• Quick and easy changes you can make today to have more money in your pocket.
• It is NOT about depriving yourself and making depressing cut backs.
• It IS about making sure you're not wasting money, enjoying what you have, and looking for ways to have more fun!
• Be sure to check your email for the bonus surprise freebie!
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If it's your first time here, be sure to read our Introduction To Couponing article!
If you don’t already know, I, myself, am a single lady. A lot of the couponers I see are the matriarchs (mostly) of small to large families, and kids can go through SO MUCH STUFF. I don’t envy anyone trying to keep diapers on a kid, or clothes, or shoes, or baby food…. But you don’t HAVE to be the CEO of a small country to benefit from clipping those coupons. Couponing for single people is great – I’m here to tell you it’s still 100% worth it to coupon, and in some ways you might even get more out of the deal!
Table For One
First of all, cooking for one can be kind of a bummer. It’s easy to slide into the pattern of not *really* making food for yourself, or just picking something up, or randomly grazing things that aren’t very nutritious. I know from experience that for me to feel really good and maintain real health, I have to put out the effort to eat well. If I start slacking my skin is the first thing to go (hello adult acne!), followed closely by my energy level and motivation.
My first weapon in this battle is meal prepping. I’ve accumulated a handful of good and reliable recipes that make sure I’m eating enough protein and vegetables to keep myself going. Because I don’t always want to be eating the same things over and over, I make enough at once to eat some and freeze some. That way later on I future me can enjoy some lazy meals courtesy of past me. And when I’m making enough to feed a family, I can benefit from family style coupons. I can buy the family size tray of meat, and the large bag of onions, the big box of pasta with the good coupon, and so on, and split that stuff up for a while.
Surprise bill? I’ve got good dinners in the freezer, so I don’t need to shop. Lots of good coupons this week? I’ll cook some extra so future me has some time off. It’s a win-win situation, and a lot easier than trying to cook high nutrition tiny single serving amounts every day.
Quick And Easy Meals
I also make use of the amazing deals I can find on convenience snacks and quick meals. Highly nutritious granola and protein bars, lots of different kinds of mixed nuts and trail mix, yogurts, canned soups, and juices all frequently have cash back offers on Ibotta, as well as store coupons at places like Walgreens and CVS. They’re also prime for grocery stores to discount – watch the newspaper for weekly ads. There is a lot of competition in these categories, and they are basically luxury goods in most cases, so discounts and deals are common.
The Value of a Stockpile
Secondly, as a single person I still use lots of household goods. Having the stockpile of toothpaste, shampoo, paper towels, kleenex, cleaning supplies, and other completely dull basic needs means I have both incredible convenience, and a bonus level of security. It’s sort of like a rainy day fund – knowing that even if I’m short on cash for whatever reason, life will carry on mostly like normal, and I’ll never have to be crossing my fingers that my debit card doesn’t get rejected when I’m almost out of toilet paper.
Your stockpile is kind of like a savings account – just waiting for you to need it. And like a savings account, it’s smart to keep it full. But since I really don’t go through reams of paper towel every week, I can hold out for the best deals on my household products and let the “just okay” ones pass me by. There are okay coupons a lot, there are only nearly free or totally free opportunities occasionally. The more of those I can get, the more “interest” I get on my stockpile savings account.
Couponing The VERY BEST Deals
Thirdly, because I don’t have kids to support, and I do coupon my boring stuff religiously, I have more cash left over for my more discretionary buying. I like to keep a simple but professional wardrobe for work, some basics for wearing around the house, and some cute clothes for doing fun things. Most online stores have some kind of coupons available, as well as free shipping past a certain price point. By being able to accumulate more cash to use when I do need clothes, I can buy more at once and get better discounts – and I virtually never pay for shipping.
Old Navy is where I get a lot of my work clothes (because of the nature of the work I have to look nice, but it’s not impossible that what I’m wearing could be damaged or destroyed without warning, so I never want to invest a lot!) I talk about it more in my article on it, but doing one round of shopping while they’re handing out cash back, and getting just to the free shipping line, then doing another round of shopping with the cash back, is one of the best ways to leverage a whole stack of deals, but it only works if you can afford typically $60+ twice in about a month. But I get WAY more, like 2-3 times as much, as I would spending that $120 at any other time.
I understand the temptation of not putting out the effort to coupon when you’re just one person, and not the home economist of a whole group of people, but you’re really leaving a lot of money in the hands of mega-corps and short changing yourself when you do. I don’t really enjoy shopping in physical stores (online isn’t so bad), so one big couponing day every month or two, with little trips in between for super extra good deals and perishable products is all it takes for me to get the majority of the stuff I need for close to free.
• Quick and easy changes you can make today to have more money in your pocket.
• It is NOT about depriving yourself and making depressing cut backs.
• It IS about making sure you're not wasting money, enjoying what you have, and looking for ways to have more fun!
• Be sure to check your email for the bonus surprise freebie!
