Coupon Post 3 - How to Find Coupons

There are many ways you can begin collecting coupons. I have never used a clipping service and I do not pay for any special websites. I do pay for a Sunday paper and use the coupons out of my parents' and my mother in law's paper. Any other coupons I use I find online or receive in the mail by signing up with a company for special promotions.

Facebook
Many manufacturers have Facebook pages. If you "Like" their page then you can print off coupons they post. Many of these companies also send out information about upcoming sales. Some of the pages that I receive updates from on my Facebook feed are: Ballpark, Burt's Bees, Disney, and Pampers.

To find a manufacturer that you would be interested in, search their name and just click the Like button. This is also a great way to get deals on things happening in your town. Find a local museum, park, or radio station and watch for them to start talking about deals on events.

Manufacturer websites

Manufacturers offer coupons to print from their websites. Many of these coupons are offered in exchange for you signing  up for an account on their site. I recommend creating a separate email account to use only when signing up for coupons and free samples. Many times you will receive follow-up emails from these companies, and I don’t like to fill my regular inbox with these offers. In these e-mails you will often receive additional coupons or notices when big sales are going to happen so for brands that you use a lot this is a great tool. Here are some of the sites that I am a member of. Most of these sites send me booklets of coupons once a month.

P&G

HUGGIES® Promotions and Special Offers

Beechnut

Marzetti

Kelloggs

Johnson & Johnson

Earths Best

Loading coupons onto a card
Many stores like Kroger have a loyalty card and you can load coupons directly onto that card. This is a great option for using coupons with no effort. There are a few problems with using coupons this way, including:
1. Kroger and other stores will not double coupons loaded onto a card. This means that if you use a paper coupon you will get more money off.
2. It is very easy to forget what coupons you have when you can't see them.

To help combat these problems, I only load coupons that are over a dollar and only for products that I am not worried about hitting a sale with. If I do load a coupon that I really need to remember to use, then I make sure to write it down in my binder. We will talk about binders next!

Here are some other sites that you can sign up your card and load away!  Again all of these sites are free! I love free things don't you?

cellfire

shortcuts

pgesaver

Online Coupon Website

Companies like coupons.com, smartsource.com and redplum.com require a software download before you print coupons. This is a one time step and is completely safe.They do this so that each coupon has a different bar-code. All of these sites are free.

These sites change the coupons about once a month and you will see some of the same things offered on all of the sites. You can print each coupon twice. After you print the first time hit back on your browser, when it asks if you want to resend the information say yes and you will print again. These sites are a huge source for printable coupons I use them all the time! 

 Redplum

Coupon Suzy

Smart Source

Coupons.com

The Store Website
One of the best places to find store specific coupons is Target. The Target webpage has coupons that you can print out that are only good at Target. The best part about this is that you can use a Target coupon (that you got from their page) and a manufactures coupon on the same product! This is when I can really do some damage with stacking. Here is the link to the Target Coupon Page.

Kroger does something similar to this but it is a mailer. If you go onto the Kroger website and make a profile they track what you buy though your card and then once a month or so send out a packet of coupons specifically tailored to what you buy most often. These coupons are only good for use at Kroger and cannot be stacked.

Catalina Coupon Basics

The term Catalina Coupons refers to any coupon printed at the cash register when you complete a purchase at a store. They are often also referred to simply as “Catalinas,” “check-out coupons,” or “register rewards." They are printed by a Catalina machine that sits right next to the cash register.

Types of Catalina Coupons

There are two types of Catalina coupons. The first and most common type are cents-off coupons that are good on a specific product. For example $1.00 off any box of General Mills cereal.

The other type of Catalina coupon is an on your next order (OYNO) coupon and these are coupons that are for cents-off anything in your next purchase. For example $1.00 off your next purchase. There is usually some fine print exclusions on these that typically exclude you from using OYNO Catalina coupons on alcohol, tobacco, gift cards and stamps, and in some states, dairy or fluid milk.

Both types can either print based your recent store purchases or because the brand is having a special promotion.

Catalina Marketing has recently also launched a new printable coupons product. This is quite different than their check-out coupons, but offers other unique coupon savings. It is called Coupon Network and it allows you to print coupons directly from your computer for use at your local stores.

Other coupon locations that sometimes get missed:

• Peelies: these are the coupons that are stuck to the product. If you don't need the product now, you might later.
• Blinkies: those coupons in the SmartSource machines that may or may not have the little blinking light. Most of the time you want to save these and wait for a sale not use them when you find them.
• Tearpads: usually these pads are on the shelf or display. I see a lot of these at Christmas time.
• Try Me Free or Rebate forms: these are a great way to try a new product and/or make money on a deal! Buy an item on sale, use the coupon, and send away for the rebate!

I know that all of this seems like a lot of time and work, but time is money. Did you know that coupon clipping pays an average of $86 per hour according to the Wall Street Journal? I think that's worth the time and just think of this as a challenge to keep as much of your hard earned money as you can!

Do you have other places to find coupons that I missed?