How to mail Expired Coupons to the Military
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It's the final day of National Coupon Month. Yep, the entire month of September has been dedicated to Coupons. According to the PMA (Promotion Marketing Association), coupon distribution is at it's highest and 89% of Americans have used coupons this year. Hopefully, you are taking advantage of the added savings from coupons to help enrich your family's life.
In light of of the close of National Coupon Month, it seems like a good opportunity to remind you that our troops serving overseas need your coupons. Did you know that military personal can use expired coupons for as long as 6 months at Commissaries if they are stationed abroad?
I've blogged before, my daughter, and family are currently stationed in Italy, she tells me there is a great need and desire for coupons and sadly many they receive are unusable.
So, where to do you send them? And what are the guidelines?
Here are some standard guidelines my daughter asked me to pass along before you send them.
1 – Please Clip them and make sure the expiration date hasn't been clipped off. I just got a large priority box from the Fleet and Family office (which is where most of the boxes end up that have clipped coupons in them), but most of them have the dates clipped off because people mis-clipped multiples so, we can't use them.
2 – We don't need store coupons or catalinas.
3 – No restaurant coupons – It just makes us miss home.
4 – Please check the coupons expiration date. We can use them up to 6 months expired, so it's best to send expired coupons as soon as possible. Sometime we get them and we can't even use them. The box I have is chuck full of unusable ones, that people just wasted their postage to send because they are past the 6 months.
OH! and, just a little fyi, they just started something new with us today! They got cards that we can load with coupons! I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm hoping we will be able to load from the other websites too.
Where to mail Expired Coupons to Military
The Over Seas Coupon Program has but together a base by base list of needs and address. Just choose the base that most interests you.
- Choose your way of shipping (parcel post is the cheapest) but there are priority FLAT RATE boxes and envelopes, which is my preference, as this is the most timely way to get them there. Parcel post can take months.
- Put the base address and your return address on box or envelope, just like you would normally.
- Fill out customs form 2976-A. These can be picked up at the Post Office or found online at USPS.com. When filling out the form the FPO or APO gets entered as the City, the AE or AP part of the address is considered the State.
- Mark “Gift” for contents and value is $0.00
- Choose “return to sender” in the box that states “In Case of Non-Delivery”
(example of online form – click here to enlarge)
You might also check out CoupsForTroops.org. They'll match you with one specific family overseas that uses coupon. You can check out that website here.
So, whatcha waiting for? We all have a boatload of coupons that expire today. Instead of throwing them away, pass them on to a hero.
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