check out other papers

I was talking to family not too long ago that the major metropolitan areas seem to have better coupons. Even though some coupons are only good in your area ie restaurants, and local stores but P&G and other coupon inserts seem to have a lot more coupons than smaller cities. I am going to test this theory next weekend as we will be in St Louis and I will get back to you on how true this is.

Coffee

You know how a lot of economists say that giving up your daily latte can save you over $1000 a year well thats true but if you really want that same taste and want to save money try not only making it at home but also see if your office would chip in for an upscale coffee maker (keurig,tassimo) for around $120-$150 and the individual serving insert for different coffees and everyone can have thier favorite coffee/tea/ hot beverage as most can even make a perfect cup of hot chocolate. Yes the refill can cost more but in the long run you still save $700-$800 a year and you can hve a cup of coffee in 1-2 min which is much quicker than waiting in a drive thru at Starbucks. Also some store brand coffees rate just as high taste wise as Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts coffee, in fact Archer Farms coffee just got a national award for taste and it beat starbucks.

Not all store brands are created equal

The one true way to see if you are saving money is to see if you like the store brand of a certain product but not all store brands are the same. I personally can't stand the Walmart store brand of paper towels and toilet paper because they aren't worth the money if you use 3x as much. I tried the store brand from several places and I Love the up and up brand (formerly target brand) of toilet paper and paper towels. We occasionally still buy quilted northern if I have a good coupon, or coupons, and it is on sale and my family can't tell the difference. The same with paper towels. We did start getting the select a size and when we do use paper towels we use a lot less. We only go through about 1 roll a week now since we got a bunch of cheap white washcloths and we use those for most things. They are cheap and we just add them to our regular load of whites.
Food wise store brands are definately not created equal. I have tried Walmart coffee and Market Pantry (Target) coffee and I would much rather drink MP coffee any day. I don't care for Market Pantry chips though but you just need to try different products and getting the store brand when you are out of something and it isn't on sale can save quite a bit.
One important note especially if you shop around at different stores keep a journal of what products you like and ones you don't so you don't buy Walmart TP and your family complains until you run out.