Coupons can be a great way to stretch your families budget. I am by no means a coupon queen. I don’t bring home dozens of items for free week after week, but I do still use coupons as one way to save money on my groceries and other items my family uses. In this article, I am spilling all my couponing secrets including where to find free coupons, how to maximize their value and how to store coupons.
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Free Coupon Sources, Plus Thrifty Tips and Tricks For Coupons
First, let’s cover all the different places to find free coupons. You won’t find the Sunday paper listed because it isn’t free.
Printable Coupon Sites
Coupon And Cash Back Apps
Coupon and cash back apps are my favorite sources for coupons. Most of them do have minimal cash out thresholds that must be met before you can get the cash you saved back but generally that threshold is very low.
These apps offer gift cards as payouts, but some offer a Paypal deposit which is what I take if it is offered. My second choice for a cashout is Amazon gift cards. I am an Amazon Prime member, so I get 2-day free shipping and Amazon prices are getting more and more amazing all the time. You can try out Amazon Prime for free for one month to see if it is a good fit for your thrifty family.
I have written a tutorial for all the of the apps I use to save money on groceries to help you figure out how to use them.
My favorite coupon app is ibotta. I love that you can use it to save money on more than just groceries — from clothes to movies, to pet needs, and photo printing ibotta can save you money on it all by offering you rebates that you can save up and cash in for gift cards and Paypal transfers. Read my step by step guide to ibotta to get started.
Fetch Rewards offers points when you buy one or more products made by a brand on their list of over 150. Simply scan your receipt and fetch your reward. Enter my referral code RE9FU and receive 1500 points when you complete one receipt. Here is the tutorial I wrote to help you master Fetch Rewards.
Receipt Hog is so simple! Just snap a picture of your receipt and press accept and then watch your points and spins add up. Read my full tutorial on Receipt Hog here.
If you are going to be in the store anyway, you might as well earn a few shopkick points while you are there. Shopkick is an app that pays you to browse, no purchases necessary with shopkick. Read my step by step guide to shopkick to get started.
Not Exactly Coupons But Close And Still Great Ways To Reduce The Cost Of Items
Cashback Programs
Point Reward Programs That Have Great Cash Back Programs
1. Swagbucks
With over 20 ways to earn points, Swagbucks is the point programs I recommend to people willing to join only one point program. You can earn points while doing web searches and shopping online. You were going to do these two things anyways so you might as well earn a gift card while you do it. Swagbucks offers great cash back values at various online retailers.
Here is a post I wrote explaining the 10 simple ways you can earn gift cards through Swagbucks
Go here to sign up for Swagbucks
2. Mypoints
I have been a member of Mypoints since 2006! Their cashback values are often higher than any other company offering cash backs. I also love their emails where you can earn points just for taking a second to click through to the website featured in the email.
Here is a post I wrote explaining how to use Mypoints to earn gift cards.
Go here to sign up for MyPoints.
Discounted Gift Cards
This is one last way to save a bit more cash on any item. You can buy discounted gift cards to the retailer you plan on buying the gift card from. This extra money-saving step requires planning as sometimes even the electronically delivered discounted gift cards can take up to 24 hours to arrive in your email box. It is also best not to buy a gift card valued at more than you intended purchases–having a stack of gift cards with a dollar or so on them, and no need to purchase is not thrifty.
However, if you can do those two things gift cards can save you anywhere from 1% to sometimes as much as 20% off your purchases. And you can go on to make that percentage off even higher with the thrifty discount staking technique I explain next.
The Thrifty Stack: How To Pay The Least Amount Of Money For Any Item
1. Sign up for emails for the company selling the item(s) you wish to buy so that you are notified of sales.
2. See if you can purchase a discounted gift card for the store you wish to shop at for just under the total amount of the item(s) you want to buy.
3. When a sale happens, check printable coupon sites and coupon apps for further discounts
4. See if you can shop through a cashback website to further lower your cost.
5. See if there is a coupon code available.
6. Purchase the item(s) and revel in your increased savings!
I’m not usually able to get discounts at all five steps along the way, but I can generally stack at least 2 to 3 of these saving avenues on top of each other, and that equals a nice thrifty return on my time invested.
How To Organize Your Coupons
This is what my current coupon collection looks like. It’s a simple wristlet that I wasn’t using, so I remade it into a coupon holder.
