It's never too early to teach your kids how to be good coupon users! My kids know that if they want that special cereal, those cookies or the SpongeBob fruit snacks, they'll have to wait until I have a coupon (and, preferably, until the item goes on sale.) 
Yesterday I took Mr. Third Grader to the supermarket. I try not to do that, as I spend way more money when I bring any of the kids to the store with me. But sometimes there's just no other way. We're having a picnic on Sunday, so I had lots of soda on my shopping list. It became an opportunity for me to teach him a lesson about unit pricing. Coke was on sale with 24-packs priced at $5.99 and 12-packs 4/$12 (if you bought 4). The larger packs had "peelie" coupons attached--"save $1 now." Mr. Third Grader is good at math, so I had him calculate the price of each 12-pack, then compare the price of two 12-packs to the 24-pack with coupon. He could easily see that the larger pack was the better deal.
Mr. Third Grader joined the library's Summer Reading Club this year, and for every two hours he spent reading, he was allowed to pick a prize at the library. Most of these prizes were junk like bouncy balls and fake bugs. This year, he skipped the junky toys and moved right on to coupons for free Happy Meals at McDonald's or ice-cream cones at a local shop. Of course, he was thrilled to have the chance to go and redeem those coupons and get his treats.
I bought an Entertainment Book for Mr. College Bound. If he uses only a few of those coupons, it will make up the purchase price of the book. And since he earned his own spending money this summer, he'll appreciate the opportunity to save some of it when he buys his pizzas and movie tickets.
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