One of the most common questions I’m asked when I buy my 3 standard newspapers every week is whether or not I really save enough money to justify spending $6 (my papers are $2 each) every week on a few flimsy inserts.My typical answer is to smile and politely say, “Oh yes, I more then make my money back.” hoping that they ask the follow up question:
“How?”
If you learn to use coupons, you can easily offset the costs of a few newspapers each week! I’d say that that initial $6 investment could save me more then 10 times that amount of money over the next few months. The key is knowing when to use the coupon and only buying at certain times. Today though, we are just going to go over 10 ways to obtain coupons and we’ll cover how exactly to use them in the next post of this series.
10 Places to Find Coupons
1. The newspaper: The most well known spot for coupons is in your local newspaper. In some cities, it’s cheaper to just subscribe to your local newspaper. In others, purchasing from a local vendor is a better deal.
2. Online: Printable coupons are everywhere. Follow this blog daily and print out the coupons that I post on a regular basis. Or seek them out on your own. Looking for a specific online coupon? A great place to start is my coupon database here on Family Friendly Frugality. You should also follow brands you love on Facebook and check out their pages on occasion.
Here are some other great printable coupon sites:
- Coupons.com
- Target Coupons
- Red Plum
- Smart Source
- Grocery Coupon Network
3. Magazines and Home Mailers: All You is notorious for being jam packed with fantastic coupons. Many grocery stores and drugstores also send home mailers when you give them your address (either online or in person). Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper often has coupons as well.
4. Friends, Family & Neighbors: Ask around. Tell family, friends and neighbors not to throw out their coupons and you’ll be by to pick them up!
5. Email companies directly: Go ahead and email a company to let them know you love their products and ask if they’d be willing to send you any coupons! Some companies will take it a step forward and even send you samples!
6. Coupon clipping services or Ebay: You can’t sell coupons, but there are services nowadays that charge for the cost of their time and supplies clipping and shipping coupons. These are called clipping services (like Coupon Dede). You can also check out Ebay for coupons as well.
7. Forum Trading: We Use Coupons, A Full Cup and Hot Coupon World all have very active coupon trading forums. You don’t have a baby in diapers? Trade those diaper coupons for the pet food coupons you really need!
8. Digital Coupons: Digital coupons are really becoming the rage nowadays. Be sure to link your shoppers card up to the following sites:
Kroger stores also have digital coupons on their website.
9. Store Receipts: Either on the back of the receipt, on the bottom or printed out along with your receipt (these are called Catalina Coupons), make sure you don’t throw out the receipt until you are sure there aren’t any coupons you would like!
10. Inside products or on products: Sometimes coupons will be attached to the outside of the product itself (peelies) or they will be printed on the inside or outside of the box OR they could just be floating around inside. Either way, do a quick once over before you throw out the box and be sure there aren’t money saving coupons you could keep!
Coupons are all over the place when you know where to look!
Where do you find coupons?
Be sure to check out the ENTIRE Strategic Shopping Series today!
Cricket @ Thrifty Texas Penny says
April 8, 2011 at 4:34 pmGreat list- don’t forget blinkie machines! Many times these Qs are higher value than inserts Qs or printables.
Heather says
April 8, 2011 at 4:40 pmYeah, I might reword #10 to include blinkies. I rarely see them nowadays, but I do know they are still around.
Thanks!
Sue says
April 8, 2011 at 4:39 pmHow come the coupon booklets that come in the free newspapers are not the same as the booklets in the Sunday papers? They are still distributed by Red Plum or Smart Source.
Heather says
April 8, 2011 at 4:41 pmHonestly I think it has something to do with the contract that those entities have with the newspapers. Newspapers know that coupons attract buyers, so they don’t want the best coupons to be available for free.
kat says
December 1, 2012 at 12:52 amjust be careful with those digital coupons – I use the kroger app and often their coupons don’t come through when you’re checking out and the store will not honor them (despite the fact that it’s *their* site!)
Heather says
December 1, 2012 at 2:40 pmYes, there can be a bit of a delay! Good point!
miranda says
March 27, 2013 at 1:09 pmI actually work at Kroger, and we do honor them. It only becomes difficult with coupons when the register’s database hasn’t been undated recently(it’s supposed to be done every week), in which we then hand type in the coupon’s discount. Coupons are always taken at Kroger and if there’s a problem, ask the cashier to bring over the manager and they will then assist you. However, sadly, most of the time the coupon wasn’t added to your card from the app correctly and then when it comes time to check out, the coupon doesn’t show up. So it’s not always on our fault when there’s a mistake.
Stevie says
October 19, 2013 at 10:40 amGood info!
Heather says
November 6, 2013 at 11:14 amThank you!
Pat Pemberton says
August 26, 2014 at 9:54 amI have repeatedly tried to use printed coupons at WalMart and their readers don’t recognize the coupons. They told me they are not allowed to key in coupon numbers. Any suggestions?
Heather says
August 26, 2014 at 11:37 amThat’s odd. Is your printer ink low? Their coupon policy does state that the coupon must have a scannable bar code. I wonder if they need to clean their scanners! Next time you go, I would print out their coupon policy here: http://corporate.walmart.com/coupon-policy . If your bar code is nice and dark and clean, I’d get a manager. There is no reason your printable coupons shouldn’t scan there. I use printable coupons at Walmart often with no problem. Good luck! Update us with what happens.
Cricket says
August 29, 2014 at 2:54 pmYou might try having the cashier cover one of the barcodes and try scanning it again. I don’t remember which one to cover, but that usually takes care of the problem when my printables won’t scan.
Ashley says
August 31, 2015 at 3:42 amI don’t know about Walmart, but at Fred Meyers (Kroger) there isn’t a way to scan printable coupons or type in numbers if we can’t get the register to scan it from the paper. Has nothing to do with the scanners being clean.