Most companies offer some sort of coupons for their products. Some times these coupons can be difficult to come across, and sometimes it can be as easy as looking in the Sunday paper. There are many other places to find coupons, both online and off, for nearly every product and service.
Sunday Coupons
This is generally the easiest way to find coupons for food, health and drug, personal care, and household items. These coupons are regional and can vary from city to city. Some people opt to subscribe to several different Sunday editions of newspapers to find the best coupons and deals. Be sure to check the paper thoroughly. SmartSource and Red Plum are the coupon inserts, but once a month P&G has their own insert, and many stores have their own coupons in their sales ads. Occasionally, the Parade magazine insert has coupons too.
Online Resources
There many places on the internet that have coupons too, such as SmartSource, Red Plum, and Coupons.com, but many retailers offer coupons in other places too. Be sure to sign up for email updates from your favorite manufacturer’s and stores to get exclusive savings and coupons.
Facebook is a great way to get coupons as well. Many manufacturer’s and stores are turning to Facebook for coupon distribution. Sometimes these coupons are limited to a specific number of issuances, so it helps to be fast. There are blogs such as, Hip2Save.com, which posts deals and coupons quickly and takes the hard work out of checking multiple pages, and keeps them all on one site.
Mail
Don’t forget to check your mail for coupon booklets for locals goods and services. Mailings, such as Valpak, offer great discounts on local restaurants, oil changes and auto service, dry cleaning, carpet cleaning, and much more. There are other regional mailers that you might be throwing away as well. Many people throw away junk mail before searching through it for deals and coupons they may actually need. This is another great reason to sign up through your favorite manufacturer’s and retailer’s websites. They may send out coupons to members via mail, in addition to email and Facebook savings.
Entertainment Book
Many people get these and think they are going to use them, then don’t. However, there are great deals on everything from eating out to movies and travel discounts in the yearly Entertainment book. Be sure to make a note of when the deals expire and which locations they are good at, but there is a neighborhood index in the back of the book, which indicates which offers are good in your area. Think about trading with others (via Craigslist, etc.) the coupons that you can’t or won’t use for ones that you will.
Couponing can be considered an art form. It takes a lot of time and dedication to find great deals, but many think that the effort is worth while. It is possible to score great deals on nearly everything that you purchase with a little advance planning.