Step 2 - Get Some Coupons
Alright, now that we’re prepared to make some changes in the way we shop, we’ve got to get some coupons. Here’s where your options begin. Like I mentioned before, there’s a lot of choices in couponing to make it as involved as you wish. Below I’ve outlined some of the ways you can obtain coupons. Feel free to use as many or as few methods as you like. If you’re brand new to couponing I would suggest starting with one method and adding others as you feel comfortable. This will help prevent you from becoming overwhelmed.
So, what kind of coupons can you get?
- Newspaper coupons - the traditional coupon source. Most major papers include coupon inserts on Sundays (you know, those ads and stuff that take up more room than the paper itself). Seems pretty straightforward right? But wait, there’s even options here:
- Subscribe to your local paper or a major paper in your area – watch out here, some local papers have a different version of the coupon inserts that doesn’t include a lot of what’s in the larger paper
- Pick up your paper from the grocery, gas station, Dollar Tree, or street vendor – these are usually cheaper, but require that you leave the house. Some major papers also do double editions in the store. You get double the inserts for just some change. Consider this – if you use just one .50 cent coupon, you’ve paid for the excess.
- Get the coupon inserts from you family, friends, or neighbors – save even more by rescuing those inserts that are headed for the trash!
- Printable coupons – get your coupons from your home computer for just the cost of printing. Feel free to print in black and white to save money. Most coupon sites refresh their coupons once per month, and some couponers print anything they think they’ll use. That’s fine if you’re very organized, but I’d suggest waiting until you get the hang of couponing. You’ll start to see a pattern to sales, and that will help you determine which ones are worth printing right away. You can always come back to print any you decide you need later. Also, many sites allow two prints per computer (yay!)
*Beware of emailed .pdf coupons as these are generally not meant to be shared. Using scanned or copied coupons is illegal, so please stick to printing your own.
Click here for more info and printable coupon sites to bookmark
- Electronic coupons – couponing for the 21st century. These are coupons that are totally online, so you don’t have to print anything to use them. Some are “loaded” to your frequent shopper card, others can be saved to your phone and presented to the cashier that way. Generally these coupons are in addition to any paper or printed coupons, so you can basically get two coupons on one item!
Click here for a list of electronic coupon sites
- Coupon services – it is illegal to sell coupons, but it is legal to charge a fee for your time and effort in gathering coupons (got that?). This is what we call a “clipping service”. If there’s a high value coupon out there for a product you love you can actually pay someone to clip and mail a bunch of those coupons to you. One great place for this is Ebay – just make sure you consider the mailing time and expiation date before paying.
Alright, you know where to get your coupons, now what are you going to do with all those coupons? On to step 3…
