A while back I received an email from a reader who wondered what she could do to get her husband more enthusiastic about using coupons.  It was a great question, and one that we hear quite a bit.  It got me thinking about how important it is to be on the same page as your spouse & kids when it comes to spending money AND using coupons.

By now you’ve probably learned (or are still learning) that saving money with coupons takes consistency & persistence.  Though your savings will be dramatic over time, those savings don’t happen overnight.   It takes time to build up a plentiful stockpile that will allow your family to eat nice variety of food.  It also takes time to get the “hang” of couponing, to figure out what is a good price for different items, and to build up a reserve of coupons.

For some people, waiting is difficult.

It is especially difficult for family members who may not see the “big picture” when it comes to coupons.

From their perspective, the favorites that normally stocked the fridge and cupboard have been replaced with 30 boxes of noodles and 20 bottles of mustard, and more tubes of toothpaste than they’ve seen in their life.  And frankly, it is hard to get excited about spending only pennies on the dollar when you’re hungry.

Perhaps your teenagers have gotten used to an ample supply of the snacks they love, or maybe your husband is a picky “meat and potatoes” man who balks at any variance from his normal menu.  Perhaps your wife insists on buying nothing but organic produce, without even considering what’s in season, so she can cook a gourmet 5-star meal every night.

So what’s the solution? How can you please your family and still save money?

The truth is that there is no easy answer.  Extreme savings with coupons does require making some drastic changes in the way you shop.  After all, if it was that easy and obvious, everyone would already do it automatically.  And unless you live alone or you and your spouse have decided together to commit to extreme coupon shopping, you need to get your family on board if you want to succeed.

Start a Conversation

Talk to your spouse and your kids about money.  This is so hard, but so necessary.  If times are tough and your family is struggling to make ends meet, then it is important to have a discussion about it.  I’m not saying you need to scare your kids, and obviously there is a level of age-appropriateness, but it is okay for your kids–even younger kids–to understand that they might not be able to have certain things because you are trying to save money.

Living in denial and spending more money than you have to on food is not going to help the situation.  The sooner you all face the reality of your own financial situation, the more willing everyone in the family will be to make sacrifices where needed.

Set a budget

Decide together how much you want or can afford to spend each month on groceries.  This will determine how much wiggle room you will have for those items & brands your family is willing to give up.   You may decide to put aside a certain amount each week for “impulse” or “special request” items.  That way most of what you buy can be with coupons, but no one needs to feel too deprived.

Make it fun

Try to satisfy that age old question, “what’s in it for me?”  Perhaps you can decide, as a family, to collect whatever money is leftover from your grocery budget each month to save towards a fun reward, like a trip to an amusement park or a new big screen TV.  Make it something fun, something that everyone in the family really wants but that you’ve been unable to afford.  You may suddenly find you get a lot fewer complaints.

Involve your family in the process

Keep your family updated on how much money you’re saving, especially if you are all working towards a collective goal.  Put up a chart that shows how much you’ve saved and how far you have to go.  Talk about it frequently.  Make it real.  Stay enthusiastic.

If your kids are old enough, let them help!  School-age kids can help clip and sort coupons (I’m so excited for mine to be old enough for that!), while teens and pre-teens can help look for deals & coupons online, help prepare shopping lists, or help organize your stockpile.  Teaching your kids how to use coupons is not only a time-saver, it is a valuable lesson that will help them immensely when they leave the nest.

My own husband, though extremely supportive of using coupons, has always been overwhelmed by the reality of coupons and therefore reluctant to help.  However, one evening I really needed to get my Qubie binder in order, so I asked Husband if he would mind folding my printable coupons into thirds while we watched TV.  It made the process go so much faster and he didn’t mind doing it and now he helps me automatically every time.  It turns out he just needed to find a specific task.

Agree to Try New Things

One of the neat things about using coupons is the frequent opportunity to try new products because very often the new items get promoted heavily by both stores and manufacturers.  Decide as a family that you will all be willing to try anything once.  If you really don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it again and you can go back to your old favorite brand.

Determine your priorities

How much you save each month will be largely dependent on how ardently you stick to buying and using only what is on sale.  Keep in mind that I am not saying that buying only sale items is “right” and straying from the week’s matchups is “wrong.”  Every family has to decide upon what you are willing to save on, and what things you can’t live without.

For instance, if you or your family loves meat and can’t imagine a meal without it, than you will probably experience lower savings than a family that is willing to eat meat-free meals several times a week.  Likewise, if you can’t stand eating frozen vegetables and only want fresh veggies, even when they are out of season, you will end up paying more.  But then again, what brand detergent or shampoo or toothpaste you use may not matter to you at all, so you can save money on those items.

