- Either the coupons expire before I get to use them…
- Or I end up buying something I didn’t really need just so I could use the coupon.
But after some more blog posts and facebook comments be friends and connections, I decided to look into it a little more. I started by checking out the following websites:
Positives: I saved around $10 based on manufacturer’s coupons for things that were already on my list. I got $10 for free basically because they had a coupon where if you bought $50 worth of groceries you could get a $50 gas card for $40. So Ryan and I each did that since our freezer cooking shopping bill is always well over $100.
Neutral: The coupons from Smart Source, Red Plum and Coupons.com overlap quite a bit. This is good if you want to buy numerous quantities of a sale item (so you have a coupon for each), but it makes it take a lot longer looking through the coupons and I kept ending up with multiples of coupons that I really only needed/wanted one of.
Negatives: We did end up buying a few things just because we had a coupon and when I looked later – they weren’t at the lowest price I’d paid for them. I would have been better off waiting for a better sale even if the manufacturer coupon expired. Also, Publix now has an online coupon thing where it collects your coupons for you and then at the register you just enter your phone number and it is supposed to apply any valid coupons to your bill. Well I have no way to see if it applied any coupons or which ones and if you don’t print it out ahead of time, you can’t see if you have any overlapping with the ones already printed from other sources.
For the future: I’m going to continue to watch the Southern Saver blog through BlogLovin and watch for good sales/deals on items that I use frequently and high price items. For the manufacturer coupons, I think I will only search for and print coupons for items that are already on my grocery list unless it is shown on Southern Savers as an amazing deal I just can’t miss. Next month, I’m hoping to do a little breakdown.
For anyone else interested, click the links below to see more information from Southern Savers: