with busy lifestyles, let high-tech do the work for you.
4. There are coupons for almost EVERYTHING you put in your cart.
If you aren't following my advice, and you go shopping this week, I want you to hear these words in your head every time you put something in your cart: “There's probably a coupon for that.” It doesn't matter if you eat organic, gluten-free, vegan, or Neanderthal. Manufacturers want you to try their food – and they're willing you pay you to do so. My advice? Use their money – not yours.
5. Don't put this off. Each week you delay shopping smarter costs you $100!
You can follow my tips, or you can continue to shop the way you have always shopped. The reality is you are paying a luxury tax to not apply your Sunday coupons to the best local sales. It's a luxury tax that can cost you a hundred dollars a week or more. Personally, I can think of many other things I would rather do with a hundred dollars a week than contribute toward retailer and manufacturer profits. Whether your goals are to get out of debt, save for retirement, give more to the things you really believe in, or have more fun, an extra $300 to $400 a month is a significant amount of money. You can have this simply from investing in a Sunday paper (perhaps a few extra copies to get even more coupons), technology to assist you in saving time and more money, and an extra hour or two a week.
The easiest way to cut your grocery bill in half is through using manufacturers coupons combined with the best sales at local stores. Normally, this takes a lot of work to create a winning shopping list for your family. Each week, SavingsAngel.com combines over 2,000 products on sale at local grocery and drug stores with their enormous database of manufacturer coupons ““ which are found in your Sunday paper and throughout the Internet. This combination results in access to over 300 products each week for 50% off or better. Here are a few examples of deals that are available until Saturday at midnight. Please look in Tuesday's Grand Rapids Press each week for tips on how you can easily start cutting your grocery bill!
Josh Elledge is the Chief Executive “Angel” of SavingsAngel, Inc. ““ launched from his home in January 2007. A husband and father of three, he now appears each week on Fox 35 Orlando, in the Grand Rapids Press, and a number of radio stations across the country teaching families how to cut their grocery bill in half using the Internet. Elledge created the technology found on SavingsAngel.com through the need to save his own family's money. Successfully able to cut his own grocery bill from $600 a month to less than $300 a month, his message has reached hundreds of thousands of families. SavingsAngel.com is now growing rapidly throughout the country. You can watch a short video at SavingsAngel.com that will explain more information about how to cut your own grocery bill in half with the help of SavingsAngel.com.
