Smart Spending: Finding Coupons for the Grocery Products You Use

What percentage of coupons from the Sunday paper do you actually use? Five, maybe ten percent? You are not alone. Most people cut out only a small percentage of the coupons from those weekly inserts. In order to make a serious dent in rising grocery bills, you need to have coupons for many of the products you buy, not just a few each week. The good news is that there are a number of resources other than the Sunday supplement coupons that provide coupons for your favorite brands.

Friends, Family, Co-workers: Instead of buying multiple copies of the newspaper, just to get more coupons, share inserts with friends, co-workers and neighbors. Once you have cut the coupons you want, pass your inserts around to others and have them do the same for you. You will find that many people you know don’t even cut coupons and you will receive complete inserts with all the coupons.

Coupon Clipping Websites: One of the easiest ways to find multiples of coupons for the products you use is through coupon clipping services, such as www.thecouponclippers.com. With these services, you pay a handling fee for each coupon and they are sent right to your home. Because it is illegal to sell coupons, you are paying for the fee to have them found, clipped and sent to you. Most of these coupons are from the Sunday papers. Another popular clipping site is www.ebay.com. There are many folks offering coupons for very reasonable handling fees. Most coupon fees at clipping services are 5 – 12 cents each depending on the face value of the coupon. The benefit of using these services is that you can get multiples of the coupons you want without paying extra for the entire paper. If I order 5 coupons with a face value of .50 each for a handling fee of .05 each, I still have a net return of .45 on each coupon. If the coupon is doubled at the store to $1.00, as some stores will do, the return on the .05 handling fee is now .95. So, for the .05 handling fee per coupon, I can receive .95 off at the register – a pretty good return on my .05 investment.

Coupon Printing Websites: There are some great coupons available at a number of legitimate coupon printing websites including www.coupons.com, www.smartsource.com, www.pillsbury.com and www.bettycrocker.com. The coupons are free to print (other than the cost of paper and ink) and you can print them right away and use them at the store that day. Some of the sites do require that you register, which only takes a minute.

Manufacturer’s Toll Free Numbers and Websites: One of the easiest ways to obtain coupons for the products you use is to contact the manufacturer directly. This is especially helpful for hard to find coupons or for specialty items. Simply call or e-mail the company and let them know how much you like the specific product. Ask them if they have any coupons available at this time and be sure to leave your address if you are contacting the company via the online customer service section. You will be pleasantly surprised at how many companies will send coupons, often for free items.

Magazines, Product Packages, Grocery Store Displays: There are a number of other good places to find coupons including magazines, product packages and grocery stores displays and shelves. There are even good coupons that print at the registers.

Rain Checks: Rain checks are those little pieces of paper you get from the store customer service when the store is out of a sale item. Rain checks are a wonderful way to make your own sale. If the store is out of a product that you use and it is on sale, ask for a rain check. Then wait patiently until you need the item or you have a great manufacturer coupon to go with the rain check and make your own sale.
With a little extra effort, you can find coupons for most of your favorite brands. Considering the price of food and non-food essentials has skyrocketed, every bit of savings can help. As I always say, it’s your money – spend it wisely!