Couponing and Refunding - How to stretch Your Money

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How to Squeeze the Most Value from Your Money

If you opened your newspaper and there was a $5 bill inside, would you just turn the page, or would you snatch it out and go buy another newspaper fast?

If you are not taking advantage of coupon clipping
and mail-in rebates, you are missing out on a Couponing Bounty that could put 20% or more back into your budget every month.

If you are not already using coupons, this lens will help you see how to get started. Taking action is the most important part. Set aside a time each weekend to plan your next shopping trip with list, sales papers and coupon papers at hand. I'll tell you how to get the project going.

If you are already a coupon clipper, this lens will provide you with a welcome kick-in-the-pants to do even more to stretch your money.

Save Money With Online and Offline shopping coupons 

Save money with couponing and refunding
This lens will explore specific places to visit online to find additional coupons and rebates. I have recommendations for organizing your coupons and some related methods to squeeze even more money from the market back into your wallet. I'll show you the world's largest website for exchanging coupons, and another website you will love visiting to find some of the hottest deals each day. You'll want to check that one more than once a day to see what's happening in the world of hot deals. Some are simple pricing errors companies make and those who know early catch the deal before the mistake is corrected. Most companies will honor what they advertise, even if it's a mistake.

How you organize and carry your coupons to market makes the job easier and I will show you how I do it. I'm giving you the link to my favorite couponing website.

I will show you how I recently saved 67% on a 6 month supply of a product which I use every day. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, will be to find similar savings opportunities for your monthly budget. this lens will help you know where to look and how to get started.

Couponing Bounty 

Coupons are published by manufacturers for many reasons.

Manufacturers use them to:
overcome customer resistance to try something new
introduce new products to the market
stimulate interest in products when sales might be waning
reward customer loyalty.



Don't ever feel sorry for the manufacturer for what they appear to be giving away. Coupons have been around for years and years and ultimately make money for the producers, or they would not endure. According to Wikipedia, the first coupons were used in 1989 by the Coca-Cola Company to introduce free samples of its beverage to every state in the United States. You know the rest of that story.

The best way to get started using coupons is just to grab the Sunday newspaper and some scissors and get busy clipping. Should you clip every coupon you see? That would depend on your particular couponing strategy. Will you use them only for your personal purchases or will you be joining a coupon exchange or coop? What kind of stores do you usually shop in? If you use warehouse type or "box stores" coupons might not be as useful as for supermarkets where you might find double and triple coupon days. Also consider what your actual needs are and how much storage space you have available.

After watching the sales, saving your coupons and visiting a few stores, you could easily be getting a nearly free supply of toilet paper, paper towels, razor blades and facial tissue.

The Sunday newspaper is not your only source for these savings opportunities. Many sites have been developed to dispense online coupons which you can either use when ordering online or print out to take to the store when you shop. It pays to shop several coupon clearing houses as the bargains for the same items can vary from site to site. Many grocery store check out terminals now also dispense manufacturers coupons based on your shopping history. Some of your favorite stores may even offer coupons by email. Just sign up at their web site. Combine any of these with a nice sale and you save money! Sometimes the money is not taken off your current purchase, but given as $$ off for your next purchase%u2026 don't lose those coupons! Keep a special pocket in your purse or coupon keeper for those and always check there when it's time to pay at the store.


The challenges of couponing:

finding the coupons you need
organizing them
tracking expiration dates
finding the sales to get the best values
stock up on staple goods when they are on sale
watch for rebates to save even more



After you study the coupon universe awhile you will notice that the coupons in the Sunday newspaper color ad section are connected with the weekly store promotions.
If Colgate is running a special coupon for toothpaste that week, you will most likely find Colgate coupons in the Sunday paper too. If you want to buy something and don't have a coupon for it, always check online to see if one is available there. Many web sites are ready to come to your aide. Most require you to register or sign up for their mailing list first, but then you can browse and print any coupons you need from their website. Don't worry about your email being spammed to death. Just take a free email account at Gmail, Yahoo or AOL and use it to sign up for all the online coupon sites. Any spam that might be generated to your email will be contained there and not seen in your personal account.

Buy Coupons on eBay 

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Organizing your coupons and rebates: 

It helps a lot to keep your coupons organized. How you organize will depend on your own preferences. You could set up an envelope system using the categories in the grocery store with an extra section for drug stores and other stores. You would then set up the coupons in each section either by kind or by expiration date. Periodically, you will need to weed out the expired coupons to the trash. Decide whether or not you will carry your entire coupon collection to the store with you, or only the exact coupons you plan to use. Don't be tempted to buy things you ordinarily wouldn't use just because you have a coupon, but do take advantage of sales to stock up on things you know you will be needing in the future. There are fancy containers that resemble day runners and huge loose leaf notebooks to organize and store your coupons, but you can get along very well with just an envelope or two and your own system.

