15 Days of Couponing Day 5: Maximize Your Coupon by Using it at the Right Time!

by Briana Carter on March 8, 2009

Day 1: We all have to shop! Why not save money while doing it?
Day 2: The Language of Couponers – Translated!
Day 3: Where Art Thou Coupons?
Day 4: Know Thy Coupon (What does that fine print mean?)
Day 5: When to Use Your Coupons
Day 6: Buy Groceries, Pay for College with Upromise eCoupons
Day 7: eCoupons the Alternate to Clipping
Day 8: Don’t Get Mad, Get a Rain Check
Day 9: Advance Your Couponing Skills with Rebates
Day 10: Stockpiling

Day 11: Organize Your Coupon Stash
Day 12: Surviving the Checkout Lane

Yes, I missed Saturday – We had a very exciting high school basketball game to attend to. I apologize to anyone who was waiting for this!

So now that you know the basics of coupons, when do you use it? One of the biggest complaints about couponing I hear is the items with coupons are more expensive anyway. Usually, they are – regular price. So don’t just use a coupon because you have it or because it is about to expire. Use it when the item is on sale for a low price, there is a CVS Extra Buck Deal, a mail in rebate, or another offer! This is how you can get brand name items cheaper than their generic counterparts.

FREE COUPONS

For example, I had a (3) Free Cheerios coupons, which didn’t expire until 2010 but I was itching to use them. Though, I knew there would be a CVS General Mills Extra Buck deal at some point. Luckily, I save it and was able to completely rock a “Buy $20 of GM products, Get $10 back” with that coupon. So even “Free” Coupons can be maximized even further.

COUPON EXPIRATION

Don’t feel bad about letting other coupons expires. You may be tempted to use that $1/1 coupon just because it expires today but usually when it expires, another one will be coming in the paper! So unless, it is a free coupon or a coupon that makes an item very cheap, don’t use it because it as about to expire.

ROCK BOTTOM PRICES

Use your coupon when the sale price is the lowest possible price. This will maximize your coupon usage. Some track their 30 top items with a spreadsheet. I have my lowest price I will pay for certain items all stored in memory. For example, I never pay more than .25 for a tube of toothpaste. Even that is too much anymore when we have 15 already in our stockpile. If you are not brand specific, almost every week you can find a toothpaste for free at one of the drug stores.

Use sites like mine to find all the hard work of matching up coupons to the best sale prices. See my grocery store deals or drug store deals.

DOUBLES

Use your coupons at stores that double to make your coupons go further. Check your store for details but many stores will double coupons up to .50 – valuable for those lower value coupons!

STACKING

Many stores allow “stacking”. This is the coupon terminology used to associate using a Manufacturer’s Coupon with a Store Coupon. This allows for a deeper discount on a product. You can tell if your coupon is a manufacturer’s or store coupon by looking at the top of the coupon. CVS and Walgreens as well as other stores allow this type of stacking.

The 15 Days of Couponing will guide you through the art of couponing. It is a skill that you can learn and maximize to the full potential to help your family and help others. So if you are interested in cutting your grocery budget in half or more, read yesterday’s edition and stay tuned for tommorrow’s edition.

Tagged as: 15 days of couponing

comments { 18 Comments }

Kris - March 08, 2009 @ 8:46 pm 1

I’ve been enjoying your series very much! Couponing became my obsession last summer. It’s a hobby–and way of life–that takes some practice, but the best way thing to do is just jump in and try it out!

On the topic of throwing out coupons…I threw a ton of coupons out today that expired at the end of February. It doesn’t hurt so much, but the ones that kill me are the Internet printables. To me it’s wasted paper and money out of my pocket, but you have to print them when they are available. Some of those especially HOT coupons are only available for a day or two! Two things I wish about Internet printables:
1. I could see the expiration before I print them. Most of them expire within a month, but there are others that have 3 months.
2. I could hold the coupons in a queue before printing them. You know, like I snag the coupon, but I can hold off printing it until I absolutely need it. Someone should invent something like that. Or is there already?

