Frugal Living for your Modern Family
Manufacturer Coupon: A Manufacturer coupon will clearly state “Manufacturer” at the top of the coupon ( usually beside the expiration date). You can use these coupons at any store that will accept coupons. The barcode number will usually start with a 5 or a 9. They will be found in newspaper inserts, magazines, and online.
As you start learning to coupon, you may notice that couponers have a language of their own. You may be wondering what the heck we are talking about when we use abbreviations on coupon sites. Well, here is a list of different abbreviations and what they mean:
Sunday inserts:
RP– Red Plum
So, last time we talked about why you should use coupons. Today I’m going to share all the different places you might find coupons.
1. Sunday Newspaper: This is the most common place to find coupon inserts. There are 3 different kinds of inserts that you may receive every week: Red Plum, Smart Source, and Procter and Gamble. You will receive a different number of inserts depending on the week. Some papers will include inserts in the Wed. paper as well.
2. Magazines: Magazines are a great place to look for coupons. I usually flip through mine when I first receive them in the mail. The best magazine for coupons is All You. You can only buy All You at Walmart or you can get a subscription. Other magazines that usually have a few coupons are: Redbook, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, and Good Housekeeping.
I’m going to start a series of posts to help people who are new to couponing. If you have already been couponing for a while then you can just use this as a refresher. To start with let’s discuss my thoughts on why I coupon. Let me make one thing clear, I do not do extreme couponing. I do what I call realistic couponing. I buy enough to last my family through the sales cycles ( I’ll get more into sales cycles later). If I am able I will buy a couple extra items to donate to my local food bank but you will never see me clear a shelf of products in the grocery store.
I coupon to save my family money by using coupons on the things we need so that we are able to buy things we really want, like vacations or new tech gadgets. I actually started couponing after I graduated college. I was able to save up for a down payment on my very first home while I also had to pay off my student loans (I’m still paying on them by the way). It would have taken me a lot longer to save if I hadn’t discovered couponing.
Once you start couponing and becoming pretty good at it, you will notice that there are always items that you can get for free or really cheap over and over again. You will be really surprised at the things you actually no longer really pay for. I can’t remember the last time I actually paid for a tube of toothpaste. There are usually always sales at the drugstores every couple of weeks plus high value coupons to match. I always stock up on stuff like this because the shelf life is very long and you don’t really have to worry about them going bad.
The places I usually get “free” stuff are the drugstores. It is the same story, just match the coupons that are available to the sales that the stores are running and you will pay very little out of pocket. Plus make sure to roll your ECB’s or Register Rewards or whatever your particular store calls them and you usually only end up paying the tax. For those of you that don’t know what “rolling” means here is an example:
