Making it hip to clip -- coupons

GAINESVILLE, Va. -- They call themselves extreme coupon users.

And they want to help you become one, too.

Heather Porter and Brooke Turner started "Hip to Clip Coupons," a business aimed at helping people learn to use, and to love, coupons.

The women, who live in Haymarket and Gainesville, started clipping coupons to help their families save money. With children ranging in age from toddlers to teens, they started to learn about good deals for all ages.

Soon, people started to notice.

"We'd be saving 60 to 80 percent on our bill every time we went to the grocery store," said Turner. "People kept asking us, 'How do you do that?'"

To answer that question, Porter, who works as a piano teacher, and Turner, a former Prince William County teacher, started teaching how-to classes at local community club houses a few years ago.

Last month, they started a blog to offer money-saving tips and to point out good deals.

Their goal is to show people how to save money, and how to have fun doing it, Turner said.

Many people associate clipping coupons with being on a tight budget, Turner said, but that's not always the case.

"You can still enjoy life while saving," Turner said.

"Neither of us keep a budget, because there's really no need," said Porter. "By using coupons and finding good deals, we're saving enough money already."

Porter and Turner are both avid coupon-clippers and deal-hunters and both often save as much as 80 percent on their grocery trips, they said.

Turner said her best shopping trip was the time she went to an area grocery store, bought a shopping cart full of food, and the store actually owed her $14.86.

The key is knowing how to combine coupons with sales and other special discounts to maximize your savings, they said.

"To us it's art form, it really is," Turner said. "It kills me to go somewhere and pay full price for something."

Porter agreed.

"We're just really passionate about it," she said. "We tell our friends you're crazy not to use coupons."

As busy mothers, Porter and Turner said they don't have a lot of spare time. Porter is a mother of five kids ages 14, 12, 10, 7 and 5 and Turner has three young children, ages 11 months, 3 and 4. So they clip coupons whenever they can, sometimes while sitting at the pool or on the sidelines of a sporting event.

At the grocery store, they shop with big binders filled with coupons, sorted by product and category.

"People see [us] in the grocery store and they want to know how we do it. Husbands will come up to us and say 'My wife needs to do that,'" Porter said.

The women teach two classes, one about how to get started with coupons, and one about how to find good deals in other places. Their next class will be held Aug. 12 at the Piedmont clubhouse in Haymarket. The cost is $25.

For more information or to sign up, visit hiptoclipcoupons.blogspot.com.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-530-3908.