Christa Robinson, The Telegraph’s new in-house extreme couponer, shares saving secrets through a new Sunday Telegraph feature that shows it pays to read the paper.

“Sunday Couponing with Christa,” a Telegraph sales flier and coupon alert newsletter, details Robinson’s research on where to redeem Sunday Telegraph coupons at local locations with the best deals.

“It’s amazing, what (Robinson) does,” said Shana Hoch, The Telegraph’s vice president of digital media. “I would not be able to dedicate hours to this, but the way she breaks it down, it just makes you go ‘Wow!’”

Every Thursday, Robinson, a single copy merchandiser with The Telegraph, reviews advance copies of the coupon inserts to be included in the Sunday Telegraph. She compares those with sales fliers that run in Thursday and Sunday papers, and matches up the coupons to find the biggest bang for your buck.

“She’ll say for example, ‘Hey, there’s a really good deal on Pepsi for buy one, get one. If you use that at CVS, they’re having a sale this week,’ so you can match up the coupon to the store,” Hoch said. “You get those extreme savings without doing all the work.”

Now, readers can access Robinson’s savings secrets by visiting The Telegraph’s coupon page or by signing up for a free newsletter e-mailed every Sunday morning. Visit www.nashuatelegraph.com/coupons to sign up for the weekly e-mail alert or to view the current newsletter.

For Robinson, who has been couponing for 10 years, the process is simple and the savings are huge, she said.

“I probably don’t spend a lot of time on it anymore,” Robinson said. “I work two jobs now, and I have kids. I probably spend maybe two hours a week, if that. … I’m just trying to save money, but I don’t work full time any longer, so in order to make ends meet I coupon. Grocery-wise, I save 50-80 percent every time I go to the store.”

In “Sunday Couponing with Christa,” Robinson also totals up the savings to be made each week through The Telegraph’s Sunday inserts.

Last Sunday, she shared ways readers could save more than $300 by redeeming coupons at the right places.

Using abbreviations such as “GM” for General Mills inserts, “EB” for CVS Extra Bucks and WYB for “when you buy,” Robinson breaks down hundreds of deals happening in Greater Nashua, making a simple science out of coupon shopping.

“The abbreviations have always been out there,” Robinson explained. “Any couponer knows B1G1F – ‘Buy one, get one free.’ It’s just something that you learn along the way.”

But Robinson also knows the tricks of the trade that many amateur couponers might miss when they take tips from shows such as TLC’s “Extreme Couponing.”

“‘Extreme Couponing’ is very misleading; you can’t go in and use the same coupon for 30 or 40 units of a product,” Robinson said. “They limit your usage, so I do several trips.”

Robinson said she probably shops three or four times a week to make the most of her coupon stock, but she never pays more than $50 a trip. She also keeps a huge stockpile of product at home. Robinson never pays for things such as toothpaste, toilet paper and deodorant, thanks to her coupon savvy.

“She makes it so simple for the reader and user to redeem the money,” Hoch said. “She even puts in quirky little things in there, like ‘be careful if you use’ certain deals at certain stores. She knows all the tricks, things most people would never even realize.”

The Telegraph’s coupon page and newsletter officially launched last week. Since it started, 400 people have signed up to receive the Sunday morning e-mail, Hoch said.

“The reason we’re doing it is with the economy harder, more people are looking to save more money when they’re shopping,” Hoch said, adding that “84 percent of the market still reads the inserts in the newspaper, so we wanted to see how we could connect the two and offer real ways people could save.”

The newsletters are e-mailed to the distribution list at 6 a.m. every Sunday, just before the Sunday paper hits readers’ doorsteps, said David Jordan, single copy sales manager at The Telegraph.

Sunday Telegraphs usually average about two inserts a week, with some 10 pages of coupons, Jordan said. But inserts vary from weekend to weekend.

Last Sunday, inserts included coupons from Smart Source, Red Plum, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi-Co’s “Moments to Save” and Hasbro-Playskool’s “Take Time to Play.”

Savings usually average about $100 a week, Jordan said. On a good week, people can save a couple hundred dollars, he added.

The best way readers can save is to subscribe to the Telegraph, Jordan said, as home-distributed newspapers are the only papers guaranteed to have all the coupon inserts for that weekend. Daily subscriptions allow readers to take advantage of sales fliers in Thursday and Sunday papers as well as the Sunday coupons.

“A good couponer usually picks up the Thursday and the Sunday, because they want to get the best savings,” Jordan said.

People who purchase a newsstand newspaper may not always get all the coupons, Jordan said.

“There’s no guarantee that the newsstands have any of the inserts,” Jordan said. “When these companies buy advertising through us, they buy it by the amount of papers they’d like. We have 21,000 subscribers, give or take, and companies usually give us 21-23,000 inserts. If they give us the 21,000, we have enough to cover home delivery. If they give us 23,000, we usually have enough to cover most stores, but not always all.”

Coupon inserts also are stolen out of Sunday Telegraphs all too often, Hoch said. The coupon stealing “is something that we are aware of, and we do what we can to not have people stealing things out of the paper,” Hoch said. “We encourage the people who are interested in buying the paper for the coupons to make sure they’re in there before they buy.”

The Telegraph also has started a $10 service where customers can call ahead to reserve bundles of 10 Sunday papers to be put aside with home delivery papers, Jordan said, to ensure that those papers include all the coupon inserts. People can call The Telegraph’s customer care center at 594-6465 to reserve bundles on a first come, first served basis, and then pick up the papers at The Telegraph the following Monday.

“The coupons are usually good for a month or so,” Jordan said.

For people like Robinson, couponing is the only way to shop. And Robinson loves sharing her secrets with those who can use them.

“I think in this day and this economy right now, everybody should be saving,” Robinson said. “I don’t want my friends or other people having to pay full price for something if they can get a good deal on it. I think that’s kind of silly.”

Maryalice Gill can be reached at 594-6490 or mgill@nashuatelegraph. Follow Gill on Twitter (@Telegraph_MAG).