You. Yes, you. The one with $6.27 left in Flex and a looming shut off notice from the National Bank of Mom and Dad. Your stomach rumbles from lack of Chick-Fil-A in 2 days and the cashier at Starbucks hasn't seen you in a week. As you stare into the mirror tonight and brush your teeth, I ask you to do one thing: think about how much you pay for everything you use.

Our medicine cabinets, fridges, and drawers are essentially money pits. The average American spends almost $600 a year on personal care supplies alone. For a college student, that's about 3 books and a whole lot of Domino's Pizza. You can't just skip out on buying toothpaste and deodorant, but you can cut your costs down by nearly 90% through the wonderful world of couponing.

We've all seen the TLC show "Extreme Couponers" and watched in awe as their totals dropped from $400 to the store owing THEM money. I'm here to tell you that could be you.

Coupons are basically currency that you can find online, in newspapers, and on apps. The practice of couponing is not widely practiced because many people don't find the time to clip coupons or are too ashamed to do so. But what if I told you you could get toothpaste, shampoo, and even food, for free. Stores such as Harris Teeter and Food Lion are common places to use coupons and have coupon-friendly policies. Many stores practice coupon doubling where a coupon for an item valued at X price is doubled. So, if a coupon is for $0.75 off one item, it doubles to $1.50. It's your lucky day if the item just so happens to be $1.50 and now you have free Ramen noodles for a week. Harris Teeter does a monthly 3 day event where coupons valued at $2.00 or under are automatically doubled, meaning a $2.00 coupon becomes valued at $4.00. That makes items like Tide Pods and Hot Pockets FREE or under $1.

Couponing isn't just a selfish act, it can be used for good. From my stock pile of items that I have gotten for free (or virtually so) I donated half for natural disaster relief in Puerto Rico and Mexico. My donation featured 15 adult and children's toothbrushes, 7 bags of Tide Pods, 50 packages of Ramen Noodles, and a plethora of feminine care items, all at no cost to me. For those who want to give back but have limited funds to do so, this is a good practice to take part in.

While many of you won't become the next Extreme Couponers star, it's important to start somewhere. I encourage you to look online, find coupons for items you need or like, and use them. You're not going to get everything for free, but saving money on items you have to buy allows you to have the money for other life experiences and responsibilities. With the money you save, one day you could travel the world.