Product Rebates

I will state up front that I am not a big rebate fan. Since one of the main objectives I have with couponing is to make it as easy and painless as possible, rebates usually don’t fit with this goal. Even when the food will end up free after the rebate, the amount of extra…

Dirty Shopping Carts

How dirty are grocery shopping carts? A lot dirtier than you probably think. According to Professor Charles Gerba, a University of Arizona researcher, half of those shopping carts you grab have E. coli bacteria on them and nearly three-fourths (72%) have fecal bacteria. Gerba swabbed the handles of 85 grocery carts in four states for…

Catalina Coupons

Catalina coupons (sometimes called “checkout coupons” and often referred to as “CATs” on couponing sites) are the secret weapon of extreme couponing that often allow you to get free or nearly free products at the grocery store — and sometimes even turn buying food into a money making opportunity. Catalina coupons are named after the…

Instant Discounts

When it comes to saving money on food, one of the best types of promotions to look for are instant discounts (sometimes called “instant rebates”). These are promotions put on by manufacturers when they have surplus of a product that they want to get rid of and thus encourage the shopper to buy multiples to…

Store Coupons

While most coupons are distributed by manufacturers, grocery stores will also distribute their own coupons from time to time. Store coupons are created for the same reason that grocery stores have sales — to help drive customer traffic to their stores. While often times store coupons will be for store brand products, this is not…

Manufacturer Coupons

I mentioned earlier that while in the long run couponing should save you time, there would be an initial learning curve. One of the most important aspects of this learning curve is understanding the different types of coupons that exist. The coupons that are most familiar to the vast majority of people are manufacturer coupons.…

The First Month of Couponing

Your eagerness is your biggest enemy when you first begin to learn how to coupon. The first major mistake many people make when couponing is that they try to begin without practicing. As mentioned earlier, you would never go out and play tennis and assume that you were going to be good at it before…