I like one similar to this:



It's small, easy to use and inexpensive (less than $6 on Amazon.com). Another great place to find all kinds of coupon organizers is EBay.

Manufacturers sometimes dispense coupons from their websites. For example if you really like Blue Bunny ice cream, but can't find coupons for their products, you might go check out their website before you go shopping. Last time I looked there was one there for $2 off two containers. If you've gotta have your Blue Bunny ice cream and it's not on sale at the store, you can create your own sale by printing out this coupon.

I just checked the Colgate.com website and didn't see any coupons, but they are offering a $3 rebate on Colgate Total toothpaste and Listerine. Here is the kind of deal where you need to be prepared in advance. I didn't know till now about this rebate, but I'm ready for it!

Coupon Organizers on Amazon 

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer Wallet ToCart #18

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer Wallet ToCart #18

Amazon Price: $12.99 (as of 01/05/2010) Buy Now

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer Wallet ToCart #16

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer Wallet ToCart #16

Amazon Price: $12.99 (as of 01/05/2010) Buy Now

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer - 24 Cards - Made in the USA

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer - 24 Cards - Made in the USA

Amazon Price: $8.00 (as of 01/05/2010) Buy Now

Planning for rebates 

Rebates are like getting a partial refund of your monthly budget.

Many mail in rebates require four things:

Proof of purchase (POP)
Dated Sales Receipt
Completely and correctly filled out application form
A self addressed, stamped envelope (SASE)



You can prepare for surprise rebates by creating a storage bin of collected POP's and saved receipts. On my shelf I have 2 tubes of Colgate Total toothpaste and saved in a shoebox my old receipts. If I had thrown away the receipt, it would have been the same as throwing away this $3. My receipt is dated within the required time period; so I am going to mail in this rebate form I printed from the Colgate site. I like to keep a written record of when I mail a rebate and how much money it's for. When the rebate check arrives, I line it out, or record how long it took to get back to me. This also helps me to keep track of how much money I actually have collected from rebates this year.

When you settle down to prepare your rebates for mailing, it's very important to pay close attention to every detail required. This Colgate rebate requires the cash register receipt dated between January 1 and July 31, 2007 with the purchase of the THREE participating products circled and original proofs of purchase (the UPC symbol from the 2 Colgate Total® cartons and the UPC number from the Listerine® Antiseptic bottle written on the cash register receipt). If one of those details is missing the rebate will not be honored. It also requires that my submission be postmarked by a certain date and that it be sent to a particular address. If any of those details are not exact, the rebate form won't be honored. I take my time and double check each detail. Most times I keep photocopies of my submissions and all my POP's. Usually photocopies cannot be used for rebates, but if something is reported as missing, sometimes a copy will be accepted later on as proof on a resubmission.

The usual POP required for items that have removable bar codes is the actual bar code cut from the package. For packages that don't have removable labels, there are tear tabs or numbers to be copied as in the example of the Listerine bottle. A collection of POP's can be kept in a large box for future uses along with an envelope of old register receipts. There can be treasure in the trash if you know what to look for and save! There was a time when these requirements were not as stringent and one could stockpile POP's with no regard to purchase date on a receipt. It must have been costing the manufacturers too much and they have gotten much tighter now.

Couponing can save you a lot of money 

Please share your couponing resources and stories. What was the best deal you ever found? What is your favorite source for coupons, refunds and codes? How do you keep organized?

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Finding other good sources for coupon related savings: 

Most of the rebates found online are for hard goods or electronics rather than groceries. There are some easy ways to keep on top of when new rebates and coupons become available.

Forums, where others with similar interests work together to spread related news, are invaluable to your new couponing and rebate hobby. My favorite forum is
http://forums.slickdeals.net It's recommended to check there often or you might miss some huge savings opportunities. Again, this forum is mainly discussing hard goods deals and services, but you will find CVS and some grocery store deals discussed there too. Deal traders have their own abbreviations you should become familiar with before reading their forum: examples GDA=good deal at, FAR=free after rebate. It's recommended to find the "SD FAQ megathread" in the Site Issues and Suggestions forum to become familiar with how they communicate.

