Where do you find coupons?

One of the questions I am asked most often is where do I find all of my coupons. The following is an article I did for a local frugal site...

Congratulations! If you are reading this, then hopefully you have decided that you are ready to stop paying full price on your groceries and your toiletries. You are ready to learn how to save 25, 50, even 75% or MORE on your groceries each week! Once you get started using your coupons and deals, you will begin to wonder how on earth you ever just went to the store and filled your grocery cart, with no regard to the prices.

Now that you have decided to start saving money on your grocery bills, your first question is probably going to be “where do I find coupons?!” Well, I’ll help you out with that!

The first place to look is probably the most obvious, but it is the Sunday newspapers. Most of us get at least one Sunday newspaper, and if you don’t, it’s easy to find a store close by to purchase your papers. I would recommend getting a copy of all of the papers that your store sells that contain newspapers…here in Rome/Floyd County, that would include both the RN-T and the AJC. I recommend both newspapers for several reasons. The first reason being that while the newspapers may both have the same coupon inserts, the AJC will most likely have more coupons. The second reason being that if you find a really good deal, you will want more than one copy of that coupon!

In your newspaper, you will find several different coupon inserts. These include Red Plum (RP) and Smart Source (SS), and the first Sunday of every month you will receive the holy grail of coupon inserts, the Proctor and Gamble (P&G) insert! There are also sites that you can go to to purchase only the coupon inserts for much less than the cost of a paper…you can check that out at www.wholecouponinserts.com.

The second place to look for your coupons is on the internet! There are hundreds upon hundreds (probably even more!) of sites that give you the option to print coupons. Unfortunately, a lot of them are not legitimate and when you get to the stores, the coupons will be refused.
A few of the best sites for printing coupons are as follows:
(1) www.coupons.com ~ On coupons.com, you will see a variety of coupons. When you find one you want, just click “CLIP” and continue perusing the pages of coupons. When you have selected all that you want, click on “Print Coupons” and your coupons will print.
(2) www.smartsource.com ~ You just select your coupons and click “Print Now.” Super easy!
(3) www.redplum.com ~ At redplum.com, you can select “Grocery and Drug.” You will be prompted to enter your zipcode and submit, and then you will be presented with coupons tailored to your area. Just select the ones you want, and print!

When printing coupons offline from these sites, you will be prompted to download a free software application to print your coupons…this is perfectly fine and will enable you to print very valuable coupons!

There are other legitimate sites, but these are the ones I tend to use most.

If you do choose to download from another site or are sent a coupon via email, you want to make sure that it is legitimate! There are several things you can look at: (1) Is there a limit to the number of times you can print the coupon? If no, it is probably not legitimate. (2) Is there an expiration date? If not, then it is probably not legitimate. At one time coupons did not have expiration dates, but it’s hard to find coupons these days without an expiration date. (3) Is it for a free product? If so, then again it is probably not legitimate. Very, very few coupons that you get online are for free products. And also, be sure and check the spelling on the coupon…if there are misspelled words, toss it, because it’s not real!

Do stores accept printed coupons? Yes! I have not found any local stores who just flat out do not accept printed coupons. Most of the stores do insist that the coupons scan ~ if they do not scan, then they will not be accepted. Kroger also will not accept any printed coupons for “free” products. Just check with your local stores to get their coupon policy. If the local stores do not have them, then either call or email their corporate offices. Most of them are very happy to provide you with a copy of their policies.

While we are discussing internet coupons, be sure and check out e-coupons! E-coupons are electronic coupons that download straight to your store card (Kroger, around here!) If you go to www.kroger.com and register your Kroger card, you can go to their page of e-coupons. It’s as simple as clicking the ones that you want and telling it to “load to card.” After you choose your coupons, you can then print out a list showing which coupons you have on your card to use. When you check out with these products, watch your receipt ~ the coupons will automatically come off of your total! And what’s really cool about these e-coupons is that they are considered store coupons…and that means you can take one of your paper coupons along with you for additional savings.

Also online is www.uPromise.com. This is a rather unique site, in that these coupons do not reduce your total at the grocery store or drug store…what it does is credits you money to a savings account! You load the uPromise “coupons” to your store cards, and when you buy the products, the amount of the coupon is automatically put into an account for you. It’s a great way to save money for the kids’ college funds!

If there are certain products that your family really enjoys, by all means go to their website and request coupons! Studies have shown that more than half of the time, the companies will be happy to send you coupons for cents off or even free products! (What can be better ~ or easier! ~ than that?!)

When you are in the store (be it Kroger, Walmart or even Dollar General!), you have surely seen the little blinking red boxes with coupons in them along the aisles. Even if you don’t plan to purchase that particular product that day, be sure and take a couple of these coupons! Most likely the products will go on sale soon after the blinkies are offered…and even if they aren’t, you can still file them away with the rest of your coupons to use at other stores when they have sales on these items! Just because you get your blinkie coupon at Kroger doesn’t mean you have to use it there!

If you look closely, you can also find tear pads of coupons at these stores. Again, be sure and tear off a few of these! In most cases, these will not have a store name on them and you can use them anywhere!

And lastly, I get a lot of my coupons from samples! I visit a lot of free sample sites and request freebies…most of the time these freebies are delivered with not only a free product, but also with great coupons! (Usually better than the newspapers and internet printables!)

So you see, there are so many coupons out there in various places, just waiting for you to find them and use them to help save you money!!

Next time, we will discuss the best way for you to store/file your coupons now that you are beginning to collect them!