Surrounding you is a bubble of inflation, high unemployment, rising gas prices and skyrocketing prices of groceries and essentials that you need every single day.

No matter how much you earn, every day needs of food and other essential items take up a significant portion of your salary. Discount coupons are a blessing in disguise if you want to save some money on your daily expenses.

Statistical facts:

The US Consumer Packaged Goods marketers distribute coupons valuing almost $470 billion for daily use products like food, beverages, tobacco, clothing and other household items. Surprisingly only about 1% of these coupons are redeemed by consumers.

Reasons people give for not using coupons:

It is embarrassing

Too lazy or disorganized or busy to make efforts to save coupons and use them appropriately

But why should anyone leave an opportunity to save some money?Using coupons efficiently and intelligently is the best way for you to save some serious amount of money on things of everyday use.

Let’s have a look at the coupons toothpaste example:

Let’s take a simple item which is essential to each household- toothpaste. Now a tube of toothpaste will generally last a single person for, let’s say, a month.

You spend somewhere between $2 to $6 on your tube of toothpaste every month.

So for a whole year, you can spend almost $6×12 = $72.

Now, do you think your toothpaste costs you too much?

If you use general product promotional coupons toothpaste and even get about $1 off, you get a direct discount of $12 per year. Combine it with sales and discounts at the store from where you make your purchases, and you can literally buy your $6 tube for less than $2, which will bring down your yearly coupons toothpaste cost to $24.

You can cut your grocery bill by more than 50% if you use coupon efficiently!

Here are a few tips on how you can become a pro at using coupons smartly:

Collect the ads for every store you shop at in your local area. These are usually delivered to your home via newspaper or email. You can also check out some of the websites which give out free coupons. Once in a while stop by a store you frequent, to pick up their ad.

Make an initial shopping list for each store, all in one sitting. While this can be time-consuming, it ends up making a huge difference in the amount of time you eventually spend shopping and save more.

Keep a tab on your current inventory of groceries and household products, so that you spend less time on this step.

Know what is on sale. So, if your favorite Ken’s Steakhouse Ranch Dressing costs $3.29 for a 16 oz bottle and goes on sale for $1.65 per bottle, you can use your $1 coupon and get it for $0.65 a pop. Always try to combine two big deals at once and walk away with 80% savings multiple times.

Buy branded products for better deals as generic products do not have a lot of scope of providing you discounts. With branded products, you get great deals if you use your coupons wisely and spend way less than on generic products. Remember the coupons toothpaste example. You will always get more coupons for your $6 toothpaste than the $2 toothpaste.

Even if you are single or a family of four, try out the coupon shopping tricks for a few months and see for yourself the difference it makes to your budget!