Although coupons have been around for more than a hundred years, a lot of people still have second thoughts about using them. It is too complicated, you may say. You cannot afford to waste your time looking for coupons and trying to accommodate your shopping to the whims of manufacturers and retailers.
Well then, can you afford to lose up to $300 every month? For it is exactly what you do.
Coupons are, basically, free money, and although every particular coupon doesn’t amount to much, when put together and used strategically, they can save you an average of $300 so you don’t have to cut back on your usual monthly shopping. It is just another paycheck, so why throw it into a dustbin?
You may disagree: what about all the time I have to spend looking for the best deals? The answer is, you don’t have to do it – it is already done for you by websites that gather all the coupon offers and allow you to choose from them at your leisure.
For instance, couponchief has been started by Kyle Hoggatt and Gary Gray, two former HP engineers, back in 2005. Since then it turned into a coupon market leader, which has on average about 5000 coupons submitted every day, and during the 2012 holiday season this number rose to a whopping 20,000.
Now have a look at what you can use coupons for:
1. Buying Groceries
The most obvious and time-honored way to use coupons is also one of the most profitable. Although the discounts they provide may feel rather small, when you use them regularly the sums you save become quite impressive. The trick here is to be on the lookout for big sales when you can use your coupons to buy things that are already heavily discounted.
2. Car Maintenance
Unless your car has already broken down, you usually can plan ahead for routine procedures and use a coupon to get a discount. Thus, when you next find a coupon from your local garage in your mailbox, don’t throw it away – it will come in handy.
3. Renting Movies
If you rent movies anyway, why not save a couple of bucks doing so? You may get a coupon for a free rental or a discount – either way it is better than pay a full price. The same goes for services that rent movies online, like Netflix.
4. Online Coupons and Promo Codes
Although about 90% of coupons are still printed on paper, the practice quickly spreads to the Internet. The best thing about online coupons is that you don’t need all that tedious clipping – you get discounts without leaving your seat.
5. Cafes and Restaurants
Eating out is another great opportunity to save with coupons – some may be found in your local Pennysaver fliers, some in coupon booklets issued by restaurants themselves, some in good old Sunday newspapers.
6. House Maintenance and Repairs
Although it is far from being the first thing that comes to mind, many companies in this line of business offer coupons, either via aggregators or their own websites.
7. Start an Exchange Club
If you often get coupons for items you don’t need and are unlikely to need, why not look for someone who may be interested in them and, probably, get something useful in exchange? Suggest this to your friends and together you may squeeze even more from this practice.
Times when coupons were mostly offered by grocery stores are long gone – today they seem to be used by everyone, from consumer electronics to service industry and IT. And it has never been easier to find and use them.
