Coupons – Where To Get Them |

Mar 21

WHERE TO GET COUPONS:

Earlier articles addressed Tips To Maximize Savings On Your Grocery Bill and Stockpiling How To’s. You have decided that you want to start using coupons to save money, but where do you start. First off you need the coupons. The better coupons you have the more you can save.

Here are some tips on where to go to start to build your coupon stockpile.

Sunday Paper (Seattle Times or Tacoma Tribune locally). Many hard core couponers get multiple copies of the Sunday papers. To start off with you might go to the Dollar stores on Sunday and pick up a copy for $1 to make sure it’s something you want to do long term. Start off slowly and you won’t overwhelm yourself.

Don’t hesitate to ask family and friends for the coupon section if they subscribe and don’t use them. The Sunday paper is the biggest and best source of coupons. It will include specific store flyers/coupons, but also inserts called Smart Source, Red Plum and P&G packed full of manufactures coupons. I have heard that some local libraries offer Sunday papers free and you will want to keep your eyes on daily deal sites like Groupon. They have recently had some great deals on paper subscriptions.

Mailers. In many areas around Seattle the Red Plum insert is sent out via regular mail. In places where it is sent in the mail it is not included in the Sunday paper. For all other locations it should be in the Sunday paper. It typically arrives with the weekly grocery flyers around mid-week. You can go here to check to see if Red Plum should be sent to you, or if you will find it in your Sunday paper. In many areas you are able to request that it be sent to you here as well.

Sift through that junk mail for coupon flyers from local stores as well (ie Target or Walmart). There are many promotions offered where you can sign up to have coupons mailed to you. These offers are often posted on deal saving blogs or company Facebook pages.

Online. There are two forms of coupons you will find online.

-One type are printable coupons. You can usually print out two copies of each coupon (print one and hit back button and refresh for a second copy). Printable coupons are a great way to start couponing. If you have a printer you are ready to go. One caution is that sometimes fraudulent printable coupons hit the internet. Be wary of really high value printable coupons ($5 off) and pdf coupons. Not all of them are frauds, but you run a higher risk. Stores reserve the right to not accept any coupon they feel may be fraudulent, so you risk them not accepting these kinsd of coupons even if they are legit.

- The other are coupons that you load on to your grocery store loyalty cards or cell phone. I will go into more detail on how to use eCoupons in a separate article later this week.

All You - There is also a magazine that is sold exclusively through Walmart or on a subscription basis (less then $3 a copy), that is full of high value coupons (most are at least $1). This is a favorite of couponers, you easily recoup the cost of the magazine once you use just a couple of coupons. There are some good subscription deals that come along every so often (particularly through Amazon – see All You (1-year auto-renewal $19.95)).

In Stores - Keep a keen eye out when shopping. Stores often carry what are called blinky machines (machines that dispense manufactures coupons). There are also tear pads, peelies (coupons on products) and Catalinas (I will also discuss these in more detail in a subsequent post).

Comment if you have other great tips on where you get your coupons!