Dissapointed with the Sunday Newspaper Coupons

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bomber991

CAG Veteran
Well, I've heard that the sunday editions of most newspapers come with lots of coupons in them that you can use to save a ton of money at places like the grocery store. So I went a bought a San Antonio Express paper this sunday for $2.

The heading at the top of the paper read something like "$770 worth of savings in this newspaper!!!". Anyways, I read through all the coupons, and well, they just kind of sucked. There's a good amount of manufactures coupons, but most read as "50 cents off any two(2) of Overpriced Namebrand Fruit Juce".

So wtf, you gotta buy two of them to get the 50 cents off, or does that mean you can buy up to two and get 50 cents off each?

Second, it seems that with most of the coupons, the namebrand stuff is still going to cost more than the generic brand. I guess the only time you could come out ahead is if there's also a store coupon on the same item.

So the coupons I plan on using?

  • There's a $1 off coupon on Brita Water Filters, and walgreens I think, they had the 3pack on sale for $14 I think. Only probelm is the coupon expires at the end of april, and I just bought a 3 pack of filters that will be good for the next 6 months.
  • Some 50 cents off pillsbury brownie mix coupon. I've been staying cheap with my sweet food to begin with by buying brownie mix weekly for $1.30 instead of buying some real chocolate candy or already made brownies for $5. The generic mix is around $1.30 while the namebrand stuff is near $2.00, so it still might be cheaper to not even use this coupon.
  • Some 25 cents off of Softsoap brand handsoap. It's a manufactureres coupon as all of these are. Hopefully Dollar Tree lets me use the coupon there. I already save $1.25 on the stuff because the normal grocery store HEB sells the soap for $2.25.
  • $1 off a gallon of borden milk. I don't know how much more expensive borden milk is from any other milk. Shoot I'm not even sure of the price of cow milk cause I've been just buying soy milk for $2.50 per half gallon. The great thing about soy milk is that it doesn't go bad in 1 week. I dont use much milk so that's the main reason I buy it.
  • 50 cents or something around that off of some kind of laundry detergent. I got a gigantic box of the stuff already from my parents when they upgraded their clothes washer, but whatever, soap doesn't go bad anyway so I might get some.

I think that's about it for the coupons I'm gonna use. I noticed one of the stores was doing some kind of free ink cartridges thing, where you pay full price and then do a MIR for the same price, so I might do that. Also I noticed that there were a crapload of toilet paper coupons, so I might have to take advantage of those in the future.

So is there anyone who regularly uses the sunday coupons?
 
I get the local paper everyday and while I know the chance I'll find a lot of coupons I'll use in the Sunday paper every week, I still get excited for them. While at times there can be some good coupons, you can't have high expectations. I live by myself so there is typically less coupons than a family might use(ex: I don't need diaper coupons). One week I might clip out 5 or so coupons, the next week I might find none I would use. I always clip out ones for hot sauce, toliet paper and Tyson chicken. There have been many times where I've only tried something new because a coupon made the price more attractable.
For cleaning supplies, I find it's cheaper just to get them at Dollar Tree. It's also cheaper to get store brand milk(although I've never seen a milk coupon).
About the Softsoap coupon; I've combined the paper's coupon with a Walgreen's Softsoap coupon to get it really cheap.
As a regular coupon clipper, I know what brands and items regularly appear such as knowing there's a toliet paper coupon of some brand every week and typically they rotate what's in. If there's not a Charmin coupon this week for instance, I'm pretty sure there will be one next week.
If I didn't get regular delivery of the paper, I doubt I'd buy the Sunday paper every week just for the coupons since it's such a hit or miss thing.
 
Most supermarkets will give you double coupons on coupons up to either $0.50 or $0.99, depending on the chain. Some will even give you triple coupons. Combine that with using the coupons only when items go on sale, and you can have some really good savings, even getting free items. It takes time - you have to read all the supermarket ads and plan your shopping trips in advance. But it can save you a lot of money.

Oh, and it sucks that stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, or KMart do not double manufacturer's coupons.
 
coupons are mostly a thing of the past... i cant remember the last good coupon that came out of the local paper... the best coupons come off items and sales ..

Few months back they had GRAND Bisc. for 1.00 a can (normal 2 something a can) on the side were save 50 cents on 2..

