Thursday, February 25, 2010

Couponing for Beginners: Lesson 1


I decided to start doing some posts on how to get started using coupons! After much talk to with some friends lately, I realized that there are a lot of people who just don't understand how coupons work and how much money they can really save you! So, lets start with the basics:

What are coupons?
I think most people think of coupons as discounts, which they are, but they are so much more than that. Coupons are a form of tender. They are just like cash to a store, actually they're better than cash to a store (no matter what the cashiers want you to think). The reason I say this is because when a store takes a manufacturer's coupon for an item that you are purchasing, they not only get reimbursed the face value of that coupon, but they also get reimbursed a handling fee for that coupon. The handling fee is usually around $0.08. However, stores do not mail out these coupons individually. They mail them out at the end of the month in bulk, so they pay way less than $0.08 per coupon to mail, but they still get reimbursed that money. So, companies actually make money off coupons, and you are getting a great price on an item, and the manufacturers are getting you to try their products. It makes for a win-win-win situation!
I know that when I first starting using coupons, I felt guilty about getting such great deals. Like, I was hurting the store that took the coupons. It took me a while to understand that coupons actually benefit the stores that accept them. So, when you walk out of a store with all of your free, or cheap items, you don't have to feel like you've done something wrong. The stores would not accept coupons if they were not making money off of them, trust me!
I hope I didn't confuse anybody!

Ok, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about where to get coupons! Coupons are everywhere!

The Sunday newspaper is a must for anybody getting started into couponing. It is full of great coupons! The best way to be able to stock up on items when they are a great price is by having multiples of the same coupons. This means that you may want to purchase more than one newspaper each week. I can't recommend a number on how many papers people should buy at a time, I usually buy 4 or 5 depending on what coupons are available that week. Which brings me to another great tip! You can look online here in advance to see what coupons are coming out in the next sunday paper, that way you can better judge how many papers you want to purchase.

Another great way to get coupons is to print them offline. There are several sites you can do this from. Here are some of my favorites
Coupons.com
Redplum.com
Smartsource.com

If you want to find a coupon for a specific item, try going to the manufacturer's website directly. Companies often put printable coupons for their products on their websites.

You can also print store coupons (coupons to be used at specific stores) from those store websites. Target posts prinitable store coupons on their webpage, and Foodlion posts weekly store coupons to their website as well!

Check your receipts! At various stores, coupons will print at the end of your receipt! CVS, and Target do this to name a couple. Also, some stores have machines that print out coupons based on the items you buy. These are called catalinas and the cashier's will usually hand them to you with your receipt. Don't disregard these, they can be great coupons.

While your in a store, keep your eyes out for coupons everywhere! There are often tearpads with coupons that you can rip off and use, these are typically located with the item that the coupon is good for. There are also smart source "blinkie" machine's in most grocery stores. These machine's are also often located with the item that they are for.
Also, a lot of manufactures attach coupons directly on a product, these are called "peelies" and can be used on that product at the time of purchase.

You can also find coupons in various magazines. And you can get coupons in the mail, by signing up for them online, I will try to post links to these whenever they are available.

So, now that you know where to get coupons, stay tuned for part 2 and I will try to teach you how to use them to maxamize your savings!
Thanks for reading!

Where have I been?!


Wow! It has been way too long since I've posted to my blog! I'm so sorry! I've been so busy! After graduating from nursing school, I started this blog in my free time that I had while I was searching for a job. Well, guess what?! I got a job!
I started working at a long term care facility in August and my free time went out the window!
I'm just now getting to a point where I feel settled in my new role as a full time nurse, and I'm finding a good balance between working and being a wife. So, I decided I could add blogging back into the mix!
I look forward to updating you all on the latest deals and coupons available!
Thanks for reading!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

New Food Lion deal!

I was at food lion today to get more Chef Boyardee and Hawaiian Punch, and I stumbled upon another great deal! Two liter Dr. Peppers are on sale for $0.99, and they have $0.55/1 peelies on them! So, you can snag a 2 Liter Dr. Pepper for $0.44 scent after coupon! That's a great price to stock up on some two liters! The peelies are bright yellow and very noticable!

Kmart Pictureka Deal!

K-Mart has an awesome deal going on right now! The Pictureka! card game is on sale for $5.99! There is a $5/1 coupon here. There is also a coupon for $5 off of a $20 or more toy purchase at K-Mart here.
Here's the deal scenario my sister and I used when we went to K-Mart today:

Buy 4 Pictureka! card games $5.99 each
Buy one other toy priced at a little over $1.00

Use K-Mart $5 off $20 toy purchase
Use 4 $5/1 Pictureka! coupons

Final price depends on price of the other toy you buy. We purchased a Pet Shop toy for my sister's daughter and our total was right around $3.00, so basically we got all that for the price of one toy. Your total could be cheaper if you chose a cheaper toy than we did, and you can use this K-Mart coupon on clearance toys as well!

Monday, June 29, 2009

Great Food Lion Deals!

Here's my favorite deal at Food Lion this week!

There are two FLIPs out this week that I've been using!

One is for a FREE gallon of Hawaiian Punch when you buy 2 cans of Chef Boyardee!
The other is for a FREE can of Chef Boyardee when you buy one gallon of Hawaiian punch! And YES you can use these together! You can print these FLIPS from here.

Here's my deal scenario and YES it does work I've already done it!:

Buy 2 cans of Chef Boyardee and one gallon of Hawaiian Punch.
Chef Boyardee is on sale for $1.00 each this week
Hawaiian Punch is on sale for $2.00 for a gallon
Total before coupons with be $4.00

The coupon for a free can of Chef Boyardee when you buy a gallon of Hawaiian Punch will take off $1.00
The coupon for a free gallon of Hawaiian punch when you buy two cans of Chef Boyardee will take off $2.79 (because this is the retail price of a gallon of Hawaiian Punch).

My total after using these coupons was $0.35 for two cans of Chef Boyardee and One Gallon of Hawaiian Punch!

This a great price to stock up with! My husband loves Chef Boyardee! He's a kid at heart! I will be taking advantage of this deal to stock up! The coupons don't expire until July 7th!

Freebies in the mail!

Today was a fantastic mail day today! I'm kind of addicted to free samples so I look forward to checking the mail everyday!
Today I got:
Free sample of Degree for men deodorant
Free sample of Jack Daniels Barbecue sauce
Free sample of RohtoV eye drops
Free Cookbook from Nakano, and a coupon for a free bottle of Nakano Rice Vinegar! YAY!
I also got a check for $25.00 from the Taco Bell Blast for Cash contest that I won a few weeks ago!

A few days ago I got a gift certificate to Outback in the mail, from a nice reader! So, now I'm thinking that me and my Husband might be able to have a nice night out on the town with out Outback gift certificate, or I also still have my BOGO Ruby tuesday coupon, and now I have $25 from Taco Bell! YAY!

What a great Mail day!

Wow! It's been awhile!

Sorry, it's been so long without a post! I've been busy with housework and studying and job hunting!
I just thought I'd give an update on how we celebrated our anniversary!
On Wednesday (which was our four year anniversary!) David took off of work early and surprised me at home with a movie that I had been wanting to see! The movie was not good, but it was so nice to have my husband home and to cuddle up with him, especially when I was not expecting it!
On Friday night we had a bunch of friends over to hang out at our house! It was a very nice night and I got to be hostess which is something I love doing! I prepared all the food and spent hours that day cleaning and getting everything ready! It was a very nice night!
We had wanted to go out to celebrate, but we couldn't afford to! However, I don't think we could have had a better time even if we did have money! We had a blast and I can't wait for our five year anniversary!