Day 1: Getting Started

I organize my coupons/sales every week to get an idea of what I'm looking to purchase and how cheap I can get my day-to-day items. Each day I do something special to get everything ready for my big shopping day each week (which is almost always Friday.)
 
Sunday 
Sunday is the beginning of the "couponing week." I love Sundays. I buy 5 newspapers. Typically they say to purchase 1 paper or insert for each member of your family. I do one extra. This usually ends up costing me about $6 a week, which can seem extreme but they end up MORE than paying for themselves. There are anywhere from 2 -5 inserts that you can expect in your Sunday paper. On Holiday weekends there tend to NOT be any inserts at all. Before you purchase a paper on a Holiday weekend make sure to look in the paper to confirm that there are coupons that weekend.

Typically you can expect the SS or Smart Source and the RP or Red Plum. Every 4th week we will get the P&G, Procter and Gamble additional insert and occasionally we get the GM or General Mills
There are a few ways to make it a little cheaper.
*Ask friends/family members/neighbors for their ads that they don't plan on using.
*Ask local business to pull the ads out of the papers they purchase for customers to read OR if you can have their remaining Sunday papers.
*Dumpster dive (not something I do personally)
*Buy the ads in bulk off of Ebay or a couponing website (my favorite is Coupons and Things by Dede)
*Shop around to see which stores have the cheapest Sunday Papers
*Some gas stations will allow you one free newspaper if you purchase "X" amount of gas. (I know Kum N Go is one!).

Ok, so now that you know what I do on Sundays, what are you waiting for? I'd recommend and encourage you to get at LEAST one newspaper this week to get started. If you're feeling ambitious, go ahead and get one paper per family member! Go ahead and start looking around at some popular couponing websites and see if you can pair a few deals with your new coupons! (Remember, when I first started out, I was only getting like 1-2 free things and maybe only using a few coupons at check out!)