Monday, April 20, 2009

http://www.thecouponbinder.com/

Welcome to TheCouponBinder.com blog! To be honest this is my first ever attempt at blogging. My perfectionism has gotten in the way before now. So, I am throwing my fears of incorrect grammar and spelling out the window and I am just writing. I hope that you will do the same. Throw out your perfectionism and try something new. You never know where it might take you.

For example coupon shopping. About four years ago while my hubby was in grad school, I told him that I would NEVER coupon shop. It seemed like such a pain and it didn't seem to save that much money. Instead, I wanted him to make a lot of money so that I wouldn't need to.

Well, life had other plans for me. My DH (Dear Hubby) graduated and did get a decent job. However, there were many bills to pay that we hadn't expected. (In grad school loans were given generously and we actually made money at tax time because we were so poor.) I could list them out, but we all know what they are.

We moved across the country and I noticed at our new grocery store that a lot of people used coupons. I thought there must be something to it for that many people to use them. I bought an accordion filer, subscribed to a website that did the sale tracking and combined them with the coupons. I was determined to learn the tricks of saving TONS of money on my groceries.

After a few months, I became frustrated with how hard it was to use the accordion filer. Even with the online coupon databases, it was very difficult to manage my coupons. I knew that if I was going to continue to use coupons I had to find something better.

My friend saw a professional coupon shopper and noticed that she used a COUPON BINDER to organize her coupons. That was my Ah-ha moment. I ran to Staples and payed a lot of money to put one together.

However, it was so worth it. I noticed that I saved so much time on the cutting, organizing, and utilizing my coupons. Also, they were so much easier to use because I could see all of them at a quick glance. It was also easier to get rid of the expired ones for the same reason. I had found the tool to my coupon success.

My savings increased dramatically too. I increased my paper subscription to four of the Sunday papers and saw that I could save 50% on my groceries. Then, I decided to increase it again to six papers. Now I save 66%. The power is in the number of coupons you have. (I talk about this more in the Coupon Shopping Instructions included with The Complete Binder System.)

Whenever I would go grocery shopping, my binder would get a lot of attention. I had multiple job offers on the spot because people were amazed at my coupon organization. People were also amazed at the savings I was getting. They wanted to do the same thing so I started to help them. However, that took a lot of time. With young children at home it became very difficult to help everyone that wanted me to.

One thing I noticed while helping people was that putting the binder together was hard for them. It was hard to find the materials and to know how to put them together, not to mention expensive. (The 9 pocket dividers are not cheap.)

Another challenge was to learn the rules of The Coupon Game. (It does become a game - and you actually receive financial benefits. It is better than gambling!) They weren't quite sure how to put it all together.

To make it easier on everyone, I decided to make coupon binders and include instructions on how to use it. This way people could just plug in their coupons and start saving tons of money quickly.

Another thing is that I have tried really hard to keep the price down. I know that the economy is hard right now on all of us. I have priced the Coupon Binder System so that you CAN NOT get one cheaper by putting it together yourself. The only reason I mention this is because I tried.

We are all trying to do more thing ourselves to cut costs - which I am all for. But trust me on this one, it is better to just buy it already put together. You will be so glad that you did!

It has been so fun to see how much money people save with their Coupon Binder systems and how much they are enjoying them!

My husband and I get a good laugh at how once I swore off coupons and now I am considered a professional coupon shopper. It just goes to show that if you don't worry about being perfect that you can discover something you never thought possible.