Dian from Grocery Shop for Free is one of the sweetest coupon bloggers I’ve met on my journey so far, so I was thrilled when she agreed to do a THREE-PART guest-blogging series on how to start coupon shopping! Come back tomorrow for the next part of the series!
3 Steps To Begin Coupon Shopping
I am so excited to guest on Michelle’s blog today! My name is Dian and I run http://www.groceryshopforfree.com/, and I wanted to just give you the run down on how I do what I do! Learn how to gather, organize, and effectively use coupons to shop for pennies on the dollar, if not FREE!!
Where Do I Get Coupons?
5 Places You Can Get Coupons
To begin couponing, you have to have coupons, right? Well, where can you get a starter “stash” so you can begin this journey?
1. The Newspaper – everyone knows this, right? Most every Sunday you can get inserts in your paper that have manufacturer’s coupons for you to use. So, you want to get the paper. But, you don’t want to buy alot of papers, because that will cut into your savings. Sometimes, there will be an excellent insert and you may want to buy quite a few. But usually you can buy a couple and ask your friends and family to save their inserts for you. You can put a free ad up on Craigslist asking people who just throw their’s out to hold them for you to pick up or you can arrange to have them mailed to you.
2. Junk Mail – Now nobody likes reading through their junk mail, but, sometimes there are really good deals in there. How many times have you been out to eat and not even thought about the coupon in your trash for a Buy One Meal Get One FREE! What a waste. Just make sure to check through them all.
3. Manufacturer Websites – If you have a brand that you like, go to the source, read their website, look for coupons, join their email club, ask for coupons. Most sites want you to join and they will send you specials and coupons in your email, get a junk email account just for those emails if you don’t want them coming to your regular email account. Most restaurants will send you a FREE meal or appetizer for your birthday! Fill out survey cards in products you purchase, give your honest opinion. When my kids were young, I cannot tell you how many packs of diapers I get for FREE with coupons the manufacturer’s sent me because I filled out their survey cards in the diaper packs.
4. Magazines – These are becoming an increasingly popular place for manufacturer’s to put coupons. There is a magazine, I believe you can only buy it at Wal-Mart, called All You. It is FILLED with coupons, I mean $100 or more EVERY month! So check out magazines.
5. Purchase – You can buy coupons from a coupon clipping service or on eBay. Now, you may think that this defeats the purpose, but, on eBay for instance you can buy 20 of the same coupon for $1 – $3.50 and pay $1 or less shipping. Now you have 20 coupons, sorted and clipped for you and if the coupon is for $1 off you are going to save $20. So, not a bad idea. You can also purchase whole inserts from a coupon clipping service, just make sure you weigh the cost of your paper with the cost of the insert and shipping.
So, there are 5 places to get coupons to get started. Next we will discuss how to organize them.
You can also check out: http://www.groceryshopforfree.com/ and watch my video series for more in depth info.
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