Sorry for the long comment, but I was thinking that maybe someone might relate and laugh to this couponing irritation!
- Priscilla - April 02, 2011 @ 12:03 pm 1.1
  
  Hi Kris,
  
  I am brand new to this coupon world, just started last weekend, and having a ton of fun with it so far but have found that a ton of money can be used and wasted printing coupons. I wish that we could choose the coupons, have them held in a queue until we need them AND be able to reduce the size when printing to save ink. Not only that but I really hate when only one coupon prints per page…in the middle of the page…AND an advertisement prints. It’s just a waste of ink and paper!
  
  Hopefully I’ll come across someone giving advice on how to save money and paper on printing coupons…Just my pet peeve after only a week.
Brandy - March 09, 2009 @ 6:15 am 2

I have been enjoying the series! I am wondering though, if youcould show a few examples of how your spreadsheets look like, I would like to do this, but I don’t know where to start.
Julie - March 09, 2009 @ 8:39 am 3

I love your site! I am new to couponing, and this series is so helpful. I would love to see a list of your “rock bottom prices” so I know a good deal when one comes!
Sharon - March 09, 2009 @ 12:06 pm 4

Hi Brianna! This has been a great series and I’m glad to be sending readers to it as a reference.

I wanted to let you know that I’m doing a giveaway of 10 weeks of Coupon Inserts that might be really useful for someone who is a newbie. They can check it out at http://tinyurl.com/bmo2nx

I appreciate it. Let me know if there is a better venue to let people know about it.

Sharons last blog post..Coupons for Wendy’s
Kristin - March 09, 2009 @ 12:27 pm 5

One thing I’d like to add if it’s ok is to look for trial sizes at the end of the month, for those coupons you weren’t able to use for full size products. A lot of toiletries (toothpaste, shampoo, etc.) often won’t be size specific so you can score a lot of trial sizes for free. I don’t do this with mine until the last couple of days to make SURE I can’t get a great deal on a full size product, but it sure does help family members who travel, have hospital stays as we often do, or charity. This way I am able to get free things and am able to utilize a few more coupons that were going to expire.

I’m not sure if you’re going to cover this or not, but also military families overseas can use coupons up to 6 months past the expiration date, so before you throw out unused coupons maybe you could consider mailing them overseas or giving them to your local VFW to avoid the cost of postage. They do have special mailing addresses so it doesn’t cost more to mail things to them than to anywhere else.

Sorry for the long comment!
Mike - May 07, 2010 @ 5:39 pm 6

Hey Kris I feel your pain on throwing out internet printable coupons. Have you tried printing to a PDF Printer? I also use a screen shot program called snagit. After you get the PDF you could then snag the coupon and just save that and print 5 to 8 on a page and cut them out. I noticed today while looking for V8 Fusion coupons that they want to print the advertisement at the bottom of the page. I just took the screen shot and saved it and printed it 3 times on a page (Since I buy this every week).

PS I know the PDF Printer is free but I have a work copy of Snagit but its a screen shot program. If you want tottaly free then use the print screen and mspaint to copy the image and then piece the 3 together.
horror dvd collection - May 20, 2010 @ 4:38 am 7

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Tammy - September 06, 2010 @ 5:23 pm 8

I was just wondering about the PDF printer and where to get it/how it works. Also wondered if that is a legal way to print (does it make it so you can print each more than twice? which would be more than you are usually allowed)

thanks for your help just discovered your coupon data base and your site.
- Briana Carter - September 07, 2010 @ 7:31 am 8.1
  
  Most coupon sites will not allow you to print to a PDF printer.
Mariana Storm - April 14, 2011 @ 9:17 am 9

We have H.E.B. stores here and they are coupon crazy. They have meal deals where if you buy this item (meat) you get these items ( the sides and dessert) and Texas Showdowns where you buy the name brand and you get the store brand for free. They also have other deals like if you buy the coffee you get the creamer for free.
Is this a way for the grocery company to avoid Extreme Coupon people?
Jennie - July 24, 2011 @ 11:18 pm 10

I saw a concern about wasting coupons. I always make sure to put my unused coupons in the recycling pile. It makes me feel better about not using extra coupons.