The absolute BEST way to save money on grocery and household needs is to use coupons on sale items.  It is important that you know when a sale is really a sale – an item that is typically $2.59 and is on sale 2 for $5 is not really a deal.  Tip: Use the Frugal Deals Roundup to find links to coupons matched with deals on your favorite stores.

 

Now, how in the world do you actually get your hands on coupons? 

 

SUNDAY INSERTS – Buy the Sunday paper to get the coupon inserts.  In fact, buy two because you’ll need two if you are purchasing BOGO (buy one get one free) deals to get the best price. I personally get 6 papers because I tend to want more than one or two items at the sweet price I get when I do my deals. Tips: Some papers (not mine, LOL!) put their inserts in Saturday’s paper. Also, if you are in a medium to smallish town and there’s a city nearby, you may get better coupons if you purchase the city paper instead of your local one.

 

PRINTABLE COUPONS – These are coupons available online through all sorts of sources that you print out.  There are some stores that no longer accept printable coupons, so call your stores to check their policy.  Coupons.com and Smartcource.com are two sources of printables, see my sidebar for others.

 

BLINKIES, TEAR PADS, and PEELIES – There are an assortment of coupons available in-store, on or near products.  Blinkies are the coupons in the little blinking machine attached to the shelf.  Tear Pads are the pads of coupons usually found on self-standing product displays.  Peelies are coupon stickers on the actual product.

 

True story: On the last day (and late in the evening) of a sale week at Publix, I came across a blinkie machine with BOGO coupons for a particular can of cat food that happened to be on sale BOGO.  I was thrilled because (a) this made them FREE; and (b) there were still tons of coupons in the blinkie machine!  I would have “purchased” less had there been any time left of the sale (to be respectful of others wishing to get this deal), but the sale was ending in about an hour.  That said, there were still coupons left in the machine and my cat ate on that purchase for a long, long time! 

 

CATALINAS – These are the coupons that print out along with your receipt.  Winn-Dixie, Walgreens and many other (but not all) stores have them.

 

INSIDE PACKAGING – Remember to do a quick check when opening product packages. Sometimes a coupon is stuck to the inside item, sometimes it is part of the packing itself (printed on the inside of the cardboard), sometimes it is loose inside the packing.  You never know when you’ll come across these, so keep your eyes open.

 

SAMPLES – Request samples.  In most cases companies will include a coupon with the sample.

 

STORE COUPONS – Many stores offer in-house coupons on a regular basis.  Food Lion has new printable store coupons weekly; Publix has regular (though not weekly) flyers with store coupons; Target always has printables available and are updated periodically.  A store coupon CAN be used with a manufacture coupon on one item in most cases (a $1 man coupon + 50 cent store coupon gives you $1.50 off the item).  Check your store’s policy on their acceptance of competitor coupons.  Publix is awesome about accepting store coupons from Food Lion, Target, etc; including $5 off $20 CVS coupons and similar Winn-Dixie $ / $$ Catalina coupons.

 

CONTACT COMPANIES – Have you ever been less than completely satisfied with a product or food item? Or perhaps there’s a product you especially like? Let them know! Go to their website and fill out the contact form or give them a call. This gives them useful feedback and can usually net you some pretty decent coupons. 

 

Couponing To Disney offers Five A Day – quick links to five companies’ contact forms each weekday. As of this posting, I only contacted three companies from her lists and today I received a coupon for a free product, up to $4.00. Tip: You don’t have to have personal experience with a product or brand to leave a comment, so feel free to contact ALL of the companies she lists!

 

Coupon Services – Sellers on eBay and other sites offer coupon-clipping services. You cannot technically buy the coupons, so you pay for their time, effort, and postage in getting the coupons to you. This is especially great if there’s a particular product or two you use all the time and need a larger number of coupons for it.

 

 

Did I miss something? Leave a comment and let me know. 

 

 

 

 

 

Written on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Filed under Coupons & Codes, Frugal Shopping.
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