Freak Out Friday – Beginner Coupon Questions

Welcome to today’s Freak Out Friday.

A moment of  random ramblings, that will hopefully give you a tip or two and some insight on my perspective of all this coupon craziness.

Today's Freak out Friday is for the new coupon clipper. I thought I would answer some of the more frequently asked questions. Here we go:

1- Coupon circulars:

• SmartSource – (SS) the SmartSource circular comes in your Sunday's newspaper.
• Proctor Gamble – (PG) comes once a month in Sunday's newspaper
• General Mills – (GM) comes in Sunday's newspaper.
• Redplum (RP) These are the coupons that come in the Tuesday/Wednesday mail for most (except Utah County)

2- What does 1/30 RP mean?

The date of the coupon circular (it's found on the spine of the insert. The insert the coupon is found in.

3- I signed up to get a coupon and now I'm spammed:

It's a biggie! If you're going to print coupons, including Daily Deal sites, you often have to sign up for newsletters that company offers. I always think of this as their way of selling the coupon to me.  These newsletters may feel like spam, they aren't, as you requested the newsletter in order to get the coupon. By law these companies are required to offer an unsubscribe option. Which you can easily do if you don't want the newsletter offers.  I highly recommend getting a separate email address for your coupon email. That way you can read them at your leisure and not have them clutter your email inbox.  Be aware however if you unsubscribe you may miss out on high value coupons  Like the recently released $2.00 Tropicana and $2.00 Folger's coffee coupons.

4- How does the store afford it?:

Stores don't pay for coupons. Manufacturers do. Plus, they give the store a small handling fee for processing the coupon. Stores actually make money by taking your legitimate coupon. Kind of makes you wonder why there are so many grumpy cashiers.

5- Why does a coupon stop printing?:

Manufacturers put limits on coupons they feel they can afford to release to the public. Once that many coupons are printed then the coupon will no longer be available to print. Sometimes it's a lot, sometimes it's just a few. We never know how many there will be or when/ if the coupon will make a return.

6- Can't I just photo copy the coupon?

Not a good idea! It’s illegal to make photo copies any coupon that has a limit.  Read the terms of use you have to check before printing, you’ll see they say 1 or 2 per household or person etc. The coupons that come from Coupons.com, Redplum and SmartSource actually have an embedded code in them with your computer’s IP address so they can track if you go crazy with the copier. And, they do track them. When you down load the required coupon printer you make the agreement not to copy the coupons. Here’s an article of interest on the subject.

Beginners take it slow. It's tempting to dive in. But, it's a learning process that you'll get better and better at. I encourage you to explore the site. There's tons of information in the FAQ's and Tips & Tricks pages. Most importantly don't get frustrated. Start by trying just one coupon idea and building your shopping list as the weeks progress. I'm happy to answer specific questions if you have them.  Feel free to leave a comment or email coupons4utah@gmail.com.