Making your list, checking it twice!

Making your grocery/shopping list when couponing takes longer than just "eggs/milk/bread". You need to look at the sales flyers, look at what's on sale, look at your coupons and look at what you need.  You then make your list, double check that your calculations are right and match up the items on your list to your coupons.  Here's how I do it:

I gather up all my sales flyers for the stores I like to shop at and circle the items I'm interested in as I go along.  Then I compare the circles to see who has what cheaper.  To get the best price sometimes you have to go to 2-4 different stores to get everything on your list.

Once I see what is on sale where I make my list per store, per section (produce, meat, cereal aisle, etc) in order to save time when I'm in the store.  I then further divide my list by transaction, sometimes you have to do more than one transaction to get all your deals (more on this in later lessons).

Then I calculate what my final prices are like this example:
(4) Caress Body Wash ($2.99 - 4 x $1/1 MFC + 4 x $1/1 TC) [$3.96]

Breaking down my math:
(4) = Quantity I'm going to buy
Followed by the item name
($2.99) = The sales or normal price
(-) = Minus, meaning minus the following coupons
(4 x) = 4 times or four of the following coupon
($1/1) = The coupon, this one was $1 off of 1 item
(MFC) = Manufacturer Coupon, the type of coupon that was $1 off of 1 item.
(+) = Plus or plus the following coupon
(4 x) = 4 times or four of the following coupon
($1/1) = The coupon was $1 off of 1 item.
(TC) = my shorthand for Target Coupon
[$3.96] = How much I am really spending out of pocket total for these items.

I write down that equation line for every item, this way I know what coupons I need to give and what kind of deal I'm getting and what the total should be in case it rings up for more.  This is the part that you really need to double check in order to make sure that when you ring up your order that you pay exactly what you should.