Coupons = Free Money!

One of the most important things when thinking of coupons is to view them as FREE MONEY! Money that I did not have to spend! Yes you can look at them as a discount but when we get a gift card loaded with money for a birthday or some other event, we look at that as cash and think how can we spend it? We need to think the same way about our coupons. We are essentially getting a gift card from manufacturer's and store's to spend at our leisure. Unfortunately, most people see coupons and think they are useless because its so much cheaper to buy the off brand/store brand versus a brand name item with a coupon. I too fell into this trap. If you looked in my cupboards and pantry you would see Great Value and Equate all over the place! And the sad thing was that I thought I was really saving money! But now that I have really looked at coupons as FREE MONEY, I find myself getting brand name items for free or less than the off brand! Now you see less Great Value and Equate and more brand names (which I purchased for significantly less than the off brand).

So as a first "lesson" on coupons I want to talk about the different types of coupons that are out there. There are 2 kinds of coupons:

1) Manufacturer's Coupons - These are the coupons that you will typically find in your local Sunday newspaper or online coupon website. At the top of the coupon you will see "Manufacturer's Coupon" next to the Expiration Date. These are not restricted to any store - they can be used any place they are accepted.

2) Store Coupon - These are coupons that you might find as an insert in your local Sunday newspaper, a coupon booklet in the front of the store, a coupon printed from the register with a rewards cards, or a coupon found online at the store's website. These are most easy to identify because they might not have a bar code on the front or it might have the store's logo on it.

And here comes my favorite part - "the climax of it all"!!

What most people don't realize is that you can use the manufacturer's coupon in conjunction with the store's coupon.

Tada!!!! That statement just gets me all excited! :) This is how you save the big bucks ladies and gents! This is probably one of the most important concepts of spending less and saving more with coupons!

Quick Example: One of my favorite stores is Target. Why? Other than the fact that it is always clean and makes me happy to walk in the front door and see a Starbucks (I love frappucino's!), Target has a whole slew of Store Coupons on their website! I will say that Target does a very good job of hiding this treasure! But today I am exposing their lil secret! You can find the Target Web Coupons here. So a couple of weeks ago I came across a manufacturer's coupon for Bertolli Pasta Sauce (yum!) that stated I could get $1.00 off of 2 Bertolli Pasta Sauces. I checked on the Target website for coupons and wala! there was a Bertolli Pasta Coupon that said I could save $1.50 off of the purchase of 2. I got a lil tingly inside! So I went to Target, found the Bertolli Pasta Sauce which cost $2.10 per jar (on sale) and got 2. I then used the coupons totaling $2.50 and paid $0.85 per jar of pasta sauce - thus paying less than the Target brand pasta sauce and less than I would pay for just one jar of sauce without the coupon. A success indeed!

I hope that this gives a good foundation to couponing for you! I can't wait to hear stories about your successes! Keep a look out for mine too! I will be heading out to some stores today to find some good deals!