A Thrifty Mom

Just have had some emails about couponing and thought it would be good to have a refresher

• Buy one get one free sales- When a store has a buy one get one free sale, this is a great time to use your coupons. You can use 2 coupons. One for the item you are buying and one for the item you are getting for free. WHY, you need to remember that a coupon is like cash. The store IS getting paid for that product, by the Manufacturer. So the store gives you the second item for free, but they can turn in the coupon and get paid for that item they just gave you for free. Example- chips are on sale buy one get one free. You pay $4.00 for the first bag of chips, and get the 2nd free. But you have 2 coupons for $1 off a bag of chips. You can use both of those coupons. One coupon is applied to each bag of chips (although one bag is considered free) Both coupons are applied to the total sale price. Bringing the total to $2 for 2 bags of chips. You would have paid $8 for 2 bags of chips, but using the Buy one get one (BOGO) free sale you have saved $4 PLUS $2 in coupons.
• Stacking your coupons- Stacking your coupons is when you are able to use 2 coupons for one item. You are able to do this when you use a in-store coupon ( a coupon that the store prints, normally in the weekly ad. It will have the store logo on it) along with a MFR (manufacturer coupon). When you use the in-store coupon and the MFR coupon together this is called “stacking” your coupons. So watch for those in-store coupons, and see if you have a MFR coupon to go along with it.

I always tell people that when you coupon, you need to re-learn how to shop.  Most of us make a list of things we need, go to the store and buy what is on the list.  When you shop like this you are forced to pay the price the store has them marked.   If you need that item,  you do not really have much choice but to pay what the store is asking for that item.  One of the keys to being a successful coupon shopper is to learn to stock up on items your family needs at there lowest price point. Stock up when you  find the perfect sale, that pairs with a great coupon, many times you are able to get that item free or pennies on the dollar.  Instead of buying one jar of peanut butter, go ahead and buy 6.  You can now take those 6 jars of peanut butter home, put them in your pantry.  Your pantry will soon be filled with items that you bought at their lowest price point.  You now have the freedom to not buy peanut butter again till it is at a price you are willing to pay.

This is why having multiple coupons is such an import key to saving money.  If peanut butter comes on sale for $1.00 a jar and you have a .75 cent off coupon, you are able to get that jar for only .25 cents.  But that one jar will not last very long, so in a few weeks you will need to buy it again at regular price.  If you have 6 coupons them you are able to buy 6 jars, at their lowest price point.  For the same price it will cost you for one jar at regular retail price.  I am very busy and I do not have time to run to the store for one jar at a good price, but if I can get 6 jars at a good price then it is worth my time.

One rule to getting a good deal with coupons is to buy small.  I know this goes against everything we have been taught, that the family value pack is suppose to be the best deal right?  Once again this brings us back to the point that anyone can match a coupon with an item.  The real key to saving the big bucks is, learning a few simple rules.  One of those rules is to to match a high value coupon up to the smallest and lowest priced item.  Let me explain, if you have a $2.00 off Chinet paper plates coupon, and the coupon says it is for 36-72 count packages.  If you look at the price per plate, the larger package will normally give you the best price per plate.   So it would seem like that one would give you the better deal.

If you buy the 36 count plates they are $2.50 that makes them about 7 cents a plate. The 72 count plates are $4.50, that makes them about 6 cents a plate.  But if you use the $2.00 off coupon on the 36 count package it now makes them only .50 cent,  less than a penny each.  If you use the coupon on the larger value pack it makes them only $2.50, or 3 cents each. So matching the high value coupon with the smallest package is the best deal.  Using a high value coupon will save you money but, learning how to use it to your advantage will save you even more.

We get  emails asking us  fairly basic and simple questions. So I thought I would put up a Back to Basics post every now and then, to help with the details of this new way of couponing. You can read this in its entirety on the top of our site under the link of Freebies 101

• Make a 2nd email account- You will find that as you sign up for free products or contests, that you will start to receive A LOT more spam. But you will also get more offers for coupons, and other use full info. I would HIGHLY recommend that you take a few minutes and set up a 2nd email account. Use a free email service, and use this as you enter in give aways, surveys and contest. This way you can have your personal email account free of all the extra mail.
• Don’t give out to much personal info- You will need to give them your name, address, phone and email. Many companies want a lot more info too, they want to know, birth dates, how many kids you have, and much more. They want this info to find out more about the people that are using their product. So if they ask how many kids I have I tell them, BUT if they ask their names, will use a different name. I don’t think anyone needs to know what my kids names are, just for a free bar of soap. When they ask for my birthday I always give them the the correct month and year but I change the “real” day. This helps protect my personal info. NEVER give out your credit card or SS# for a giveaway, unless you have done a lot of homework and know its legitimate. If they ask for your phone number, unless you actually want telemarketers calling, don’t give the correct number.

