Okay, admittedly, I am not a techno-wizard, which comes as no surprise to those who know me. Having a little internet savvy, however, can be a huge money-saving tool. I won't bore you with a list of many of the things you can do and learn on-line, but I will tell you about one internet tool I've recently started using to save substantial money on groceries -- purchasing manufacturer's coupons.
Now, before you tell me you don't have time to deal with coupons, let me say that I seldom buy national brands, and therefore seldom use grocery coupons. But by finding coupons for those few brands I do use, I can realize substantial savings.
My most recent coupon purchase was for Celestial Seasonings Teas, which I use to make Fruity Lemonade (refer to my May 1, 2009 post in the 'Make It, Cook It' category for the recipe.) The herbal teas typically sell for upwards of $2.50 for a box of 20 teabags, but Meijer recently did a temporary price reduction to $2.19/box. By going on-line to Ebay and searching for "Celestial Seasonings Tea Coupons" I was able to find and purchase, among several dozen listings, a lot of 20-$1.00 off coupons for a total of $1.80, which included shipping. So, by making that one purchase on-line, I can purchase my tea at Meijer for a net price of $1.28 per box. The "best before" date on this tea is January 2012, so I'm confident I'll use twenty packages in the next twenty-two months. The lot of coupons I purchased expires April 10th, 2010, giving me 6 weeks to procure my tea.
I like purchasing coupons on Ebay because the competition on that site keeps prices low, and their search feature makes it easy to find specific items. You will find a number of on-line "coupon clipping services" . . . a Google search will readily turn up several. There are all types and values of coupons available, but I especially prefer to find coupons for items which meet three criteria: 1] they have a reasonably long shelf life (how long does deodorant keep?) 2] there is not a comparable store brand of the item which I could purchase for around the same price, and 3] the coupon yields enough savings to warrant the cost of its purchase and the time I spend doing the search.
If you have access to an unlimited number of manufacturer's coupon inserts from the Sunday newspaper, then you'll never need to purchase coupons. I don't, and for me, my tea coupons saved me a total of $18.20, and also the time of purchasing and recycling newspapers, clipping and filing coupons, and updating and maintaining a coupon file. Could this be one of those rare occasions where it's actually true that "the more you spend, the more you save"? Okay, maybe just this once . . .
--Susan Rodebush © 2010
All materials in this blog are copyrighted and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission.
Comments