Sharing Forward

At the first meeting of our new club format, we had a mixed group of savers. Some were well into their quest to save money on their household budgets and some, like me, were there to learn how to get started. Using Kathy's packet of information as a jumping off point, we shared the things we have learned, asked questions and got great answers...I think even the hard core savers picked up some new resources and learned about others that were not worth wasting time on.

It is amazing how many good websites are out there that can help obtain and organize your savings. Each one has strengths over others which makes them all worthwhile to pay an occasional visit. One tip I learned about having multiple sites that you deal with is that some sites have limits on how many of a particular coupon you can print, but if it is a great deal, you may want to find the same coupon on a different site.  Some of the sites even give you a preview of what coupons are about to come out so that you can make sure they are included in the paper you buy.  Apparently the local papers are available at discount prices in the dollar stores, but they don't always include all of the circulars or the shoppers are taking multiple circulars out of the other papers on sale.  It is worth doing some research as to what coupons you can expect to find when you buy your paper.  Some of these new subscriber deals to get home delivery of a particular paper bring the price down to well below the dollar per issue you can get at the dollar store and you are pretty much assured that you will get all of the coupons.  You may have to cancel your subscription once the trial period is over and resubscribe several months later when you are again considered a "new" subscriber.

There was a good discussion about ways to get the savings without having to use paper and printer ink printing out an actual coupon. There are some stores where you can download the deal onto your shopper card and the savings will be deducted at the register. Everyone felt that this was great news and hoped that all stores will eventually go this route.

Some of the sites that were shared are: thecouponclipper.com; taylortownpreview.com, livingrichwithcoupons.com, moneysavingmom.com, fatwallet.com (we were warned that fatwallet.com has a running commentary by the users that can get a little mean from time to time), slickdeals.net, afullcup.com, couponsuzy.com and hotcouponworld.com.
There are also other kinds of sites where you can get valuable coupons for new products as long as you agree to help spread the word about the product after you try it. One of these sites mentioned was bzzagent.com where you can sign up to participate in various product categories like food or cosmetics.

The conversation about couponing always brings up a discussion about the Extreme Couponing television show on TLC. One of our members had the inside scoop on some of the contestants that seem to buy huge quantities of items that it seems that they couldn't possibly use in a lifetime and it turns out that some of these individuals turn around and sell these items at flea markets for a sizable profit.

Thanks again to Kathy, Jolly and everyone who came and shared their expertise and enthusiasm. I think we are really off and running on this new topic. We hope to see more new people at our future meetings. The more people we have, the more we will all get to know.