How to Get Coupons...

Ok, so there are a few places to start... This post will be on How to get those fantastic coupons!

First Pick your Medium:


-You can buy a newspaper 
          ~Downside, spending money upfront on newspapers
                   Tip: Watch for the News & Observer Sale...  a few times a year, they will
                           offer $1 a week for the Sunday edition. You can usually start out
                           at 13 weeks, but they also offer 26, and 52 week packages.

          ~What I do: I bought 3 full year subscriptions to the News & Observer. it was
                  $52 upfront for each, but I have saved over $400 thus far (at least) and it is only June!

          ~If you don't want to spend that much up front, you can start by going to Walgreens
                   every Sunday morning that you want the coupons, and buy your copies there.
                   This will run you about $1.50 per copy every week. Other places are more
                   expensive. CVS was charging $1.75, and Food Lion was charging $2 last I checked.
                   Now, these prices could have changed since I last bought a paper at these
                   stores was January 2015.



-You can Print coupons from home
          ~Downside, spending money on a printer if you dont have one, and spending money on ink
                    If you are to go this route & dont already have a printer, look for sales,
                    and research what it costs to replace the ink, and if the printer can function
                    with a 'dead' cartridge (aka having 1 of the colors out of ink, will it still
                    print black? or vice-versa)

           ~What I do:   I have a HP ENVY printer, i got it on sale for $50, and it will function
                    with a 'dead' cartridge. it costs me about $34 for an XL capacity cartridge,
                    which has lasted about 3 months so far. ::knock on wood:: it has started to fade yet!




-You can contact companies directly
            ~Some companies are nice enough, that if you e-mail/mail/call them, they will
                    send you coupons for their products. Sometimes they are High Value
                    (like $2 off), and sometimes they are even for free products!

             ~I do not do this often. It does take a lot of time, and you never know when
                    they will send the coupons, or if they will even send any.

             ~Tip: Google 'companies that send coupons' and you can find so many websites
                    that will tell you who you can email.





Now, watch expiration dates!  It sucks to get to the checkout after walking the store,
            to only realize that you coupon WONT scan because it is expired! 




I will talk about Coupon organization in the next post!