Ultimately, your top priority should determine what you buy.  Most of the time, my own family is pretty easygoing about what we eat.  We eat from our plentiful stockpile and we don’t really have any “must buy” items beyond milk, eggs, butter, & bread.  Thus,  my savings are usually somewhere in the 65-80% range, and often even higher.   That said, there are times where we spend more–on holidays, for instance, or when my husband or I are watching our weight and trying to make “healthier” choices.

And if after all this, your significant other still says “I don’t care about the money, I want what I want,” then honestly maybe an extreme couponing lifestyle isn’t quite right for you.  In that case you might just want to do it as a hobby and find a local church or food bank to donate the things your own family won’t eat or use.

We would love to hear YOUR thoughts on the subject!  Does your family participate in the coupon process?  Is your spouse supportive?  What other ideas do you use to get your family on board?

Walmart has the best prices around!  Or so I thought.  Until I started extreme couponing.

Did you know that groceries could get even cheaper? When I first started extreme couponing, I dove right in! Printing coupons. Clipping coupons. Filing coupons. Driving to one grocery store. Then the next. Followed by a drugstore. Then another grocery store.

Wow, it quickly became a time commitment that I couldn’t commit to. I knew I couldn’t keep it up, especially with 4 kids in tow. I had to tone it down a notch. Soon, I came up with a way to continue my regular shopping at Walmart, but with a much better plan! [click to continue…]

As more and more people are starting to realize, using coupons is a great way to save money.  If you ever watch shows like TLC’s Extreme Couponing, you probably already know that sometimes those savings can be quite dramatic.  The problem is that those dramatic savings often go hand-in-hand with excessive amounts of time spent clipping & sorting coupons and searching for the very best deals.  The shopping trips you see on TV, while incredibly impressive, can literally take months to plan.

Quite frankly, who has time for that?

The thing I hear most frequently is this: “I would LOVE to learn how to use coupons, but I just don’t have time!”

Sound familiar?

Well, I have good news.  It IS possible to save big money with coupons without spending all your time on it.  Like anything in life, you have to find the right balance.  That balance won’t be exactly the same for everyone, but these are my 5 strategies for saving time with coupons:

1. Clip as little as possible

It isn’t necessary to clip every single coupon that comes your way.  It far much more efficient to organize your Sunday coupon inserts by date in a hanging file folder.   I explain it all very thoroughly in this nice little video:

I personally like keeping all of my printable coupons in my Qubie binder so that I can take them along with me to the store.  However, I don’t always have time to clip them every day, even though I do usually print them daily.  My solution?  An extra folder in my file box that says “to sort.”  That way even if I can’t clip and sort my coupons right away, I at least know where to find them when I’m preparing my shopping list.

2.  Utilize the resources available on the internet

There is no reason to spend all YOUR precious time trying to figure out what coupons match to what store sales, where the best deals are, and what new coupons are available to print online when there is almost an endless supply of blogs available who do it for you for FREE.

Here on SavingWellSpendingLess.com, for instance, we provide coupon match-ups for over 30 stores nationwide.  Not sure what that means?  Basically it means that each week our awesome team–Alisha, Jenny, Marissa, & Abigail–go through every store sale flyer, not to mention physically walk the stores, and find the corresponding coupons that “match” the sale items.  We then post a list telling YOU where to find those coupons.  All you have to do is find your store and select which items you want to buy each week.   You can even check just the items you want and print your shopping list right there.  It’s a HUGE time saver!

Along the same lines, our sister site, PrintHotCoupons.com, provides a once-daily, easy to read list of links to the newest & hottest coupons available.  Just check the list once a day, print the coupons you want, and you are good to go!

3.  Stick to a schedule & shop only at one store

It is easy to become consumed with trying to maximize your coupon savings by visiting multiple stores each week and going shopping almost every day.  Resist that temptation!  Decide on one day to shop and one or two stores to shop at, and then stick to the schedule.

4.  Give yourself permission to miss out

There is no shortage of great deals available online and in-stores, and the simple facts are that a.) even a “good deal” still costs money and b.) there will always be more bargains.  Don’t beat yourself up if you miss one (or twenty).

5.  Decide what it is you want to save on.

A lot of people think that they can’t save money with coupons because they eat mostly fresh produce or cook primarily from scratch or prefer organic or require gluten free food or, well, you get the idea.  While it is harder to find coupons for meat, produce, and special dietary items, it doesn’t mean you can’t utilize the same techniques.  Buy things when they are on sale, then stockpile as much as you can.

Don’t forget that everyone–even picky eaters–can use coupons for non-food items like toiletries, medications, paper goods, & diapers.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing–any savings is better than none!   Commit to saving where you can so you can spend where you want.

Let us know:  what are your strategies for spending less time with coupons?