I love to find ways to save money and one of the best ways I have found is to use coupons. I used to get up every Sunday and go to Walmart to buy the paper at $2.00 a pop so I could look through the coupon section.
Then I decided to get a Sunday subscription for $7.50 a month, which meant that I would now get the four papers for $7.50 instead of $8.00. This new deal was beneficial to me in two main ways:
1. I got a discount on the price
2. I saved money on gas by not driving to get the paper.
About two Sundays ago I got a paper that did not have any coupons inside. I thought this might have just been an error on the delivery person’s part…but later found out that Smart Source and Red Plum were not doing coupons that week.
I was a bit disturbed because my money had basically been wasted that week since my main reason for getting the paper was to recoup the cost of it in coupons.
I wondered if there was a schedule that showed when coupons were coming out so that I could manage the weeks when I did not want the paper delivered. Over at Gotta Deal there is a list of the coupon schedule for 2009!!!!!
In my area, we get weekly coupons from
Smart Source and
Red Plum
We also get one set of coupons from Proctor and Gamble at the beginning of the month.
I am including the full list here of all the dates and what coupons will be coming each Sunday.
January
4 – 2 Smart Source & 2 Red Plum
11 — Smart Source & Red Plum
18 –Smart Source & Red Plum
25 –Smart Source & Red Plum
February
1 — Smart Source & Red Plum ; Procter and Gamble
8 — Smart Source & Red Plum
15 –No Inserts scheduled
22 — Smart Source & Red Plum
March
1 — Smart Source & Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
8 — Smart Source & Red Plum
15 — Smart Source & Red Plum
22 — Smart Source only
29 — Smart Source & Red Plum
April
5 — 2 Smart Source & 1 Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
12 — No Inserts
19 — Smart Source & Red Plum
26 — Smart Source & Red Plum
May
3 — Smart Source & Red Plum
10 –Smart Source & Red Plum
17 — 2 Smart Source and 1 Red Plum
24 — No Inserts scheduled
31 — Smart Source & Red Plum
June
7 — Smart Source & Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
14 — Smart Source Only
21 — Smart Source & Red Plum
28 — Smart Source & Red Plum
July
5 — Procter and Gamble only
12 — Smart Source & Red Plum
19 — Smart Source Only
26 — Smart Source & Red Plum
August
2 — Smart Source & Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
9 — Smart Source & Red Plum
16 — Smart Source & Red Plum
23 — Smart Source & Red Plum
30 — Smart Source & Red Plum
September
6 — No SS or RP Inserts – Labor Day One Procter and Gamble
13 — 1 Smart Source & 2 Red Plum
20 — Smart Source & Red Plum
27 — Smart Source & Red Plum
October
4 — Smart Source & Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
11 — Smart Source & Red Plum
18 — Smart Source & Red Plum
25 — Smart Source & Red Plum
November
1 — Smart Source & Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
8 — Smart Source & Red Plum
15 — Smart Source & Red Plum
22 — Smart Source Only
29 — No Inserts scheduled
December
6 — Smart Source & Red Plum & Procter and Gamble
13 — Smart Source & Red Plum
20 — No Inserts scheduled
27 — No Inserts scheduled
This schedule means I can now go into my account and edit the delivery dates and stop the paper on those days that have no coupons. This transfers to a credit that goes on another delivery day. I am thinking of stopping the subscription soon because the neighbors STOLE my paper one morning when I did not get up early enough. Also, if I go out of town for the weekend then I run the risk of them stealing it again.
I can now organize my two coupons books better because I know when the next set of coupons will be coming out. The red book contains skincare and beauty items and the pink one contains food and cleaning supplies.
You can also go to coupons.com to see if there are more for any stores around you.
I’m pretty sure P&G BrandSaver will be coming out on Jan 18 as well – it’s on their website, http://www.pgeverydaysolutions.com – you can search to see what newspapers in your town will have the insert. I love this one because CVS often has their products on ECB special so that net cost is $0-1 for things like Aussie shampoo and Crest toothpaste.
You can also use Couponmom.com. Not only does she list what coupons are coming out each week, if you use the grocery database, she’ll compare what’s on sale at your supermarket, with what coupons have been out lately. I recently scored big at wal-greens! (2 bottles of shampoo, 2 bags of chocolate, and a lipstick = $.01) thanks to her!
Sounds good to me. We don’t have Walgreens where I live so I just look at the CVS board….I need to pay attention to the Walmart sales flier so I can get my stuff when it actually on sale and save more money.
