VALDOSTA — My mom is a coupon savant. What I now respect as a great talent, I used to revere as being completely nuts. As a child, I would go grocery shopping with my mom every Sunday and every Sunday my mom would have what I likened to the equivalent of a coupon fanny pack. You know, one of those silly looking coupon organizers you velcro to the front of your shopping cart. Yeah, I had one of “those” moms.

My mom had a coupon for everything. Toothpaste, cookies, soda, the crown jewels, I mean everything! If Russia decided to one day sell their country to the highest bidder, I’m pretty sure my mom would have a 50 percent off coupon for it and would then manage to talk them into letting her use her Macy’s credit card for an additional ten percent off.

As humiliating as it was to have the crazy coupon mom as a teenager, it taught me several valuable lessons. One, coupons are as good as cash, two, sticker price is never the real price and three, even dirt tastes good when you bought it with a coupon.

Unfortunately, these extreme couponing shows have perpetuated this myth that coupon clipping is hard. This is because on these shows, these men and women spend more than eight hours a day clipping coupons. It acts as a full-time job which is convenient for them because most of those people don’t have full-time jobs, and most of you reading this article do. However, there is a big difference between people who clip coupons to save money and people who clip coupons because of an obsessive compulsive disorder.

I don’t clip coupons to see how many bottles of antacids I can get for free, I clip coupons because I have a strict grocery budget of $100 for two weeks. I also don’t spend hours searching for random coupons. Personally, I feel that accumulating coupons before you have a grocery list is just a backwards waste of time. So, I will share with you my coupon clipping method which has been very successful for my husband and I.

First, before you go through the coupons in The Valdosta Daily Times, make a grocery list. It has been my experience that when you go coupon hunting before you have a list, you tend to clip coupons for things you don’t need. You may see that Glade has buy two get one scented candles. You may not need three scented candles (or maybe you do, not my business), but you almost compulsively feel the need to go buy candles because it’s “such a great deal.” So, to avoid feeling the urge to buy things for the sake of a coupon, make a list.

Once you have your grocery list made, make sure you buy a Wednesday and a Sunday edition of The Valdosta Daily Times. The Wednesday paper has all your weekly grocery store ads and the Sunday paper has tons of coupons. Next, get two different colored highlighters. Go through your grocery list. Everything you have a coupon for, highlight in one color, and everything the store has a deal on (for example, buy one get one spaghetti sauce) mark in another color. The highlighting is a guide while you are in the store to help you remember what coupons to use and what deals to look for. Anything on your grocery list unmarked by a highlighter should get Googled!

Manufacturer websites are wonderful resources for coupons. If you don’t have a coupon for a toothbrush, go to Crest’s website. Most manufacturers have a designated coupon or weekly sale tab.

There are also other great online coupon resources such as southernsavers.com and coupons.com. Sometimes I just go to Google and search random things such as “coupon for Freschetta Pizza” and sometimes I get pointed in the right direction.

There are websites where you have to pay a fee to utilize their services and their coupons. However, I never saw much sense or “cents” in paying money for coupons. It just defeats the purpose to pay to save money.

That’s all I do and it’s pretty easy. Make a list, buy a paper, go through weekly ads, go through coupons in the paper and online and then go shopping.

I spend maybe a total of an hour and half making a list and getting my coupon and sale items together.

I work 40 hours a week, so the last thing I want to do is take up coupon clipping as a second job.

Even if you’re a stay- at- home mom (or dad, I’m not sexist) wouldn’t you rather spend that time with your children or catching up on Dr. Phil? I know I would.

Let me know what you think or suggest a tactic for me to try. E-mail me at brittany.mcclure@gaflnews.com. Also, visit  and “like” me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/brittanysbudgetdiary.

Brittany D. McClure is The Valdosta Daily Times business reporter.