Okay, it's a lame reference to an Elton John song, but I felt it apropos seeing as I haven't posted in a week. I've been on a short temp contracting assignment (ah, the exciting world of document review!) and now we're gearing up for a long weekend visiting friends in VA so I won't be up and posting until Monday...at the earliest!
I did fairly well at triples this past week and have made some great trades on www.hotcouponworld.com. The impending holidays have also resulted in some really wonderful winetags, tearpads and coupon booklets in stores. Always keep your eyes open for these while you're out and about shopping!
I've recently found some $1/2 Stove Top coupons as winetags, some $1/1 orange juice coupons on winetags and some wonderful ones for meat- a $2 off ham coupon on Smoking Loon wines and a $3 off chicken, beef or seafood on Ruffino wines. The $3 off meat coupon has turned into some free sirloin steak thanks to store markdowns.
Over the past few weeks, I've also run into some other forum members from HCW and savvydollar- it's always fun to put a face to a screen name!
I'll be back next week with some trip reports and store deal match-ups, I promise. I'll probably post about Black Friday deals as well. Don't know about you all, but I'm pretty excited after seeing sneak peeks of ads.
Happy Shopping All!
Showing posts with label general couponing tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general couponing tips. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Singing Rebate's Praises
Rebates are a couponer's best friend! My efforts at collecting receipts, filling out forms and mailing these in are beginning to pay off...this week we received $103 in rebate checks! Yes, it's a hassle but one that doesn't require too much time & effort.
You can really rack up the savings by timing your rebate qualifying purchases just right- buy these at their rock bottom prices with coupons and you'll more than likely make money on the deal. You'll find that it's pretty fulfilling to learn you've actually been PAID to get stuff your family needs.
If you happen upon a rebate form, take it! Keep note of all your forms. If you have a coupon binder, put a full page sleeve in with rebate form and any coupons you have on hand for qualifying items- this will be handy reminder to you to keep checking prices as you shop to see if it's a good time to buy. Be sure to put a sticky note on the page with the expiration date of offer (this is when you'll have to make your purchases by).
You can find these online, within Sunday paper inserts, on winetags and as hangtags or peelies (these will typically say "Try Me Free!"). All it will take is a few minutes of your time to fill in your name and address and a quick march to your mailbox.
You can really rack up the savings by timing your rebate qualifying purchases just right- buy these at their rock bottom prices with coupons and you'll more than likely make money on the deal. You'll find that it's pretty fulfilling to learn you've actually been PAID to get stuff your family needs.
If you happen upon a rebate form, take it! Keep note of all your forms. If you have a coupon binder, put a full page sleeve in with rebate form and any coupons you have on hand for qualifying items- this will be handy reminder to you to keep checking prices as you shop to see if it's a good time to buy. Be sure to put a sticky note on the page with the expiration date of offer (this is when you'll have to make your purchases by).
You can find these online, within Sunday paper inserts, on winetags and as hangtags or peelies (these will typically say "Try Me Free!"). All it will take is a few minutes of your time to fill in your name and address and a quick march to your mailbox.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Organizing Your Coupons
There are probably nearly just as many ways to organize coupons as there are hardcore coupon shoppers out there. The key is to experiment a bit until you find a way that works best for you and your household! After a year of coupon shopping, I've finally come up with a system that works well for me. I can't guarantee that it will work for you, but I will share in the hopes that it might help some of you who are just starting out or those who've been doing it a while and haven't yet felt like they found a good working system. Here's a little video I made illustrating my current system:
I highly recommend the use of a zippered binder for you to carry coupons to store. Some folks will use giant boxes (no I'm not kidding!) and cart these around while shopping - and this will allow for some really awesome deals when you spot stuff that's unadvertised or clearance deals but for me, personally, that is too much of a chore. I'd rather have stuff planned out ahead of time and have my coupons ready for use then lugging an oversized box around and then hunting around in it for minutes on end when shopping. Shopping with kids in tow is difficult enough as it is...especially when one is strapped to your chest while you're shopping.
