Couponing has never been easier. Gone are the days of buying a newspaper and spending hours clipping out coupons. The cliche “there’s an app for that” holds true! You can still find them in the newspaper, and we’ll include a quick how-to for those of you that prefer the tried and true method. It’s not just the grocery store anymore, either. Most major stores have coupons, though they’ll call them promotion codes, as do many popular restaurants and food delivery places.
Check Your Grocery App
The easiest method for couponing is to open the app your grocery store provides. Whether you can order groceries through the app or not, they likely have a coupon section. If you have an account, you can quickly go down the line of the products you buy most often and tap “clip”! This also helps you decide which items to buy this week or save for next week. Nearly every non-meat/produce item will have a coupon at some point. You can also check for savings and deals specific to your grocery store!
Check Your App Store
Many apps will source and organize coupons for you. If you take a few minutes to set it up, it will provide you with the deals most relevant to you. Make sure to check the app ratings first, as some of these apps require a subscription, and that defeats the purpose of couponing to save money. Plenty of apps make money from the brands you use by supplying consumers with deals as a marketing technique.
Retail Stores
There are tons of websites online dedicated to telling you the most up-to-date codes and deals for any store. From pizza delivery to your favorite clothing place, you’ll find daily updates all over the web. Some of the coupons will give you 25%-40% off the overall price of the site you’re shopping at. This is especially true for pizza delivery. Don’t just go on what coupons they offer on their app, check the web and you’ll find the best deals and get a night off from cooking at a discounted rate.
Brand Websites
Most of the brands you buy every day from the grocery store have websites of their own, and you can source additional coupons from them either directly from the site or by signing up for a weekly email. You’ll need to print these coupons out or save them in a file so your grocery store can quickly scan them. Check with your grocery store first, as they may have rules against digital copies.
Newspaper Coupons Are Still a Thing
Many grocery stores will allow you to “stack” coupons, meaning you can use more than one coupon on a single item. If you use the store app AND the newspaper coupon, you’re getting double the savings. This isn’t a sure thing; you need to check the specific store policies to avoid wasting your time or the cashier’s time with coupons you can only use once. Some stores only allow this one day a week or for seniors. If you find you can, however, take an hour on the weekends and clip each coupon and organize it in a binder. As you go through the store, move the coupon for the item you’re buying into a small stack for ease of use while checking out!
Hopefully, these tips save you a lot of money, even if they take some time! By being an informed consumer and getting all the best deals, you’ll be able to save money for items you need to buy or trips you want to go on. You can start a vacation fund by putting away the “you saved” amount at the bottom of your receipt!
