If you cut out coupons sometimes you don’t realize the money you’re saving and you end up spending the money that you have in your bank account anyways. What I do is after I use my coupons I go home and add up how much I saved using coupons. I then record that amount on my simple Excel spreadsheet.
What recording does is allows me to track how much I’m actually saving using coupons. But it doesn’t end there. I take my savings amount and transfer money from my checking account either to pay down debts or to move into another account or investment account.
So I get to experience the savings of the coupons when I check out and when I pay myself back or pay down my debt at home. I call this a double experience. One last note is that when I shop at target and save 5% using my target red card, I also include the 5% savings in my coupon amounts in a separate column and transfer that money same way I transfer my coupon savings
On average every time I shop for groceries and other items I save between $20 and $30 by using coupons and if I’m at target using my target card. I am not an extreme couponer but it’s still nice to save a few dollars here and there and also track my savings.