My carry to store binder has a section where I can pop in receipts and copies of submitted rebate forms/receipts, a zippered section on the interior where I can put coupons that won't fit into the standard baseball card sized insert, a pair of scissors and a handheld calculator (because like the old Talking Barbie of my youth, I suck at math!). In the front of the 3 hole punched section, I have pockets for rebates which I have not yet qualified for so I can pop the receipts in when I purchase qualifying items, 3 pages of baseball card inserts for good winetags and FREE coupons that I can use wherever and then sections for each store I shop at (CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Harris Teeter, Lowe's Foods, Kroger, Food Lion, Target and Misc). My CVS section also includes all 3 of my CVS ExtraCare cards and their corresponding coupons/ECBs.
At home, I have a file system for inserts and All You Magazine coupons. These are placed in file folders labelled with date of insert/magazine- inserts are also filed by type of insert (RedPlum, Smart Source or Proctor & Gamble). When Sundays roll around, I'll tear apart each of my inserts (I typically have 10-12 on hand) and separate them based on pages so that each like page will be filed with each like page. This makes it easier to clip many of the same when needed for shopping or trades.
I used to clip every single coupon from every single insert and then file them in an oversized baseball card collector book by category (ie bread, personal hygiene, snacks etc). This just got to be too much work. You'll learn as you go that there are many coupons in the inserts that you'll never use or need. Why bother clipping if you're not going to actually use these? I switched to filing the entire insert pages unclipped and it's saved me a lot of time and hassle.
Each day, I typically get A LOT of non-insert items from trades, coupon trains (these are fun things you can join as a trader on http://www.hotcouponworld.com/) writing manufacturers for coupons or collecting blinkies/peelies/tearpads from stores. I have a separate expandable file for these that are separated alphabetically by brand name. This makes it easy to just pop them into after I receive these and also easy to recover when trading or getting ready to shop.
You can do a search on the internet for methods of organization and find hundreds of ways to do so. You'll also find that you'll usually want to tweak a method once you adopt one. Don't throw your hands up in frustration if something's not working for you- change systems or tweak the one that you have until you find something that works well for you!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Couponing 101- Lesson One
Picture me doing my best Jack Nicholson from Batman impression as I repeat a question often posed by cashiers or those behind me in the checkout lane when shopping as of late..."where does she get such wonderful coupons????"
The answer? Most in my binder come from a couponers bread and butter- that of the Sunday paper inserts. I buy multiple copies of inserts- typically 10-12 each week. Our local Walgreens sell these at 50 cents less than other stores and I've learned that some Dollar Trees will even sell them for $1! Some folks opt to "dumpster dive" for additional newspaper inserts. I am not one of those folks (but no judgments to those of you who are!) Do not bother to scoop up multiple inserts on holiday weekends as you'll find that there are no inserts to be found in a holiday weekend paper.
After couponing for awhile and frequenting various message boards, I've learned that different regions get different coupons- not only for different type of products, but the coupon's face value can even vary from region to region and paper to paper. When super doubles are around, you'll be hoping for $1 and $1.50 coupons for your staple items; when it's triples, you'll be wishing for 50 cent and 75 cent coupon for maximum savings. So how do you get the most bang for your buck? You can hope to get lucky from your paper's inserts...or you can do what I do- trade coupons to get those for the products you need in the most desirable face values!
Trading coupons can be a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. There are many sites for which you can trade coupons. There are also sites out there for "clipping services" where you can pay for certain coupons. I don't pay for coupons. Well, that is not entirely true- there are sometimes that I will make a paypal gift as part of a trade- but I don't use clipping services at all. I trade quite frequently on http://www.hotcouponworld.com/. How it typically works is you'll try to work out a trade where it's a dollar for dollar type of exchange- or as close to it as you can come (ie, if you're looking for 10- $1/1 oreo cakester coupons, your trade offer would likely be for $10 worth of coupons). You can also trade with paypal as currency like I mentioned above or for forever stamps- generally these types of trades will work out as 10 cents on the dollar for coupon value (so if you have a trade for $20 worth of coupons, you'd either trade with $2 of a paypal gift or about 5 forever stamps).
I also get coupons online. Typically, you can only print out two internet coupons from your computer/IP address for a specific item. I've grown to use these more and more. I've read that many stores are encounter lots of coupon fraud- so some merchants will not accept these entirely. I haven't yet run across a store that doesn't accept these and I really really hope I won't.
I've recently discovered another great source for coupons at Walmart. It's a magazine that is only sold there entitled "All You." I've started purchasing multiple copies and will likely continue to do so. There are some great coupons you can find in this magazine!
