A Guide For Using Coupons
During these inflationary times, it is helpful to use every tool in your toolbox to save money. Using coupons can save quite a bit of money, but it can also be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. Here is my guide on using coupons effectively.
Sources of coupons
There are several sources of coupons available, but the most common and easily accessible is in the Sunday Newspaper. The two main providers of coupons circulars in the Sunday paper are Smartsource and Redplum. Another source of coupons is to get them online and print them off of your printer. You can get coupons at various websites, such as coupons.com. Be aware that some sites may require additional software to be installed on your computer. Many stores will have coupons that you can load to your loyalty card via the store’s app or on the store’s website.
Organizing coupons
I like to use a coupon organizer (as pictured above), which separates coupons into common categories such as frozen food, paper products, cleaning items, etc. These coupon organizers can be found in dollar stores, as well as through various mail-order catalogs.
Don’t purchase an item just because you have a coupon
Ultimately, coupons are a form of advertisement, in which you are being paid in the form of a small discount for purchasing a product. Ideally, you want to use coupons for items that you were going to purchase anyway. This is especially true if the coupon requires you to purchase more than one item at a time. If you are saving 30 cents for purchasing 3 of an item that you initially going to buy only 1, are you really saving money? Keep this in mind as you use coupons and use them wisely.
Purge coupons regularly
After you have organized your coupons, you should be regularly going thru your coupons for 2 purposes: 1. To verify if you have any coupons that correspond with any weekly sales. 2. To purge expired coupons. Expired coupons have no purpose unless you know someone that lives on a military base, where they are still honored. I like to make sure that I have purged my coupons prior to putting new coupons in my coupon organizer.
Utilizing your printer
For coupons that you are going to print out, I would strongly suggest only printing them out if you are very certain that you are going to use them. Otherwise, you are just wasting precious printer ink. For other digital coupons that load to your loyalty card, I would suggest occasionally printing out a list of your digital coupons, so that it is a bit easier to keep track of. You can keep track on your phone, but it is difficult to see them all at once that way. Keep in mind that unless the digital coupon specifically states that it is a store coupon (as opposed to a manufacturer coupon), you will not be able to combine the digital coupons with your paper coupons. Also, be aware that some stores do not accept any printed coupons at all.
Get the smallest version of the item with a coupon (usually).
It can be tempting to combine the sale of an item with a coupon, but it may not maximize the coupon in the best way. It is usually more effective (or at least almost equally effective) to get a smaller version of an item to maximize the value of the coupon. Here is an example of what I mean. You see a 12 pack of Pop-Tarts on sale for $2.50 (regular price $2.99), and you see the 8 pack of Pop-Tarts at the regular price of $1.99 each, and you have a coupon for $1.00 off of 3 packages of Pop-Tarts at any size. If you get 3 12 packs of Pop-Tarts at the sale price of $2.50 and then use the $1.00 coupon, you will pay a final total of $6.50 for 36 Pop-Tarts, for a per-unit cost of about .18 cents per Pop-Tart. However; if you get to purchase 3 8 packs of Pop-Tarts at the regular price of $1.99 each, and use the same $1.00 coupon, you will pay a final total of $4.97 for 24 Pop-Tarts, for a per-unit cost of about 21 cents per Pop-Tart. The additional savings of about 3 cents per Pop-Tart by purchasing the larger number of Pop-Tarts are negligible, when you factor in that you are also paying slightly more in food tax (where applicable) for the larger number of Pop-Tarts. You may see other examples where you are actually ahead when getting the smaller items that are not on sale with a coupon. You have to view the coupon as a percentage of the item that you are buying. If you are buying a smaller size, the coupon will be a bigger percentage off of the item(s) that you are purchasing. The rule of thumb that I also use in these scenarios, is that if you have a coupon, get the smaller version of the item. If you don’t have a coupon, look for the lowest per-unit cost available. Also, keep in mind that just because an item is on sale does not mean that you are getting the lowest per-unit cost of that item available in the store. Of course, the best scenario is to have the smaller version of the item go on sale at the same time that the coupon is available. I hope that these tips will be helpful for you for using coupons. Happy couponing!
