Welcome to the 3rd post in my couponing 101 series! If you missed the first ones, you can go HERE for the Why post and HERE for the Misconceptions post. Go ahead, you can go catch up and I’ll wait right here for you to come back… Okay- now that you’ve read the Why post and banished all your Misconceptions about using coupons, we’re ready to dive into the basics of using them!
The first thing that I want to point out- what I do is called “Extreme Couponing”. This not- I repeat NOT what you probably used to think using coupons meant. Most of you (if you’re like me) probably think of using coupons as clipping the coupons from the paper of those items that your family would normally buy and then taking those coupons (if you can even remember) with you to the store and buying those items in order to get a little bit off the retail price and maybe ending up saving $10-$15 off your grocery bill….If you’re lucky. This is not what we’re doing here. Extreme couponing is an entirely different ball game! The two goals that I teach in my class are as follows:
1. When you buy items with coupons, you goal should be to be paying less for that item than you would if you went to Grocery Outlet or Winco to do your shopping. Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time, aren’t we?
2. When you are able to buy an item for 75% off of retail price OR MORE, you want to STOCKPILE that item…meaning buy as much as your family will need/use in the next weeks/months until the next sale. This way you will NEVER have to pay full price for anything. For example: Say Heinz Ketchup goes on sale for $1.00 and you have a $1 off one bottle of Heinz Ketchup coupon. Do the math- that means FREE KETCHUP! So, if ketchup goes on sale like this 2x per year, how many bottles of ketchup should you buy? Well, if your family goes through 1 bottle per month, then you should buy at least 6 bottles in order to get you through to the next time that you can get it for free. Make sense?
I know that scenario probably brings up a lot of questions…some of them may be answered in this post, some may not….but hang in there cause eventually I’ll answer them!
Before we jump into what just happened in that scenario, let’s first talk about the different types of coupons and what they do:
This photo is a picture of a manufacturer coupon. A manufacturer coupon should be considered cash in your pocket. They are put out my the manufacturer of the products and most commonly found in boo inside newspapers. When a manufacturer coupon is used at a store, it is then sent back to the manufacturer and the store is reimbursed for the amount of the coupon plus an $.08 handling fee…which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can really add up. Therefore, the store is actually making MORE money when people use coupons than when people don’t. =) The reason that manufacturers put out coupons for their products is because they want to intice you to buy, try and like their products. It’s a form of advertising and they WANT their coupons to be used. Some important things to note about a manufacturer coupon are the words, “manufacturer coupon”, the expiration date (a general rule is that you may not use a coupon that has passed the expiration date) and the bar codes. See how it has 2 sets of bar codes? That is the biggest indicator that it is in fact a manufacturer coupon.
A second type of manufacturer coupon is an internet printable coupon. These are coupons that you are able to print right from your computer from various coupon printing sources. Usually you are able to print 2 coupons per computer and each coupon has it’s own set of numbers and bar codes. Word of warning- DO NOT make copies of these coupons. Since each coupon has a unique number on it, when the store sends in the coupons to be reimbursed, the same number will only be counted and reimbursed one time…so if the store has been given copies, they will not be reimbursed for those copies. Which means that you have stolen from the store. It is also illegal and coupon fraud…so don’t do it. Friends don’t let friends photocopy coupons. =)
Alright- This is a photo of a store coupon. A store coupon is a coupon put out by the store and generally found in the weekly fliers that each store puts out. The goal of the store putting out these coupons is that they are trying to get business in their store. (Duh) You can tell a store coupon by the expiration date (usually they are only good for one week), the store logo and the bar code. You will notice the difference between this bar code and the manufacturer’s bar code. On a store coupon, there is only ONE bar code.
Another type of store coupon is called a double coupon. Or “doubles” or “doublers” or “twice the value” coupons. The photo above is a picture of the double coupons from Albertsons. Each store has a bit different rules when it comes to double coupons. But the basic idea is that the store will double the amount of any manufacturer coupon up to a certain dollar amount. Word to the wise- when using the double coupons, you may use only 3 double coupons (or 4 at safeway) per transaction. At Albertsons, the coupons are numbered #1, #2 and #3. If you are doubling 3 coupons at Albertsons, they must be a 1, 2 and 3 coupon….they will make a fuss if you try and use 2 #3 coupons for example. I never cut mine apart now for this reason…it’s too easy to get them mixed up.
The final type of coupon that I will talk about are called catalina coupons, otherwise known as “cats”. These coupons are the kind that come out of the machine and the cashier will hand you with your receipt. There are certain types of promotions that go on throughout the year in different grocery (or other) stores that have a list of products that when you buy either a certain number or a certain dollar amount of those specific products, you will get a catalina coupon. Sometimes a catalina coupon will look exactly like a manufacturer coupon…with a $ off a certain product. But most of the time when you have these promotions in the store, when you buy those products, you will get a catalina coupon with a certain $ amount off of your next purchase. And your next purchase could be anything in the store with a few exclusions!
So, now that you know what the different types of coupons are, here is a list of places that you are likely to find coupons. And once you start training your eye to see them, you notice that they are EVERYWHERE!
Newspaper inserts
Online
Inside product packages- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten something for really cheap or free and opened it to find more coupons inside!
In the mail
Back of receipts
In the store- There are ‘blinkies” (the little boxes that blink that spit out coupons located in aisles at the grocery store. “Tearpads” (also loacated in aisles, but they’re like a notepad and you tear the coupons off) Coupon booklets- found at either customer service or displays throughout the store. “Hang tags”- Just like it sounds, if the product has a neck, it might be wearing a necklace with a coupon. and “Peelies” – stuck on to a product in the store. For these last two items, it is a very controversial subject as to whether or not you can remove that coupon without buying the product…some people think that it’s okay, others do not. I would suggest that you do not…mostly because if you look at it from the other person’s point of view…it would be really frustrating to buy a product and not have the opportunity to use the coupon that was supposed to be there because someone was there before me taking off all the coupons…but that’s my opinion…It just doesn’t seem to follow the “Golden Rule” to me.
Magazines
Loaded on to your store loyality card
Ebay or other coupon clipping service- Did you know that you can “buy” coupons on Ebay? Technically, you are not buying the coupon, but paying for the person’s time to cut them and sort them and mail them to you. This is an excellent way to be able to get a large amount of a coupon for stockpiling without having to buy 20 Sunday papers. They are fairly inexpensive and I’ve “bought” coupons off of Ebay several times with great results!
Stay tuned for the next in the 101 series…the RULES.