Pick up just a few reputable coupon code directories and monitor them effectively.

There are plenty of coupon code sites and blogs and keeping track of all of them would be too time consuming (and time is money too!), so pick just a few ones. How to choose? Here are my tips:

• It should be easy to navigate and user-friendly;
• It should provide some handy tracking options (for example, newsletter or RSS);
• It should be updated daily.
• It should focus on your needs (in other words, pick the one that mostly lists products you buy often).

Here are my personal picks:

• FreeShipping.org (for its clear interface and quality selection of coupons);
• QponCutie (for its RSS subscription and female-oriented coupons – just what I like).

Don’t trust the seller’s word, check what other buyers say!

I love it when the site not only list deals and coupon codes, but also allows their members share their experience on each one.

This way you save your money by choosing only trusted deals and retailers. My favorite site for that is Buxr.com. Let me tell you why:

• Each deal has ratings, votes and reviews.
• The site is attentively moderated, so totally spam-free (each deal should be approved before it goes live).
• It offers quite a few Web 2.0 goodies (like wish list and deal alert);
• Best deals are daily rewarded with cash, so members do their best to deliver most useful codes and deals.

Make sure you know how to track

Email box is by far not your only way to get updated on new deals. Use your couponing toolbox wisely:

• Try various RSS readers to choose the one you like best (my personal favorite is Wizz RSS FireFox plugin because it doesn’t take much space and is well-organized);
• Use Twitter! Many sites now offer Twitter as an alternative way to subscribe to their updates. The best thing about this tool is that Twitter delivers updates right to your mobile phone (if you are in the United States), so you can get new deals even when you are offline (again, don’t go too much into it, pick only one to follow closely).
• Use services that allow alternative subscription methods (for example, FreeShipping.org mentioned above allows to subscribe only to those sellers you plan to buy from via their “Favorite Coupons” option).

Use your calculator!

Right, your own common sense is your best weapon! It is a commonly-used trick to offer “fake” coupon: first increase the price and then offer a discount – so that the end price just ends up to be even higher just in the nearby store that offers no discount at all. So take your time, compare prices and make the right choice!

Good luck!

The guest post was provided by Ann Smarty, an SEO Consultant. I hope you will find it useful!

Post by Frugal Dad

Often times we found ourselves buying things we didn’t really need just because there was a great coupon deal. We decided to focus our coupon strategy, taking advantage of store sales, coupon-doubling and eBay to maximize savings on the few items we actually used.

How it Works, a Recent Example

Our family likes adding I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray to vegetables such as corn on the cob. It has zero fat, is calorie free, and is generally healthier than real butter alternatives. It is also expensive, especially in the spray bottle packaging. Our local Kroger store recently offered I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter 2/$3.00 dollars. The $1.50 price was competitive with other stores, including Wal-Mart and another smaller, regional grocery store. The deal also included larger 16oz. tubs, and smaller double packs of 8oz. tubs.

eBay to the Rescue

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any coupons for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. Luckily, there are many people out there making a small living as “coupon clippers,” selling their time to clip coupons on eBay and other coupon exchange sites. It is important to emphasize that selling coupons is technically prohibited according to the terms of use on most manufacturer coupons.  However, coupon clippers make the distinction that they are merely selling their time to clip them, not selling the coupons themselves.

A quick search on eBay shows several auctions for a lot of 10 $0.40/1 coupons for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, expiring at the end of June. The buy-it-now auction price is $1.00 with $0.42 shipping. I ordered a lot of 10 coupons and they arrived a couple days later. Our local Kroger store doubles up to 3 manufacturer coupons per item per transaction up to $1.00, so we will actually save $0.80 on each product we purchase. If we buy just two products the coupons will more than pay for themselves ($1.60 in savings versus $1.42 cost). But the savings don’t stop there. I picked up three spray butters, and my wife picked up another one along with two large tubs that we will use in recipes. Total savings, $4.80 off the retail price. Take away our $1.42 cost to acquire the coupons and we saved $3.38, or roughly 37.5% off the sale price.

Check the Expiration

Notice in the explanation above we only used 6 of the 10 coupons I bought from the eBay coupon clipper. I could have gone back in for a separate transaction and purchased three more units, but based on our average length of use for each item they probably would have expired long before we could have used them up. The $0.70 spray bottles we did buy, and both tubs, will keep in our refrigerators until ready for use, but it is a good idea to check the expiration for any perishables when stockpiling in the manner I’ve described. After all, the point of being frugal is to eliminate waste from our lives, not add more to it!

Do you have a similar coupon strategy?

photo by: ninjapoodles

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Post by Frugal Dad