If you keep your eyes open you may find a coupon exchange club at a local gathering place. Churches or even the public library may be a likely location. You would leave there any unexpired coupons you didn't want and pick up the ones you need for your next shopping trip. There are also coupon exchange clubs online. When you move online to exchange coupons, you complicate it with postage fees, but it's just paper and won't cost much. Imagine if you got rid of all your dog food or cat food coupons and got some nifty cereal or toilet paper coupons that you can use; or the other way around. This can be a valuable transaction to consider.

Look on Google for "coupon exchange" and you will find some leads.

Look on EBay where listers may be selling sets of coupons for your favorite items. You might pay as little as a dollar plus postage for a bundle of 5 - $3 coupons for something you use a lot of. This is a great source for things like pet food coupons and supplements like "Move Free".

Craig's List is another source to find potential free exchanges in your local area. If you find a coupon exchanging partner on Craig's List, it could lead to ongoing exchanges. I recently saw listed there someone looking to exchange Entertainment Book coupons.

If you buy an Entertainment Coupon Book, you will find coupons for many local eateries that give you two meals for the price of one. If you can find a trading partner for the coupons, you might be able to have twice as many of your favorites as you would normally get in one book. This takes a tiny bit of work to arrange, but can enormously ad to your sense of wealth as you and your partner can dine out often for half price. Entertainment Book has more than just dining coupons. Once you get into couponing, it will be a valuable addition to your resources. I usually buy one or two of these books every year. I recover the price of the books by getting free pizza and any other coupons I use become added savings for my budget.

Important Value Note: Entertainment coupons generally expire in November each year. In May the company starts selling the books for half price. There is still incredible value in the remaining unexpired time; it could be very worth it to you to buy one of these.

Important Note:
Look for the coupon trading underground where clippers connect to share their bounty. Some exchange for coupons, others use PayPal or trade in postage stamps. You can find the world's largest clipping outlet in the links list above.

Discount codes for online shopping: 

When you shop online many companies have a box on the checkout page asking for a coupon or promotional code. If you know the code and type it in the box, you get a special discount. This discount usually is a nice percent off the sale, a free item or free shipping. If the box is there, it means there might be a current discount to search out. You might as well see if you can get the deal too. Keep in mind that they also usually have expiration codes and some deals are only meant for special repeat customers. I got in trouble once using a special code when my ordered item didn't arrive and when I called to see what was happening, the operator asked me where I obtained that discount code. You can find some of these deals codes at SlickDeals forum, but there are many more sources publishing these codes (find links to these sites in the link list above): CouponMountain.com, CurrentCodes.com, Keycode.com and MyCoupons.com.

I always try to have a code to place in that box on the check out page when I order online. Now you can too!

How to Optimize Your Couponing and Refunding Savings: 

Combining Deals for the Best Value
The sweetest value comes when you can combine different deals to get your items free or, in some cases, to actually make money on the transaction. Recently CVS had the Intuition razor on sale for $9.99 with $6 extra care bucks (ECB). ECB is a coupon credit like store credit to use on a future purchase in the CVS store. There was also a $4 coupon in the Sunday Washington Post ad section which in effect made this razor was free plus a penny toward paying the sales tax. It takes a little work to put these deals together, but it's worth it for the extra value savings for your budget. If you don't need the razor, it can be a gift or saved for a houseguest to use or donate it to charity and take a deduction on income tax. It's all good!




Plan your shopping to optimize dollar savings:

Watch your sales papers for special coupons sale days. Many supermarkets will double coupons up to fifty cents, but a few will run special sales when they double up to a dollar or even two dollars. This is another valuable thing your coupon forum participation can give you. You can have other people helping you look out for these special coupon deal days. Some forums even have members who can get early news of these special events and you can benefit through your forum connection. Before you get excited over this kind of news, make sure it's for your area as some promotions are city or area specific.

There is also this regional restriction to consider when clipping coupons to share with others. Check to see if regions are specified on the coupon. You would not want to mail off a coupon to your mother for her favorite kind of hair coloring, but have it be for the wrong state. Likewise, you would not want to buy a stack of coupons from Coupon Clippers and have them be for the wrong area. Make sure you ask.

Always remember to check the expiration date and any regional restrictions on coupons you are ready to use or share with others. It's so disappointing and embarrassing to get to the register with your hand full of coupons only to have the cashier scrutinize them and hand them back for expired dates.



If you have planned your trip and end up facing an empty shelf with your coupons in hand, don't leave empty handed. The customer service desk can usually issue a rain check, often for 6 or more of your item. This lets you come back the following week to get the sale price and use your coupons.