There are other ways of getting coupons- blinkies (those found on the beeping red coupon dispensers along a store's aisles), peelies (those found stuck to the products themselves), hangtags (those found in a hangtag on the neck of a product) and winetags (one of my personal faves as previously discussed in the blog). I'm not a big fan of the blinkie or peelie q's because many of these will not double or triple. You can tell if a coupon will automatically double or triple by looking at the barcode on the coupon- if it starts with a 5, it should double/triple, it it starts with a 9, it will not double/triple.
You can also email manufacturers of products you love and request coupons! I'm going to be doing more and more of this as several of our fave products do not typically have coupons issued in Sunday inserts or magazines.
If any of you have any other tips for hunting coupons, feel free to share!!!
There should be lots of drugstore goodies to be had this coming weekend- I will try to post what I feel to be the best finds tomorrow.
Our next couponing lesson will be ORGANIZING- a trouble spot for most of us who have accumulated an obscene amount of coupons....stay tuned!
The answer? Most in my binder come from a couponers bread and butter- that of the Sunday paper inserts. I buy multiple copies of inserts- typically 10-12 each week. Our local Walgreens sell these at 50 cents less than other stores and I've learned that some Dollar Trees will even sell them for $1! Some folks opt to "dumpster dive" for additional newspaper inserts. I am not one of those folks (but no judgments to those of you who are!) Do not bother to scoop up multiple inserts on holiday weekends as you'll find that there are no inserts to be found in a holiday weekend paper.
After couponing for awhile and frequenting various message boards, I've learned that different regions get different coupons- not only for different type of products, but the coupon's face value can even vary from region to region and paper to paper. When super doubles are around, you'll be hoping for $1 and $1.50 coupons for your staple items; when it's triples, you'll be wishing for 50 cent and 75 cent coupon for maximum savings. So how do you get the most bang for your buck? You can hope to get lucky from your paper's inserts...or you can do what I do- trade coupons to get those for the products you need in the most desirable face values!
Trading coupons can be a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. There are many sites for which you can trade coupons. There are also sites out there for "clipping services" where you can pay for certain coupons. I don't pay for coupons. Well, that is not entirely true- there are sometimes that I will make a paypal gift as part of a trade- but I don't use clipping services at all. I trade quite frequently on http://www.hotcouponworld.com/. How it typically works is you'll try to work out a trade where it's a dollar for dollar type of exchange- or as close to it as you can come (ie, if you're looking for 10- $1/1 oreo cakester coupons, your trade offer would likely be for $10 worth of coupons). You can also trade with paypal as currency like I mentioned above or for forever stamps- generally these types of trades will work out as 10 cents on the dollar for coupon value (so if you have a trade for $20 worth of coupons, you'd either trade with $2 of a paypal gift or about 5 forever stamps).
I also get coupons online. Typically, you can only print out two internet coupons from your computer/IP address for a specific item. I've grown to use these more and more. I've read that many stores are encounter lots of coupon fraud- so some merchants will not accept these entirely. I haven't yet run across a store that doesn't accept these and I really really hope I won't.
I've recently discovered another great source for coupons at Walmart. It's a magazine that is only sold there entitled "All You." I've started purchasing multiple copies and will likely continue to do so. There are some great coupons you can find in this magazine!
There are other ways of getting coupons- blinkies (those found on the beeping red coupon dispensers along a store's aisles), peelies (those found stuck to the products themselves), hangtags (those found in a hangtag on the neck of a product) and winetags (one of my personal faves as previously discussed in the blog). I'm not a big fan of the blinkie or peelie q's because many of these will not double or triple. You can tell if a coupon will automatically double or triple by looking at the barcode on the coupon- if it starts with a 5, it should double/triple, it it starts with a 9, it will not double/triple.
You can also email manufacturers of products you love and request coupons! I'm going to be doing more and more of this as several of our fave products do not typically have coupons issued in Sunday inserts or magazines.
If any of you have any other tips for hunting coupons, feel free to share!!!
There should be lots of drugstore goodies to be had this coming weekend- I will try to post what I feel to be the best finds tomorrow.
Our next couponing lesson will be ORGANIZING- a trouble spot for most of us who have accumulated an obscene amount of coupons....stay tuned!
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