Collecting Coupons

Ways to get coupons


So I am walking through the Grocery store with my Huge Coupon binder open, thumbing through looking for a coupon, when a fellow shopper stops me and asks, "Where do you get ALL of those coupons?". I answer, "The Newspaper". Rather than going into detail and spending 30 min explaining all of the ways to get coupons, I state the obvious. Of course, the newspaper is a great way to get coupons, but there are lots of other great ways to get coupons too. I am going to take the time and answer your question, fellow shopper, in detail this time.

Like I said, the most obvious way to get coupons is to purchase newspapers on Sunday's. I started out getting 2-3 papers every Sunday and as I got better organized, I increased the amount of papers I got. I did find out one thing pretty quickly, I didnt always get all of the coupons in my papers. So I started checking each paper I bought to make sure that they had coupons. Of course, newspapers can be costly, but I did find a way around that. Lots of drugstores offer incentive programs and give you "Cash Back" for purchases. I use my "Cash Back" to buy my newspapers every Sunday. I would get between 10-20 papers every Sunday, depending on how good the coupons are and how much "Cash Back" money I have saved up. I will get into the "Cash Back" programs later in the book.

There are also some great coupon clipping services out there that allows you to purchase full Sunday Inserts or just the coupons you are interested in. It can cost anywhere from $0.02 - $0.30 a coupon doing it this way. The most Popular place to obtain these coupons is the website http://www.thecouponclippers.com/. I recently came accross a fellow couponer that has access to lots of coupon inserts and sells them at $0.35 an insert. I typically order 20-30 inserts from her and spend around $15 a week. I found that this way is so much easier for me because I am saving time by not having to go looking for newspapers on Sundays and that I am guaranteed my coupons. And I am not spending $1.50 for each "insert" by having to buy the entire newspaper which I rarely read anyway. I started using the extra money from my Yard Sales and the Flea Market to pay for the inserts.

Another way of getting coupons is to use an auction site like www.ebay.com. A lot of times you can get a large bulk of the same coupon for a dollar or two. I have also been able find coupons that are difficult to get or sold out at the coupon clippers website.

Of course, you can always ask your friends and family to save inserts for you. I always offer some of my freebie stuff to them for their inserts. Its a great trade.

Speaking of trading, there are lots of websites online that will offer trading services. I send one person an envelope full of coupons that I dont use and in return I get an envelope full of coupons from them. For me, I dont have pets so all of my pet coupons get traded for coupons that I am looking for or need.

When shopping at stores I always keep an eye out for tearpads, Blinkies or peelies. A tearpad is normally a stack of coupons that are sitting in front of an item on the shelf or is attached to a display and you tear the coupon off. A blinkie is a little box that is attached to the shelf that has coupons that you pull out of it. And a peelie is a coupon that is stuck to an item for sale. Its up to you how many you take. Some take one while others take the whole stack.

Another great source for coupons is your own computer. I print coupons from sites such as www.coupons.com, www.smartsource.com and many more. If you know of a sale that is coming up on an item that you need, go to their website and see if they have coupons available. Most of the time, you can print each coupon twice unless you have access to more than one computer. I have learned from my experience that there is some very important information that you need to know about printable coupons:

A lot of stores don't accept internet printed coupons because of the high amount of fraud. So research your stores and be prepared to not be able to use internet printed coupons.

Each printable coupon has a code on the top right side which is unique. This will help retailers to identify if a coupon could possibly be fraudulent. So if you print out 2 of the same coupon, each of those will have a different code on it. Sometimes websites will offer coupons with the ability to print unlimited amounts of coupons. These do not have unique bar codes so may be suspect at retail stores.

Never ever photo copy a coupon. That is considered fraud

Companies that put out coupons reimburse the store the full value of the coupon plus an extra $0.08-$0.10. So the stores are actually making money off the use of coupons! However, if the coupon was printed fraudulently, they will not reimburese the store. This is why some stores have become difficult to use internet printed coupons at. They are fearful of not being reimbursed. Its unfortunate that the few bad seeds out there have tried to ruin it for the honest ones like us!

Of course E-mailing companies about praises or complaints often gets you coupons in return. I did this with a few companies and received some great coupons in the mail from them.
Most importantly, save all of your coupons. This means every coupon that you get, no matter what it is. You never know when a great sale will get you something free with your coupons!