Another consideration is store item limits. Sometimes the store will say that you cannot buy more than 6 of a sale item. Many times, if you live in a metropolitan area, you can get around this by driving to another store in the area. It is possible for the store to tack your purchases through your store card. Store cards are of mixed value. They allow the store to cut costs by running sales without issuing paper coupons to process. They allow the store to track your sales preferences and offer you items in mailed fliers that they know you are interested in. They also let the store issue you register coupons related to your current purchases. On the downside they let the store spy on your purchasing activity. It might be necessary to have more than one store card if you want to buy more than the limit on a store card sale.

Couponing in the News 

Wow! There was a great article titled "Snipping, Clipping, Scrimping on Paper and Online, Coupons are Coming Back" in the Washington Post Sunday, October 26, 2008.

I suspected that people would turn toward coupons again with the falling economy and here are some stats regarding that:

In a survey of 1,000 people released last month, the Coupon Council found that 89 percent had used coupons when shopping for groceries, household or health-care items.

Experts said they expected coupon usage to grow. Of the 1,529 U.S. consumers surveyed by Toronto-based ICOM this spring, 67 percent said they would be more likely to use coupons during a recession. It didn't matter how old they were. People of all ages -- from 18- to 24-year-olds to baby boomers to retirees -- said they would turn to coupons.



There's a table in that article that I'd like to share with you. It's from Promotion Marketing Association and MommySavers.com

How to Snag and Bag the Deals

Check your Sunday newspaper, magazines, grocery store shelves, cash register receipts.

Visit web sites of brands you buy most and check for coupons. Register online for rewards and coupons at places you shop frequently.

Go to coupon sites such as Coupons.com, MommySavers.com, TheGroceryGame.com, CouponMom.com, CouponBug.com and CoolSavings.com. Print the coupons you will use.

Ask Store managers about the policies on double coupons, and acceptance, or not, of other stores' coupons.

Use coupons with store sales to maximize savings.

Look for companies' 800 phone numbers on packages of products you buy a lot. Call and ask for coupons.

Substitute products with coupons for those without coupons.

Watch expiration dates and use the older coupons first.

Get organized. Sort coupons and keep them with you for unplanned shopping trips.

Coupon Stuff on Amazon 

The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs

The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs

by: Stephanie Nelson

Amazon Price: $9.00 (as of 01/05/2010) Buy Now

Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom

Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom

by: Stephanie Nelson

Amazon Price: (as of 01/05/2010) Buy Now

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer - 24 Cards - Made in the USA

Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Organizer - 24 Cards - Made in the USA

Amazon Price: $8.00 (as of 01/05/2010) Buy Now

Getting the Most from Coupon Codes 

Getting great Amazon.com coupon codes is not hard. There are many places on the net to look for coupon codes. How can you make sure to get maximum savings from your coupon codes?

A) Divide your purchases - in most transactions, it's impossible to make use of two or more coupons. It's important to read the terms carefully for any deals you plan to use. If the coupon codes you have are for specific items, it might be more practicable to divide your purchases and check them out separately. This would allow you maximum savings. If a coupon is limited to one per customer, you might even need to have a friend help you get maximum value for multiple items.

B) Save your coupons - it is often inadvisable to make use of your coupon codes immediately. If the coupons are for very specific items, it might be better to keep those coupons until you actually need to buy the items. Store your coupons by expiration date, and keep them until expired for future needs.

C) Choose codes wisely - if the coupon codes in question are for all purchases, then you might want to start thinking in terms of percentages and savings. Will you use the $2.50 off coupon or would you use the 10% off coupon? This depends upon the total price of your purchases. Always make a point to get as much value as you can from the coupon.

D) Think of coupon codes as cash - These codes are not just "extras" that may come in handy. Think of the codes as cash. When you get a coupon code, you're effectively being given free cash. And what do you do with cash? You spend it or save it. You don't forget about it. Changing your mindset will allow you remember the coupons you make a purchase on Amazon. It will also help you hold to your budget, since you automatically factor in the value of the coupons when you buy from Amazon or any other retailer you prefer to use.

It's also wise to not have a "favorite" retailer. Shop where your coupons have the best value.

Couponing and Refunding Posts from Google 

Alaska Coupon Diva: The Gray Areas of Couponing
Otherwise, if you have to make a return, tell the store you purchased with coupon and let them sort out how they want to refund you. Using Expired Coupons: This one has some gray within gray, how expired is it? ...
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by cheryl20772

I live in Maryland and sell items on both eBay and Amazon to make some extra spending money.

My strong point seems to be helping others learn how to... (more)

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