couponers

[Tiapet]

You know, I had posted to Star the other day in another thread about emailing her about coupon meetups and got to thinking about many of you who also do the couponing here so I thought I would also share it here as well.

When I lived in NC there were "coupon swap meets". If you've never heard of them it's where people meet at a location (in this particular case they had picked an Arby's). Everyone brought an envelope (what ever type or size) of their unwanted coupons (still in date). You'd sit around a table and pass the envelope. How it works is that I would pass my envelope to the person on my right or left (it seemed to be decided by the members that started the particular meet up originally and sadly due to favoritism of their friends and wanting them to get certain coupons first before "outsiders") and then they would pull out the coupons they wanted and pass it along. Sometimes members would bring along a "goodie", like chocolate or something that they got from a coupon freebie or nearly free to share with the group. It was a nice touch.

The area I was in had several of these as the town was rather large and unfortunately/fortunately (?) there was an awful lot of couponers (so you could go to several different swaps as they were on different days), which also made getting the good deals a bit difficult because first thing early they'd be out buying up greedily clearing shelves of all products and others couldn't get them. Like on extreme couponing show, these people where like that and bragged about it giving other couponers a bad name as well in how they conducted business with the stores and the coupons. In other places I've been I have not experienced this level, thankfully. There hasn't seemed to be such an interest in couponing to anything close to this level.

So if you have this around your area, look online on some of the coupon boards (if you know them), look on craigslist (sometimes they are posted there too), or in the paper. If not, think about starting one of your own and see if there is an interest out there. You can also post the opportunity (if there isn't one listes) to the message boards for coupons. I think susiestar, hound, and Star may know of some, or I do.

Hope this helps anyone.

 

[Hound dog]

This is not a bad idea. I already do it with my girls, who also coupon. And you certainly are not going to use all the coupons you get in the paper, but someone else might be able to make good use of them.

Like I don't use diapers ones or feminine hygiene ones, I'm past those stages, but you see a lot of coupons for them and that stuff is not cheap. Once in a while I will use them if the sale is good enough and store them here for emergencies, but 99.9 percent of the time I wouldn't bother with them. Nichole and easy child passed their dog ones on to me.

Nice thing about doing the sharing thing, you don't have to buy as many papers, which can get costly. I'm down to 2 papers a wk. I wasn't using enough coupons to justify any more than that. Now? I told easy child no more papers. I have rarely been using the coupons because the bulk of that stuff I no longer need and now have so much of I need to make more storage room if I were to buy more. (but seriously? who needs more than 2 yrs worth of shampoo, deodorant, ect? lol ) I mostly print the ones I want now. If it's not available in print and easy child is wanting the same thing (which means it wouldn't be passed on to me) I just pass on it. I've been doing it long enough now that I have enough stored that isn't an issue. Honestly, I've reached the point where if it's not free or darn close to it, I don't bother anyway, especially non food items.

I will gladly post my links if anyone wants to try couponing. It takes a while to learn, then takes some practice, but honestly........once you get the hang of it, it's well worth it. But still, if generic is cheaper.....I always go cheapest, don't care what it is. And with prices the way they are right now and still on the way up, watching ads and maybe making a price book/list for the stores you shop is a good idea.

 

[Tiapet]

Hound, it was so bad in NC with papers people were dumpster diving for the coupons, going to the little vending boxes to buy a paper and taking whole stacks or whether in those boxes or in stacks at stores and pulling out the coupons! They'd go to convenience stores or pharmacies (any store really) and pick up extra copies by asking managers for them when the end of day came, which I don't begrudge by any means as those are legitimate ways to do it but the former ways? Come on, that's a bit extreme don't you think?

You see on ebay people selling coupons as well to have extra copies of the ones they "need" or would like to have. I can't see the point of that really. If you need to buy coupons then what is the point? That's just crazy to me in my opinion but to each their own I guess.

 

[Star*]

It's so bad here they don't even put papers in the racks anymore. They're sold BEHIND the registers. TOO MANY times DF went up to the convenience store to get my Sunday paper and the coupons were GONE. When I got accused by the biker chick that worked there of taking them myself?????? I gave her the full educated guess of whom I thought was taking the coupons and suggested the manager rewind the tapes and find out - they did.....and she's no longer working there, and the papers haven't been put out since. At $2.00 a paper? The only place that does put them out is the grocery stores. I haven't seen a paper box in over two years, but if you drive by the State Newspaper offices (by the DMV)? theres a ton of them sitting in the parking lot.