New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
In today’s economy everyone can use some extra cash. Couponing is easy and is great way to save money. Here are some useful tips:
Getting coupons: The first step is to get as many coupons as you can. Coupons come in the Sunday paper each week; those inserts have 88% of all coupons issued. You don’t have to buy 10 Sunday papers! You can ask friends or family to give their coupons to you, or subscribe to the paper and the cost goes down.
Another way to get coupons is the internet. There are plenty of websites: www.coupons.com, www.couponmom.com, www.redplum.com, and www.smartsource.com. Another source is the magazine All You. The idea is to get as many coupons as possible!
Organizing: Once you have clipped out all the coupons getting organized is important. There are different ways to organize them. I use a binder with alphabetical dividers: A is for animal food, B is for baking, beverages, baby, C is for canned goods, etc. Other people like to organize by brand names, some use an envelope system. Whatever method you choose to organize your coupons will be fine.
For those getting into couponing for the first time, here are some tips for the first few weeks.
First Week: Take out the drug store flyers (CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid etc) or grocery store flyers and scan each one. They all usually have the same items on sale; it just depends who has the bigger savings. Most experts will say that if the item is not more than 60% off it isn’t worth it, so there is math involved when determining the best deal. Here’s an example: Rite-Aid has Gillette razors on sale for $9.99, there is a coupon for $4.00 off, and then $5.00 in “+uprewards”. Your final cost is $.99 for the razors, that’s 90% off. TIP: Grocery stores health and beauty items are almost never good deals.
Second Week: Repeat the same process as the first week, but include items from the grocery store and one or two from the drug store. You should start to accumulate coupons and get them organized.
Other Tips for Couponing and Saving Money:
– Make a shopping list each week listing the items you have coupons for. Write down what items, how many of each and what store; this way you’re in and out quickly and you know exactly what you are getting.
– Stack coupons every chance you get! Stacking coupons is when you use a manufactuerer coupon and a retailer coupon at the same time for one item making the discount bigger. For example, Walgreens has a coupon for Palmolive dish soap for $1.50 (regularly $2) and you have a manufacturer coupon for $1.00 off Palmolive. When at the register you give the Walgreen’s coupon and the manufacturer coupon at the same time. You will then only pay $.50 for the dish soap that normally costs $2. That is stacking coupons and saving big time!
– CVS will credit your purchase $1 after four visits when you use a reusable bag with their tag that is attached to any bag.
– When you receive some sort of incentive from one of the drug stores (extracare bucks, register rewards, or +uprewards) it is good to use them for milk and eggs. I don’t buy milk anymore, I get it for free doing this method.
– Rite-Aid offers video rewards and rebates. Video rewards work by going to their website and watch a video for a certain product. For example, after watching a video for Reese’s. After watching the video you will be given credit towards your next purchase on Reese’s. Rebates are money sent to you by mail after you fill out a form online. In the front of the store there is a flyer dedicated to items that have rebates. The flyer runs for the whole month and new items will be designated for the following month.
Take time to use coupons and you will have extra cash in your pocket!