Readers question: “This is probably a dumb question but I am new to this! When you say the 5/17 red plum and 6/21 smart source etc, what is that?”

Answer: First this is a great question, we all have to start somewhere and the coupon lingo can be a little overwhelming at first. In the Sunday paper along with all the store ads you will find coupon inserts.  These are put out by different companies, the 3 most common inserts are the Red Plum, Smart Source and P&G(proctor and gamble).  Not all areas get all 3  inserts, for example most of Eastern Idaho does not get the Red Plum or P&G.  It appears that the Smart source seems to be available in most areas.  It can be a little tricky because the coupons I get in my Smart Source are sometimes different from the coupons another city will get in theirs.  Larger city’s tend to get more coupons or higher value coupons.

I am blessed that my local paper the Idaho Press Tribune gets all 3 inserts, plus they have an “A Thirfty Mom Paper Deal”  that allows you to get multiple Sunday papers for only .60 cents each delivered to you door.  Having multiple coupons has been the secret to my saving hundreds of dollars a month!

Some manufactures who allow you to print coupons off their site will use a Flash program. Or run a Java script. Don’t worry about trying to figure out what that all means. Just look for a drop down bar that comes down below your address bar on top of your page you are trying to print. Click on that bar and click on what ever it ask you to “allow”. It could be please allow ActiveX, or could be please allow Java script. If its on a site that is a major company you can “probably” trust it. If that still doesn’t work try installing the FREE java program:

Java by Sun microsystems

Trouble Printing Coupons? Here is a part of a larger post you can read on top of our site under the link Trouble Printing

First what we do at A Thrifty Mom is:
Copy the link address. The “www.bricks.coupons.com…..whatever”.
And then Switch browsers! There are really only 3 to worry about.

FireFox
Internet Explorer
Google Chrome – not used much, so usually it’s the top two.

Paste the code in the opposite browser and print away.

Second – what I think is the more complicated way.
Find the 2 letters and switch to a variety of other 2 letter combination’s.
A FireFox link:
hxxp://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=ri5peuo65798407&bt=wg&o=74976&ci=3&c=GM&p=HyRwaQe
Do you see the “wg” in the code… it’s red. By changing that code to a “vi” or “wi” in Internet Explorer will fix the above issues.
You can swap these codes around till it works in the particular browser you are using. If you don’t want to do what we do.
Now if you are a MAC user, on Safari, you can also replace the “wi”, “vi” or “wg” with a “xs”. Or if you see a “xs” (rare) you can replace with the above 2 letter combo’s.

Well I think just having the other browser already installed is the easiest way, but it’s up to you to choose. Hope this helps.

We get  emails asking us  fairly basic and simple questions. So I thought I would put up a Back to Basics post every now and then, to help with the details of this new way of couponing. You can read this in its entirety on the top of our site under the link of COUPON 101.

• What coupons do you save? I clip and save almost every coupon. The only time I don’t save a coupon is if it’s something I would never use even if it was free. So I keep 99% of my coupons. On Sunday when the coupon inserts come out, I spent about an hour clipping them out of 5 different papers. I put them in stacks of similar products. Like all the shampoo goes in one pile, all the cracker coupons in another. By clipping them out of the paper you are able to get rid of a lot of the bulk. Who wants to keep 50 papers around their house. From here you need to organize them, I keep all my coupons in a coupon binder ( I plan to do a post on this next week)
• Why do I clip and save every coupon? I save every coupon because I never know what is going to come on sale. Or when I might find an item on clearance, and if I have all my coupons in a binder, with me. Then I am able to take advantage of both the coupon and the sale. Before I started my binder I can’t tell you how many times I would buy something that I had a coupon for at home but I just forgot to bring it. Or I didn’t plan to buy it that week, but when I got to the store it was one sale. So I missed a great way to save even more money.

Every now and then we get an email or two asking fairly basic and simple questions. So I thought I would put up a Back to Basics post every now and then to help with the details of this new way of couponing. You can read this in its entirety on the top of our site under the link of COUPON 101.

Where to find coupons:

Blinkies- These are the little black boxes with the red blinking light that spits out coupons. You can find these little units on the selves in some stores, like Albertsons and WalGreens to name a few. Go ahead and take a few and save them for your coupon stash. But only take a few, remember to play nice and leave some for the next coupon hunter.

Ask around- you would be surprised how many people just throw them away. I have 2 very sweet little old ladies that share their papers with me every week. My husbands work gets Sunday papers. And they just toss them come Monday morning. So he grabs the inserts for me. Once your friends, family, co-works and neighbors know you like coupons they are normally happy to help save them for you.