by
Carl Hampton
10/17/2006
Remember those little paper things your
mother would use at the supermarket ? She
would spend hours clipping them from the
newspaper every Sunday? Remember how you
would look around to seeing if anyone was
watching as she gave the teller a hand full
of coupons! I know what your thinking, in
this hi tech age coupons are like dinosaurs,
they're extinct. Well think again, believe
it or not coupons are bigger than ever.
Using then can and will save you as much as
75 percent on you monthly grocery bill.
It may well seem like a hassle to
consistently dig through newspapers and clip
what you want every month. For the most part
people think it is a lot of effort for a
small payoff. Coupon queens (as they are
known) know that with an efficient system
you can maximize the value of the coupons
saving you thousands of dollars every year
on your groceries. By the way it's been
shown in countless studies that a lot more
women use coupons, so the term coupon queen
isn't just an assumption is a fact. Every
year manufacturers produce more than $300
billion worth of coupons! The public only
uses a measly 1 percent of that. Marketers
do not really expect all the coupons to be
used but they do hope that consumers would
try something new because of the coupons.
Within that one percent are some serious
clippers and they are less likely to buy
impulsively. For the hard core coupon
clippers, saving money is like an extreme
sport.
Coupon shopping has spawned it's own
community with message boards, websites and
lingo that explains the best tactics and
systems for saving. The most commonly used
terms are “stacking” and “doubling.”
Stacking means to combine coupons from
multiple sources, and doubling is when a
store automatically doubles the value of the
coupon. Doubling has become a sensitive
issue for coupon shoppers in southern
California. One of the major stores – that
shall remain nameless 0 has recently stopped
doubling which leave only one store in
southern California that doubles (and it
begins with an R). The issues with doubling
is that it costs the supermarket money.
Doubling pulls money out of the stores
pocket, stacking (or single coupons) on the
other hand means that the manufacturers
reimburse the store the full value of the
coupon.
Using your store loyalty card with coupons
when the store run those 10 for $10.00 is a
super way to walk out of the store with 70
to 90 % savings. Even though coupons are
available on line most if not all stores
won't take them because of concerns with
fraud. If you are interested in saving money
on your groceries you can start clipping
from the Sunday newspaper or you can use a
web site like www.iCanShop4Less.com it's
free to sign up and they will send you
“Free of Charge” $30 to $50 in grocery
coupons every 2 weeks. They have a number of
helpful tips that show newcomers to the
coupon shopping family how to save big money
on their monthly grocery bills.
Have an opinion or a question you would like
me to answer, then write me!
http://www.CarlHampton.com