Mean buy 2 get 50 cents KNocked off NOT save 50 on each

So you go in and buy 2 cans @ 1.00 each = 2.00 take the 50 cent coupon that Doubles

so 2 cans for 1.00 (or 50 cents a can for something that cost 2)

this is the only time i get the items cause i will never pay 2 bucks for a can..


I remember getting the chicago paper about 3 years back and they had tons of coupons. They dont have jack crap anymore.... and the coupons are going to go away and mostly be advertisement since its cheaper that way then to do an ad
 
You can't use coupons if you don't plan on buying the stuff... it seems like most of you complaints are "I already have _____"
 
Hmm well I did a little bit of searching last night, and I found this couponmom.com website.

Basically most of the newspapers in the USA use the same two coupon books in their sunday papers. The Smart Source, and the Red Plum. Anyways that couponmom website takes all the coupons in those two books and matches them up with the current prices of the items in walmart, walgreens, cvs, and target. The site was also saying that with a lot of coupons, you want to save them till the item also goes on sale.

So it looks like with the coupons this week, I can get a free thing of pantyhose for my gf, and then a free thing of some cough drops, and some kraft salad dressing for 8 cents.
 
[quote name='Josef']Most supermarkets will give you double coupons on coupons up to either $0.50 or $0.99, depending on the chain. Some will even give you triple coupons.[/QUOTE]

There are no stores in my city that do this. Not a single one. I don't live in some small podunk town, either - there are over 300,000 people in my city.
 
The golden age of coupons has ended or is on hiatus for the time being. I used to do devastating damage with coupons, to the extent that the younger, inexperienced checkers would stare in disbelief and sometimes even think I was running some sort of scam.

Last year the two biggest chains in Southern California stuck a dagger in my heart by discontinuing double coupons. This previously had the effect of doubling the discount by up to an additional dollar. A $1 coupon would be worth $2, and a $2.50 coupon would be worth $3.50.

Now the maximum effect is taking sub-$1 coupons and making them worth exactly $1 off. This has greatly curtailed the value of the coupons but the chains make up for it somewhat with promotions involving multiple item purchases that can still be combined with coupons.

An example from just last night. Ralphs had the Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, which just about everyone in my house likes, down to $2.50 per box of ten rather than the regular $3.69. At the normal price I would never buy this product, even with the coupon, because the price is still far too high after the discount. $2.50 plus the coupon reduction brings it into the realm of possibility.

But wait, there's more! The promotion has the price down to $1 per box when you buy four boxes in a single transaction. On top of this, I have a pair of coupons for 50 cents off two boxes. After doubling to $1 each, those coupons bring the whole purchase of four boxes down to $2 or 50 cents per box. Very nice. A deal like that makes it worth checking the coupon printout sites for more on the same item, which I'd never purchase at anywhere close to its normal pricing. It is a want, not a need.

Of course, some items are given promotional pricing so often as to make it foolish to ever buy them at the MSRP but it seems some people who cannot be bothered putting out the effort do so without much regard for the price. If you make enough money in your work to make the difference negligible compared to the valuable time lost to examining prices, then this is a rational approach. Since I don't make that kind of money I at least try to get some sport out of it. Treat it as a challenge.

The two web sites I use for printing coupons are coupons.com (big surprise there) and smartsource.com. Red Plum's site was nearly useless the last time I checked it out. One thing you'll quickly notice is that the sites are plainly based on the same code base. DO NOT use a color printer for outputting the coupons.Avoid using an inkjet even for just B&W. This is just a massive waste of money that reduces the value. A cheap B&W laser is still the best per page value for stuff that doesn't require color. (Samsung and Brother have models that go for as little as $50 in promotions and their toner carts can be refilled at home for under $20.)
 
[quote name='TheBlueWizard']You can still get newspapers? With actual paper coupons? How quaint![/QUOTE]

It's the primary reason I still get the paper delivered. The weekdays are essentially free if you get the Sunday subscription. The main draw there is the big Fry's ad on Fridays. Also, the supermarkets have their fliers in the Tuesday paper for the Wednesday price changes. Sometimes that bundle includes coupons from fast food places, which can also be useful when my job has me getting home well after midnight and unable to use the kitchen. Get a Carls Guacamole Bacon burger for dinner and a second one free for breakfast! Win!
 
Ive been scouring the local paper for coupons and dont ever find shit. Its almost not even worth it. Ive been wondering about the online route for awhile. Thanks for the websites.
 
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