By the time Faye Prosser’s children are out of high school, Faye, a stay-at-home mom, expects to have saved enough money to pay off the mortgage on their home in Cary, N.C. What’s the secret to such success? Grocery-store coupons.

Before she began her coupon campaign a few years ago, Faye, 38, was spending about $150 a week to feed her family — daughters Emma and Hannah, now 5 and 7, and her husband, Jason, 40, an environmental consultant. Today, she averages less than $50 a week for the same amount of food — and saves more than $5,000 a year!

“And we’re not just eating beans and wieners and frozen foods every night,” says Faye, who has condensed all her coupon cunning into The Smart Spending Guide and runs a Web site, smartspendingresources.com, devoted to couponing. “The key is to maximize savings on staples so you can afford other good foods, such as organic vegetables, that tend not to be discounted.”

Three out of four Americans use coupons at the grocery store, but clearly we could be doing better: Of the $300 billion worth of coupons offered each year, only 1 percent are redeemed, according to Claire Rosenzweig, president of the Promotion Marketing Association. Here’s how to increase your coupon savings.

Hunt and Gather All the Coupons You Can

• Watch for your local grocers’ printed flyers, and sign up online to receive their e-mailed coupons.
  
• Coupons typically appear in newspapers on Wednesdays and Sundays. Buy two copies of the papers, or ask nonclipping friends or co-workers to give you theirs.
  
• If you love a particular product, call a manufacturer’s toll-free number or e-mail the company and request a coupon. (A third of manufacturers offer coupons only upon request.) Many will also send a free sample.
  
• Download free coupons from sites such as smartsource.com, valpak.com, coolsavings.com and coupons.com.
  
• Keep an eye out for coupons printed on sales receipts and product packages, and at in-store “blinkies” — the flashing lights next to a product on sale where you can print out coupons on the spot.
  
• Let others do the clipping: On any given day, there are dozens of auctions on eBay for packets of coupons, some available for as little as $1, which have been assembled
  by diligent clippers. (It’s actually illegal to sell coupons, but people can charge for their time and effort.)

Game the System

• Put your efforts into finding the best values in coupons. In the hierarchy of good deals, the BOGO (buy one, get one free) ranks at the top, followed by coupons that offer a discount on a single item and coupons that require the purchase of several items to qualify for redemption. Be wary of coupons that offer, say, a 10 percent discount if you buy 10 units of the same product. They may go stale before you have a chance to use all of them.
  
• Intense competition among stores has forced many to double and triple their redemption of a coupon’s stated value. Some do it every day, others during special promotions. Save your coupons for these bonus events (keeping in mind expiration dates). The multiple paybacks often total more than the cost of the products, meaning the store owes you!
  
• Watch for sellouts on products you have coupons for but didn’t intend to buy immediately. Then get a rain check. You create an expiration-free sale for yourself.

Stay Organized

• Packaging can be confusing, so keep a ledger of the best unit prices you have found for foods and household items you purchase regularly: You’ll know immediately whether a 128-oz. box of cereal is a better value than a 64-oz. one. Clip a small calculator to the book so you can factor in coupon discounts, divide the price by the number of units and compare it to the figures in your price book. Be aware that a store’s published unit price changes regularly and is often outdated.
  
• If you build up a cache of coupons for a variety of products, you can hold off on redeeming them until the items go on sale to max out your savings. Plan your weekly menus based on this strategy and, whenever you can, aim for the trifecta: multiple purchases of an item on sale on a day the grocery is tripling coupons.
  
• Keep your coupons in a book that you stash in your purse or car so you’re ready for unplanned shopping trips. Lay them out so they match the order in which you shop at the store.
  
• Don’t pass up the rebate. Many customers buy a product because of a promised rebate of a dollar or two but never take the time to send it in. Don’t join the crowd! Those dollars can add up.