Do you use coupons? Most of my friends are avid coupon clippers. From time to time they will post a picture of their latest great bargains that they purchased and brag about how much money they have saved. They talk from time to time about the television show called Extreme couponers (or something like that) and about how much merchandise these people buy and how little that it costs them. I have never seen the television show for myself, in fact I don’t even know what channel it is on or what day (or night) of the week that the television show is on, but I just cannot imagine anyone having enough time in the day to collect all of those coupons and redeem them and still have any time left over for a job or a social life!
To tell you the truth, I subscribe to the Sunday newspaper simply because of the coupon inserts that come with the paper, and I’ve been thinking about the fact that now that those coupons are available over the Internet, free for the printing and clipping, that maybe I should just cancel that newspaper completely because the remainder of the paper just goes into the recycling pile.
Recently I joined a couple of new shopping websites that offer really fantastic shopping deals. Some of them you order the merchandise directly from them, others will give you a coupon code to use to buy the product at a different website. Still others just will send you an email list full of offers and coupon and discount codes. Some of the websites donate money to charity, others deposit money into a savings account for someone’s college 529K savings plan. Over the past couple of years I have saved hundreds of dollars through using these shopping websites. Still other companies will give you a loyalty card to shop at their store, and if you register that loyalty card with the company’s website, you will be on their email list and you’ll get special offers through your email account.
Just this morning I knew that I had to go into town to run some errands and I knew that I needed to buy my tax preparation software, so before I left the house I went online to locate a coupon code to see if I could get a bargain on that. And you know what? I found a coupon for 25% off a purchase at Staples! I printed it off, and I’ll be taking that with me when I go.
