Beth's couponing story!

Beth's story is the fourth couponing journey we are sharing in our weekly series about how couponing works at your house. On Tuesday, Nakabi shared how she and her husband use coupons to support their family of five, including 3 little ones. Today, Beth tells us how her family of 4 (including a teen and college student) uses coupons. Here is her story and how she makes couponing work in her home!

My great thanks to Beth for sharing her story! I love that her husband helps out by finding Groupons and Living Social deals (especially the mani/pedis)!  I also like the app she mentions below in the weekly routine section.

I also want to thank everyone who has sent me their stories so far! I look forward to sharing them twice a week!

If you would like to share your couponing story, it's not too late! Just send me an answer to the questions below at saving@smartspendingresources.com.  To see the previous stories, click the links in the box above.

2 adults, 1 teenager, 1 college student who lives there during the summers and college breaks

We were looking for ways to save money and get the most out of our dollar.

About 2 years

We probably spend $100-120/week for everything, depending on the week. This includes a few specialty diet/health supplements that my husband and I need.

My average is about a 50-60% savings, sometimes more.

Average maybe 1-2 hours, depending on how well I've kept up with it.

I use the binder method with the baseball card pages (that I bought from the coupon workshop!). When I get ready to shop, I review the sales and coupon matchup's provided on the WRAL blog as well as check the stores online for specific items to compare prices and then I pull out the coupons I intend to use and put those into a separate envelope. I take my binder to the store in case I see something else that is a good deal and I have a coupon for it, but this way I keep all of the coupons I plan to use for that shopping trip together.

Kroger, Harris Teeter, Lowes Foods, Food Lion, and Walmart. I have the advantage of having all of these fairly close by or at least on my way home from work.

Walmart and CVS is where I get most of my health/beauty products, occassionally Walgreens.

Mine is weekly and I just keep an ongoing list of what I know we need on my phone - I use the AnyList app and have it set up to where I have categories for all of the stores I shop at so that I can list specific items I want to get at each store based on the current sales.

I do keep a stockpile, so if there is a week with an especially good sale on the things I know we're close to the end, I will add that to my list for that week.

My husband does, he is pretty good about looking out for Groupon and Living Social deals for manis/pedis for me, massage coupons, car washes, oil changes, things like that.

Sorting through all of the ads each week and printing the online ones and having to cut them up and sort them. But this really isn't that bad!

Getting FREE stuff and saving money!

I do, but I don't have a pantry so the stockpile is wherever I can find room for it!

Yes, though it isn't always set in stone. We always keep chicken and ground beef in the fridge and some basic ingredients so we usually have something on hand to whip up if we haven't planned that week.

It is always a work in progress! I've been at it 2 years and I am still learning!

Definitely learn to stockpile...there came a time when I was not able to go grocery shopping like I had been doing in my routine and that stockpile was a life saver! It was nice to know we had things on hand that would last a little while in times like those!