The Coupon Game

I remember as a child going grocery shopping with my father. Yes...Dad did the grocery shopping. He would go with a list, but he would just pull stuff off the shelves. This was great when I was in the teenage "experiment with the hair and makeup" phase (it was the 80s, so sue me), but he never looked at sales or coupons. He just didn't think coupons or sales were worth it. If he needed it, he just got it.

This seems to be a common thought process. Quite a few people I know never touch the coupon section of their paper or look at the store specials. Most of them have never heard of coupon codes, and don't understand why you would actively seek them out. This is something I have been changing in myself and all my friends.

Coupons are your friends! They are a way to seriously save on everything you purchase, everywhere you go. They are even better when you combine them with the sale circulars from your local stores. Let me explain by giving an example.

Today I was flipping through the paper and found the Target circular (we love Target) and saw that they have a variety of Kashi items on sale. This always catches my eye because we love their cereals, cereal bars, and frozen foods, but they are pricey. Too pricey to get without a sale or coupons in my humble opinion, no matter how good they are. This, however is a REALLY good deal. $2.88 an item, and if you purchase 5 you get a $5 Target gift card. Sounds pretty good, right? I can make it better with the magic of COUPONS. Whenever we see those coupons lying about in dispensers at the grocery store, we grab at least 3 for any product we get on a regular basis even if we aren't buying any that day. Boy does that pay off, like it will later this morning. We have a variety of coupons for anywhere from $0.75 to $1.oo off Kashi items. This means that we will get our Kashi products for $2.13 to $1.88 each, plus we get a $5 card for every 5 items we buy. If you take that into account, we are getting the Kashi items for $1.13 or $0.88 EACH!!!!! Not too shabby, right? Plus, it really didn't take that much effort to do.

This kind of thing can apply to ANYTHING you buy. Another example should illustrate this. Being female, I am always on the lookout for a good priced bra. Hey, those things are EXPENSIVE! Anyway, I was out on the Internet perusing my favorite freebie sites (more on that in a later post), and I saw a good deal listed for a Victoria's Secret bra, lotion, and panty for $11. That, my friends, is a deal. When I looked at how the deal was done, this was what I had to do. I added the appropriate bra and panty to my cart, then when I got to check out I put in three codes (Victoria's Secret allows 3 coupon codes per order). One code was for a percentage off, one was for the free lotion, and one was for the free panty. After that, I checked out to a grand total of $11.65 for the WHOLE THING!!! I may not have needed the lotion, but that could go into a box I've started to keep for stocking stuffers or quick gifts. FREE IS FREE!!!!

The trick with coupons is learning how to use them to their maximum. First, find out how your local store handles coupons. Do they double? Do they have triple coupon days? Do they double all your coupons? (This is a big one in my area because one store I go to only doubles one coupon for any item, and you only get face value for the rest on the same item.) Can you use multiple coupons on the same item? (Most of the time this only works if you have a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon.) The BIG thing to look for at any store you shop at is if they have a store savings card. Most of the time these are free. We had to pay to join at a local health store, but they gave us a coupon for that amount to use in the store on anything, so it was essentially free to join. Those savings cards really help, and sometimes give you bonus advantages beyond special sales. Some will total up your purchases and then give you money off a purchase. Most of the time, they will allow you access to coupons you can pre-load on your card (once you register it on the Internet) to use at the store, and you can typically stack that with another coupon. I've also entered instant win contests, and had coupons for the full price of items loaded on my card. Hey, free frozen pizza is a free dinner!

The next step with coupons is to check your circulars. It seems like a pain, but for about 15 minutes worth of planning your shopping list, you can get at least 20% off your order on average. First, try to only buy things on sale so you are starting with a discounted price. Then check your coupons. Most stores will only double a coupon that has a face value of $0.50 or less. Grab as many of those $0.50 coupons as you've got so you can get an additional $1 off each sale item. Also, check for buy one, get one free offers. You can use 2 coupons, even if you are technically only paying for one item.

Now here comes the part that people get squeamish about...talk to the people in the store and actively seek them out. When you see an item that says something like "3 for $5", ask if they price has already been reduced on each item to reflect that price, or if you actually have to buy 3 to get the special price. Most of the time, you can get the special price on just one item. Plus, you typically only have to talk to the store people once about this because they can let you know what the store policy is about this type of special.

To acquire coupons, there are several methods. The first, and most common, is to get your Sunday paper. They typically have coupon flyers in there and you can do the traditional clip and save. The other place to look for more coupons is to check your magazines. They have been putting inserts into magazines now, and occasionally printing them on the pages. You can check in stores for the dispensers. Most of the time, those coupons are good for a couple months, and there should be one sale on that item in that time frame. The Internet is my favorite place to look now.

Yes, you will have to get online and be prepared to print!!! There are coupon sites like SmartSource.com, RedPlum.com, and others out there. You can search for other sites, like SavingsMania.com, that have a more diverse set of coupons than just grocery. Some sites like this one keep track of mail-in offers and rebates as well as standard coupons to print. Also, requesting free samples from companies is a good way to get coupons, as they tend to enclose a coupon with the sample (and a pretty good one at that.) The best place to get high value coupons is from the companies themselves. Any name brand product you use or ever think of purchasing, go to their website and sign up for their e-mail list. Yeah, you are going to get a lot of e-mails, but you will get links to coupons that the general public won't. Sometimes they even send you coupons for a free full size product when they introduce new items. It's worth the extra 5 minutes deleting e-mails to get those coupons.

I know that this post has mostly been about dealing with grocery coupons. I promise, I'll get to online coupons soon. I'm just so geeked to get my list together and go get my deals at the grocery store today! Time to go freak out the Target cashier with how cheap I'm getting my Kashi for! Time to go play.