Sunday, September 6, 2009

Coupon Resources

The most common sources of coupons are the inserts that come in your Sunday paper.  What most people don't realize is how buying multiple papers each Sunday will allow you to have multiple coupons to stock up on needed items at rock bottom prices.  I know before Sunday rolls around what coupons should be in my Sunday paper and this helps me plan how many I will purchase.  How do I know what coupons will be available?  I check the following websites: 
http://www.taylortownpreview.com/
http://www.thecouponclippers.com/ (click on tracker)
http://www.swaggrabber.com/ (check into her forums)

Even then, I live in a fairly coupon poor area, so I purchase my papers at my local Walgreens or Rite Aid, where I can check the coupons out before I purchase the papers.  I also use thecouponclippers to supplement whatever "good" coupons I do/did not get in my papers.  I have been doing this coupon thing so long that I generally know what coupons we never get (Huggies diapers, but we always get pullups) that I know what coupons to buy as soon as she puts them up on Friday night.  Sometimes, this is cheaper than purchasing more than 2-3 papers, sometimes it is worth it to use my register rewards at Walgreens to purchase as many as 5 papers, it just depends upon the week. 

You can also get coupons from the internet.  Coupons.com and smartsource.com are excellent resources of printable internet coupons.  These two sites generally reset at the beginning of the month and the best coupons go very quickly.  Each coupon can be printed twice from the same computer/ISP address.  There are also thousands of other coupons available on the internet, these can be found through the hotcouponworld.com coupon database by selecting "printable" as the source of the coupon.  Another tracker is the website couponloop.com, but I find many of their links expired.

Many companies will mail you coupons, too.  Huggies, similac, enfamil, and the grocery store Kroger are good examples of this.  Simply go to their websites, sign up, and here come your coupons.  Walmart has a free sample program that will send you their available samples that you select and generally there is a coupon with that item.  Vocalpoint is a product testing/review company that sends you coupons to try products for free and then also sends you coupons for a specified dollar off amount for the same product.  This is a great program!  Go to http://www.vocalpoint.com/ to see if they are accepting more members.

Store coupons are a great source of phenomenal savings when combined with manufacturer's coupons.  Up until this point I have only discussed manufacturer's coupons, because those are the vast majority of coupons available, but there are some great deals to be had at stores like Target, CVS, Walgreens, Riteaid, Kroger, and Publix (and many more!) with store coupons.  Target coupons can be found in coupon generators at hotcouponworld.com, afullcup.com, and organicdeals.com.  I recommend these websites more than the Target website, because the Target website will only show you coupons they deem appropriate for your area instead of all coupons available.  CVS coupons are printed out at coupon stations within the store or at the end of your receipt (as in my area, we have no beloved coupon generators).  These can be combined with manufacturer's coupons.  You can also occasionally print store coupons from the cvs website.  Walgreens store coupons have been available through emails and coloring books you can purchase at the pharmacy, and more recently, through booklets printed every month.  See the front of your store for coupon booklets.  Riteaid has store coupons available through their website and their weekly store ads.  Kroger sends their coupons out in home mailers, be sure to register an address with your store card.

Coupons can also be attached to store loyalty cards, such as Kroger and Winn Dixie.  I love Kroger so let's discuss Krogers options first.  Kroger has the Proctor & Gamble, shortcuts, cell-fire, and unilever programs available to download to their store card.  Simply visit their websites through the Kroger website and select the coupons you want to load to your card, print the list of downloaded coupons, and go shopping!  You can also combine these store card coupons with manufacturer's coupons, but you cannot combine a cell-fire and shortcut/P&G/Unilever coupon.  Generally cell-fire comes off first, then if you purchase another of the same item, then the shortcut or other coupon will come off.  Winn Dixie has the Upromise coupons available, and basically, if you have a Upromise account, you can load coupons to your card, and when you purchase the item , that coupon amount is added to your Upromise account.  I don't like "incidental" savings programs like Upromise, so I would rather save the money upfront on my groceries and enjoy the savings so I can invest more purposefully.  Therefore, I love me some Kroger!

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