I am TERRIBLE at using coupons to help save money. By the time I’ve paid the money for the newspaper subscription and spent a ton of my time browsing through the Sunday paper and clipping 
coupons I might actually use, and then organize them into a ‘functional’ system, sort through all the older coupons for any expired ones, and then actually try to coordinate the ones left with a sale, all to get one jar of peanut butter for half price… forget it! My time is worth more than that. Then there’s also the online coupon sites (like coupon.com) where you can download and print your coupons. A little better… the site and service is free, but it uses so much ink… expensive ink, that I always wonder to myself if that’s worth it too. So using coupon has kind of fallen by the wayside for me.
However, I just came across two sites I want to share with you that are basically coupon clipping businesses. You browse through the sites, select the coupons you want, the quantities of each coupon you want, and then they mail them to your house for a small fee. The fee is determined on a coupon by coupon basis. A $1.00 off coupon may have a .10 fee. Or a .75 off coupon may have a .08 fee. Anyway, what I like about this is that if you find a good coupon for something you really like (and actually use), you can order 10 of the same coupon (or however many you want). And then, when there’s a good sale on your item (like peanut butter) and you have ten $1.00 off coupons, you can purchase 10 jars of peanut butter for an awesome price! And you didn’t have to buy 10 Sunday newspapers to get it either! 🙂
Anyway, it’s still a new process for me, so there’s no telling on whether or not I will actually stick with this coupon method. But the concept sure seems great and I can see some great savings potential in my future.
Here’s some suggestions based on my first (and only, so far) use of one of the sites (Coupon Clippers): I noticed that there is a .50 ‘administrative fee’ and a ‘shipping fee’ (just the price of a stamp), along with an almost $4 minimum, so make sure you’ve got some coupons to stock up on whenever you’re going to make a coupon purchase. Also make sure you check the expiration dates on the coupons. None of the ones the companies list are expired, however some expire pretty soon… so make sure you’re going to use it quickly if it does. I also like to check my local stores weekly ads online and do some quick comparing to see if there are any items for sale that there is also a coupon for (this will generally only work for name brand items, so save yourself time by only checking for those items in the coupon sections). Okay, that’s probably it.
The two sites I found are: The Coupon Master and The Coupon Clippers. Go check them out and see if you can increase your savings potential as well! 😀 And I’ll leave you with a funny comic for your weekend.
Happy Shopping!
Food Storage And Beyond 