You can also get other kinds of coupons in stores and gas stations. Manufacturers provide pads of coupons for stores to hang in the aisles near the products, these are called tear pads. Often tear pads are kept at customer service desks too, so ask. Feel free to take a few coupons and wait for a good sale. The best deal is not always on that product at that time you get it. Just be patient.
Sometimes coupons will be hanging from a product, like around the neck of a 2-liter of pop, these are called hang tags. Again, feel free to take a few and wait for a good sale.
And yet another place in the store is on the product itself - little stickers. These are called peelies. They are meant to be used on that product at the time of purchase. It's not appropriate to take them to use later.
Coupons can also be found in magazines, mostly women's magazines. One that is the best is All You, it is only available by subscription and at Wal-Mart. We have noticed from personal experience that the issues at Wal-Mart often contain more coupons that the subscription issues, but the convenience of a subscription is great too!
You can also order coupons from coupon clipping services. eBay is a good source for many coupon clipping services. These are individual sellers who find, cut, organize and send you coupons for a small fee. Before buying check the seller's feedback score and comments, compare overall price and figure in shipping charges. Like-coupons are usually sold in lots of 10 or 20. Search the product name and the word "coupon." This is a great way to get 10 or 20 of a specific coupon for a sale that is coming up. Just plan ahead!
Manufacturer's individual sites are often great sources of coupons too. You will usually have to give your name, address, and email or sign up for a newsletter to print the coupons. You might want to set up a separate email address dedicated to this purpose. When you do print out a coupon, try printing it again, by hitting the back or refresh button. There is usually a limit of 2 per computer.
2. Organize Coupons
There are several ways to organize coupons. Below are two of the most popular ways.
Binder Method
This is the method I use. I have a 4 inch, heavy duty binder (I paid almost $20 for it) and dividers, with 15 sections. The sections are dictated by what makes sense in my head, and how the store is organized. Some of the sections are Dairy & Eggs, Meat & Meals, Cereal & Snacks, Baby, Paper Products, Cleaning Products, Hair & Body. I store the coupons in baseball card holders, but sometimes the coupons are to big. I will often fold the coupon, or you can get pages for photo albums that will fit in a standard 3 ring binder and these offer 4"x6" space. Some people organize alphabetically and some by expiration date.
File Method
Organizing coupons can be like organizing recipes. You can use anything from an old shoe box, to a fancy recipe organizer. You can buy pre-made dividers or cut them out of cardstock. I would suggest getting something that fits in the child seat of a shopping cart and something that has a lid.
Which coupons to cut?
We recommend cutting them all! There are certain products you won't typically buy but if a sale matches up with a good coupon it may be possible to get that item really cheap, or free. We don't worry about brand loyalty anymore. One week we may use Crest, and the next Colgate. My husband took a while to come around, but when I handed him 3 free bottles of Irish Spring, he knew there was no justifying paying full price ($4.99!!) for his favorite, Lever 2000. Since coupons are usually for name-brand products, my family often enjoys them. If you do end up with FREE stuff you're not going to use, give it to another family member, friends, neighbors, a local shelter... there's always someone that needs it or knows someone that does!
Thank You & Welcome!
Lesson 1 ~ Beginning with Coupons
Lesson 2 ~ Learning the Language - Abbreviations
Lesson 4 ~ You're Almost Ready
Comments