For some shoppers, couponing seems like a dirty word for someone who is cheap. You probably think of a shopper in front of you in line at the grocery store pulling of wads of cut-up paper from flyers and using them to save on a cart full of food. While many might turn their nose up at this, those people using the coupons are actually the smart ones, so don’t be so quick to judge.

Becoming a couponer is not a laughing matter, and while you don’t need to take it to the extremes of carrying around what feels like a novel worth of savings on grocery items, there is much to be celebrated about when it comes to utilizing coupons for the betterment of your budget. Not only that, but the future of shopping is online, which makes it much easier to find deals without the hassle.

Using coupons is a lot more complicated than it seems for some, but the core tenants of couponing are still the same – finding the best deals and cutting down your expenses. Here are some excellent tips to help you get the most out of your couponing attempts.

Find Useful Rewards

Not all coupons are great, not all coupons are bad. There isn’t much of a fine line as savings are still savings, but sometimes saving $0.50 isn’t really doing much in your favor. This old navy coupon is what you should look for in a coupon, and there is plenty of reason to look for coupons in a similar manner. The useful rewards you should look for are cashback and points rewards. These will help you save more money and earn more back for future purchases, especially for places you routinely shop.

Use ‘Em if You Got ‘Em

If you ever feel like there isn’t a good time to use coupons – you’re wrong. Not to sound harsh, but you probably aren’t doing a great job of saving because you’re self-conscious about using coupons. No one wants to look cheap, but it’s the people who couldn’t care less that are laughing at the end of the day when they finish grocery shopping for a fraction of what you spent all because of pride. Money talks, so let yours shout by using as many coupons as you can when you go out for groceries or go clothing shopping. People might call you cheap, but who’s the one saving money? You are.

Stack, Stack, and Stack Away

On the topic of using your coupons when you have them, you should learn about what coupon stacking is. Coupon stacking is the art within the art of couponing where you use multiple coupons to build even bigger savings. Turning a savings of 20% into 35% is really easy when you start using more coupons. You can even sometimes get over 50% savings when you use certain coupons to stack. Not every store will allow it, but more often than not, you can use a few coupons to add to your total savings. Stacking is a really simple but effective technique to make your coupons work for you.

Turn Spam Into Savings

How often do you check your spam folder in your emails? Never, would be the most common answer, and why would you? There’s usually nothing there, right? Wrong, there’s probably a massive collection of flyer deals for plenty of stores you shop at on the regular online that contains a plethora of deals that you could have been taking advantage of. The spam you get might be newsletters and deals you signed up for by simply giving a store your email address, this is something you need to be more conscious of so that you can get the coupon and promotional deals they’re sending you. Stop letting that spam folder build up with useful deals, and use them!

Go Big or Go Home

If you’re making big purchases, like things over $100-200, then you really should be considering how you’re letting your bank account down by not using coupons anytime you make these purchases. Those are even small consider the cost of other things, but when you shop for stuff past that value threshold, the savings get bigger with the use of coupons. Scour the internet for as many coupons as you can find, stack them if possible, and you could be making significant savings. It’s also a really smart idea that when you do go big or go home with couponing, you try to find good coupons with those high percentage savings. 50% and higher is when you start to see really good savings, and they’re not always the most common. But the thing is, you can still find plenty of coupons that will be cutting off a significant amount of retail cost for your purchases.

The Internet Is Your Friend

God bless the internet and all it has to offer in the way of online shopping discounts. Coupons are no longer just relegated to newspapers and flyers, they’re everywhere in the online marketplace, which means you need to do your part to hunt them down. Of course, you can check your spam folder or promotions folder of your email inbox, but you also need to use sites that help find coupons for you. These services do a tremendous job of doing the heavy lifting in finding the coupons and promo codes. The best part is that sometimes they even automatically apply them to your purchase so you don’t even have to think about it. You should always double-check that you’re getting the best possible deal from the coupon, but still, pretty cool, no?

Couponing is nothing to be ashamed about and anyone who still views it as an activity for little old ladies to spend their time collecting pieces of paper is getting left in the dust by paying full price on their purchases. Anything from the essentials of groceries and gas to clothing and entertainment products can be relieved by using coupons to help save money.