Why Stores Take Your Coupons

Once the cashier accepts the coupon, the store has a problem. It now has a small scrap of paper that is worth cash, but in order to get the cash the store has to mail the coupon to the manufacturer. On the back of most coupons in fine print, the manufacturer lists the mailing address and states that it will also reimburse the store some amount of money for processing -- typically 8 cents per coupon. Redeeming a coupon would not be that bad if there were only a few of them, but major grocery chains collect millions of them. At that scale it becomes a major headache! The whole process seems hopelessly antiquated, but coupons remain enormously popular and that is why they continue. A coupon is, essentially, free money, and free money is hard to stop...especially as gas prices rise and fall and the price of groceries go up and down.

On the show Extreme Couponing on TLC, people are spending at least 30 hours a week with their coupon clipping, sorting, list making, scoping out the store for hidden bargins and basically making it their full-time job. One woman bought over $1,100 in groceries and paid $45 for the entire purchase. She also made the store money..8 cents is 8 cents and by the customer shopping in their store and purchasing EVERY product with a coupon they made money, while of course she saved money. Now, I am not going to try to ring up a bill of that amount of money, I do, however, want to try to get my purchase as low as I can. I'm not quite ready yet, but I will most certainly share on here and Facebook about my first triumphant shopping trip and I am hoping that it will be at Romney's County Pride. One because it's very close to where I live. Two, it is a locally owned business and three it is the closest and only grocery store in town that doubles coupons up to 50 cents.

So there you have it...I am almost ready to embark on getting deals as close to free or as low as I can. If I can't, I am going learn from my mistakes and try until I do.

Please note that the last entry is at the beginning...scroll down until you come to my older posts starting with April..that is THE BEGINNING of the Blog and continue to click on the titles or dates to learn how I am writing and researching couponing in a small community. I know I sound redundant, but several people have told me that they have read my blog...one time...that's not the purpose of blogging. Blogging consists of daily, weekly or monthly entries. This site is designed differently than most, but as I say in some of my older posts, Blogger is a very easy site to monetize for me and very user friendly. By telling you this, I do not want you to miss out on important information. Please tell your friends about it, make comments and pass it along....thanks so much.

Happy Couponing and Have a Happy and Safe Sunday (:
Cindi

Different Stores, Different Coupon Policies

Something that I just learned recently about are store coupon policies. Just about all store have different coupon policies. Most stores are happy to give you a print out of those policies, because they love it when you use coupons and will do anything to keep your business, especially in these hard economic times, so do no be afraid to ask. Sometimes these policies change, so make sure you contact the store manager about any questions you may have.

Great Coupon Binder

I just found a great coupon binder and organizer. This comes from a website that helps you figure out what kind of system you want to use while you are shopping and saving money. It teaches you so much more than the show Extreme Couponing does and goes into a lot of details that I never knew about. The link is http://www.couponmagicorganizer.com/
Happy Couponing!!!!

Cindi

Discovered a new FREEBIE site....just pay shipping!!!!

I just came across another FREEBIE site, all you have to do is just pay shipping costs. A lot of times FREEBIES can be full size samples and for the most part are completely worth paying for the shipping and just as good as using coupons. The link is http://freewithshipping.com/

Have fun with this one and hopefully I will have more on the way!!!!

Red Plum

Red Plumb is the name of the coupon insert that we all can get by buying the Sunday papers such as The Washington Post, Cumberland Times-News, Martinsburg Journal and Saturday's Winchester Star. They do have a great website that you can print off the same coupons that you get in the insert. The link is http://www.redplum.com/ As I have said before, Food Lion, Walmart and Martins all take internet coupons. County Pride does not take the internet coupons, but will double coupons up to $.50. County Pride is starting to give Food Lion a run for it's money and I have been saving a TON of money there lately.

I will say this over and over throughout this blog, make sure that you "stake out" your store and make sure that you organized your coupons according to the lay out of the store. You may also have to make separate binders for each store. There are always "hidden" deals somewhere where you least expect it, so know your store, know your deals.

Getting Coupons for the Manufactures

If you don't have access to coupons from your Sunday newspaper inserts you can absolutely sign up at the manufactures websites and they will send you all the great deals through emails and through regular mail. I have found that this saves you time cutting the coupons out AND you can also get some great freebies out of it. Remember to use a separate email for all the sites that you sign up for.
Happy couponing (:

Slowly Learning About Who Accepts Coupons..

I am slowly, but surely finding out what local stores take coupons and what kind. Recently, I found out that Reed's Pharmacy takes manufacture coupons and possibly internet coupons.

As gas prices rise and most of us are looking for deals closer to home, remember to bookmark this blog, as I will be updating it more regularly. I am just starting this process and I am thinking about starting a LOCAL couponing site. Please bare with me and remember, also, that the current entry here on Blogger is always first. Scroll down and notice the date of each entry. The very last entry is the very first entry. I know it sounds confusing, but I like the way Blogger lets me make extra money with their advertising. You can also make money blogging about anything you want to. Then, you can capitalize on it by signing up for Google Adsense and their affiliate program and they do the rest..

More to come soon..thanks for reading and please come back often for coupon tips in our rural community.