Extraordinary Art of Couponing – Book Review & Giveaway

This is a travel blog I know.  Sooo, why am I reviewing a book about couponing?  Well, by using coupons and other discounts, we are able to use some of the money we save towards travel. We also use coupons during our trips. Every little bit helps.

Now, I’m sure you’ve probably heard the term “Extreme Couponing”.  When I have mentioned using coupons in the past to my colleagues or family, they automatically think that it’s extreme couponing. To a degree, I think the extreme couponer gives the average couponer a bad name.

I recently had the opportunity to review the book, “The Extraordinary Art of Couponing – The not-so-extreme way to save 50% or more,” by Nicole McDonald.

One thing Nicole has done in this book is dispel some of the myths around couponing.  Saving your household money by couponing does not mean you have to clear out an extra room in your home to store hundreds of tubes of toothpaste.  Nor, does it mean you need to spend an extra 40 hours a week cutting up coupons.  In fact, Nicole points out that by only spending 4-5 hours a week you can save up to half off your grocery bill.

I am reviewing this book as more of an intermediate-level couponer.  I’m not new to couponing. I have been using coupons off and on for most of my adult life.  My mom is a big couponer and passed the “art”of it down to me.  In saying this, in reading Nicole’s book, I still learned a great deal about making the most of my shopping trips.  By following just a couple of the tips in the book, you will definitely earn your money back in your first shopping trip.

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I saved over 50% on my recent shopping trip to Target following tips found in the book.

Nicole does a great job of organizing this book into chapters that allow you to go back and review as needed.  I would encourage those who are truly new to couponing to read the whole book through.  Then go back and decide on one store to try out your new found skills on.  This will allow you to get your feet wet and not have to worry about learning all the policies of all the stores at once.  One thing that I found very helpful  is that she shared what her stockpile prices are. These allow me to know when I see that price that this is probably the lowest I can usually expect.  Nicole has laid out the book very nicely making it very easy to follow.

In addition to her book, she also maintains a blog where she posts all of the deals for the week with coupon matchups.  You can think of the book as your instruction manual, and the website as your assistant each week as you let her do some of the the work for finding the best deals.  The website has recently been enhanced to include a coupon database.  It allows you to find if there are any coupons for the product that you are going to purchase.  Check out her website at www.momsavesmoney.net

I think this is the best overall book to get you started on saving money with coupons.  Again, as the title indicates, you don’t have to go extreme in order to save 50% or more on your grocery bill.

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Win your own autographed copy plus 200+ coupons!

Ready to start saving money on your grocery bill and more? Well it’s your lucky day!  Nicole is giving one of our readers the chance to win an autographed copy of her book, along with 200+ coupons to get you started!

If you can’t wait for the giveaway or want to purchase extras for gifts, you can also find the book for purchase in physical copy or ebook on Amazon.com.

Disclosure:  Nicole McDonald provided me a copy of the book for purpose of this review and some coupons to use for a future shopping trip.  No other compensation for the review was given.  All comments and opinions are my own.

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