Your neighbors stole your paper? Ugh! That’s infuriating! I had a neighbor steal a package of mine once. Tore it open, stole the contents, and left the box in the stairwell.
I love your coupon schedule! I’m going to start clipping coupons again soon. I gotta do it, especially because of my restricted diet (gluten intolerant). It’s expensive!
Jennifer @ Money Saver 101’s last blog post..Save Money on Your Favorite Products
Yeah the evil grinches took the paper and then pretended they did not know anything about it. I live upstairs and they are the only ones who access the stairs……………..so who else could it be?
But what YOUR neighbors did was truly heinous. I lost $2 and the chance to get some coupons…but you lost your stuff.
That’s a lot for Sunday delivery…call and threaten to cancel it and they will probably give you a better deal…we had weekend delivery of the OCR (www.ocregister.com) and we called them and they came back with a special of $52/yr for daily delivery! For those math impaired readers, that’s $1/week or $0.14/day!! Pretty soon papers will be paying US to subscribe to them!
I’m pretty good at the saving/investing side of personal finance, but I’ve never been good at the domestic care side of things. How much a week do you figure you saving by using coupons? How much extra time does it take you versus just shopping? Do you save time by not going from store to store?
Sorry, my process engineer is showing,
-Bill
EasyLearnStockMarket’s last blog post..Bailout Bazooka
It depends on what I buy when I go shopping with the coupons. If you look at my CVS shopping I am averaging about $15 per week in savings. My WalMart shopping is about $5 per week I guess.
I never tracked the WalMart coupon savings in the past but I am doing so now. Today I saved $1.50 which I transferred to my Coupon savings account so I can track what I really save with the coupons.
Oh, when shopping at Walmart I don’t plan around the coupon and what is on sale. I keep a running shopping list on the fridge and when I am ready to go shopping I look to see if I have a coupon for the items I am going to buy.
It takes me about 15 minutes on Sunday to go through the coupons because I know what I absolutely will not use and what I might use. I clip my coupons while eating breakfast so I am sure if I was not eating it would take less time.
I only shop at CVS (to get free stuff) and WalMart so I am not going from store to store looking for deals. At CVS I have a plan based on the free stuff in the flyer (included in the newspaper) and WalMart is my regular shopping.
It does not take me ‘extra’ time because I am getting what is on the list and the coupons for those items are in a separate page ready to be scanned.
Honestly I was suprised it was that much, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Now I have to go check out the coupons this week.
-Bill
EasyLearnStockMarket’s last blog post..Bailout Bazooka
I must say that I don’t use coupons that much… maybe I should start actively seeking them out. I prefer straight discounts, like the ones you can find at PriceCutReview.com. Coupons (online ones anyway) so often seem to be out of date or probably just never worked to begin with.
Dave’s last blog post..Top 5 iPhone apps
Happy New year LuLu. Just got in from holidays and have been incommunicado for over 3 weeks.Nice to see that your blog even has more visitors, will be reading through your posts.
Paul
A good web site to use is http://www.valpak.com which can help you save money on lots of things in your life – restaurants, house cleaning, painting, veterinarians, and more.
Not only does the Valpak envelope get mailed to 45 million homes across the country, but Valpak.com has been online for 10 years, and gives consumers the option of getting their coupons online for a specific ZIP code. Consumers can access from home, or office: so if you are at work looking for a restaurant, or your oil changed on your lunch hour, you just plug in your ZIP code and find a business nearby.
Go to the web site and use the RSS feed to get our coupons delivered to your computer every day.
Hi, I ran across your website while looking for a coupon schedule. I have all of my friends and family save their coupons for me every week and I actually go and buy the products and resell them. What most people don’t understand is that If you spend enough time and do your research, you can actually save as much as 90-95 percent on your grocery bills. For instance I went to K-Mart this week (they are doubling coupons up to $2.00, so a $2 coupon is worth $2), my bil before coupons was $368.72, after coupons my total was $31.48. That was a savings of over 90%! It does take time and patience, but it can be done. You also want to watch for stores that double coupons all the time. Bi-Lo, Harris Teeter and Lowe’s Foods double maufacturers coupons of up to $.99 everyday so those $.75 coupons are actually worth $1.50. hese types of store policies can save the customers tons of money on food, cleaning supplies, health and beauty items and even over the counter medicines!
Thanks for the opportunity to share!
I never even knew list like this existed. This is great. s there anyway to see exactly which products will be on sale. I have also had some issues with internet coupons being accepted at some place, any suggestions?
cleaning supplies should be environment friendly too, choose cleaning supplies which does not harm the environment*;,