Spend a Little; Save a Lot

Another coupon post! Get excited! Okay, pep rally over.... down to business.

Economics might well be one of the most boring subjects in college, but you need to understand the basics of it to save the most money. One axiom of economics is that you have to spend money to make money. This is usually applied to things like start-up costs for business or advertising or whatever, but the same principle holds true at the couponing level! Sometimes you have to have a little out of pocket costs in order to access great coupon savings.

The most obvious cost to a couponer is the Sunday paper - here in Tulsa it costs $2, but you are gaining a lot of savings from the coupons. But... that is not the only place to buy coupons! Here are some other great sources for coupons - check 'em out - they will totally help your bottom line!

Coupon Sources
1. All You magazine - this is a magazine that is sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, but you can also get a subscription to it (there are lots of deals out there for subscriptions - leave me a comment if you are interested). The newsstand price is $2.25, but it is full of high value ($1 and above) coupons on products, and their expiration dates tend to be further off than your average newspaper coupons, so you have a greater chance of being able to score an awesome deal when the item goes on sale.

2. eBay - Did you know you can buy coupons on eBay? (OK - technically, for legal reasons, they can't sell coupons per se, but they charge you for the time & effort it takes to find & clip the coupons. A loophole, maybe, but it works). There are essentially two categories of coupons on eBay - the first is big assortments of coupons, generally from the newspaper. This is a great way to get up to speed fast if you are new to couponing - for a couple of bucks, you can buy 100+ coupons and jump right in to saving (as always with eBay, check the shipping costs to be sure that you aren't overpaying). Will there be coupons in these assortments that you have absolutely no use for? Yes, but you'll find lots that you can use - you'll make your money back several times over.

The second category of coupons is multiples for the same product. This is an EXCELLENT way to get lots of coupons for products that you use a lot. For example, I've recently discovered that my husband (who will eat NOTHING healthy) really likes the Kashi frozen waffles. I know it's not as good as fresh fruits or veggies, but compared to the junk my husband used to eat for breakfast??? Vast improvement, people. I'm all about the baby steps. Anyway, these waffles are a good bit pricier than regular old Eggos, so I went to eBay to see if any coupons were available. Jackpot! I bought 2 lots of $1.50 off coupons, spent $4.90 all together, and ended up with over $30 worth of Kashi waffle coupons.

The beauty of eBay is that is gives you access to coupons you could never get in your local area, even if you bought up every Sunday paper in sight or did some serious dumpster diving. For reasons that I don't completely understand, coupons are different from region to region [or even city to city - Oklahoma City's newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman, has different (usually better) coupons than the Tulsa paper]. I recently purchased 15 50 cent offcoupons for my personal crack, Herdez salsa - I paid $1.50 for the coupons. Those coupons never even ran in the Tulsa area, so I bought them off of someone in California. I scored major deals on these jars of salsa, too, because Wal-Mart just started carrying them here, and they had them on roll back for $1.59 - I had been paying $2.39 at the only other store near me that carried them. With the coupons, they were $1.09 (plus the additional 10 cents per coupon- what I paid for them on eBay). That gave me a bottom line of $1.19 per jar, half off what I normally paid. Not to mention the joy I feel when I look in the pantry & see all those jars of yummy salsa.

3. Internet coupon clipping services - aside from eBay, there are other sites dedicated to coupons, the main one being The Coupon Clippers, here: http://www.thecouponclippers.com/coupons/home.php
If you poke around this site, you'll see that this is a family that looks like the Duggars, with only slightly fewer kids, but they make extra cash by selling coupons. You can shop for the specific coupons you want just like you would any other online store - just be aware that they do require a minimum purchase.

It seems a little weird to pay for coupons, but it is a great way to save you both time and money! Happy hunting - for deals AND for coupons. And Happy 4th of July!