1. What Is A Coupon & How Do They Work?

2. COUPON Basically a coupon is a manufacture or stores way of discounting a product for you without offering the discount to everyone.

3. What are the different types of Coupons? Manufacture’s coupon – This is a coupon printed by the person who manufactures the product. Store Coupon – This is a coupon put out by the store itself offering you savings on a specific product. Competitor’s Coupon – This is a store coupon from a different store than the one you are using it at.

4. Life Cycle Of A Manufacture’s Coupon The manufacturer decides to run a coupon program and sends the coupon to a design agency. You acquire the coupon through the paper or other entity. You use the coupon and the store takes it. The cashier adds up her drawer and coupons to make sure they balance. The coupons are bagged and sent to the corporate offices.

5. Continuing The Life Cycle Of A Coupon The coupon is sent of a large clearing house. Publix and Kroger use one overseas. The clearing house puts them on a large conveyor belt and scans them. An automated process sorts them by manufacturer and prints an invoice. The manufacturer receives the coupons and invoice (think thousands) and then pays the bill. Some stores are paid by the clearing house. Others are paid by the manufacturer.

6. Are stores being nice by offering store coupons? NO!! They have the advantage here. The manufacturer comes to the store offering a promotion. The manufacturer can pay to have their coupon put in the store flier. The manufacturer can sell product at a discount to the store. The store chooses whether to offer that discount to everyone as part of their weekly ad or to print a coupon for the sale. If they print a coupon they will make more money! Not everyone takes advantage of coupons.

7. Where can I get coupons?

8. Sunday Paper – newspapers work out agreements with coupon manufacturers to have coupons in their Sunday papers. You can buy the paper at a store or subscribe to have it delivered to your home. Order Individual Coupons Online – There are websites like mycouponhunter.com or ebay that offer coupons for sale. They are not selling you the coupon. They are selling the time spent clipping them. This is a great option for the person who does not get high value coupons or who does not like clipping coupons.

9. Continuing where to find coupons Online – You can also buy whole inserts online. This is excellent for the person who would normally pay a great deal for their papers. A website like this would be wholecouponinserts.com. Print Them - Don’t go printer crazy! You do not need to print everything! You will spend your coupon savings on ink. However, there are a lot of great coupons offered online. Reputable websites include coupons.com and target.com.

10. Continuing where to find coupons Facebook – You don’t have to like it. You can ignore the social implications of it but Facebook frequently has companies offering great coupons! Create a profile, write down your password, and forget it until you need it. E-mail – There are many companies that require your e-mail address for coupons. I highly recommend creating a coupon related e-mail address. If not you will be flooded with e-mails! Contact Companies- If it is not a product you see coupons a lot for it doesn’t hurt to contact the company and brag on their product. Sometimes they will send you coupons.

11. Speaking The Coupon Language

12. Coupon Lingo Matchup – A listing of items and the coupons that can be used on them. Transaction – The time from when your items are scanned until you pay. BOGO – Buy One Get One Free Insert – a collection of coupons in your paper. S.S. – Smart Source – an insert from the paper. R.P. – Red Plum – an insert from the paper.

13. Coupon Lingo P & G – Procter & Gamble insert in the paper on a monthly basis. Blinkies – The small coupon machines like this one dispense blinkies.

14. Peelies – Coupons you peel off of a product. Catalina – Coupon printed from the register at the end of a transaction. M.I.R. – Mail in Rebate O.O.P – Out of pocket- This is the actual amount of money you will spend after coupons. ECB/RR – I will go into greater detail later but basically an ECB/RR is a coupon that prints at the end of a transaction with a certain value off of your next purchase.

15. Coupon Lingo Stacking – Many stores will let you use a store coupon and a manufacture’s coupon on one item. This is called stacking coupons. Tearpad – This is a pad of coupons hanging in the store you can tear off. WYB – When You Buy YMMV – Your mileage may vary. This means that your store may or may not allow whatever this term is attached to to happen.

16. My Favorite Place To Save!

17. Making Bogo’s Work For You! A Bogo sale is simply a sale where Publix offers you a free item for every item you purchase. Here are the perks with a Bogo sale. We all like free stuff. You do get an item free. You don’t have to use coupons to get it free. It will ring up that way. You can use 2 coupons on a BOGO sale! This is one of the best ways to save a lot. You can also double your WIC with BOGO sales. You are aloud to get the free items with a BOGO sale that match up with your WIC.

18. A Few Publix Coupon Points If an item is on BOGO and you have a BOGO coupon you get both for free. (this only works in areas with true bogo) If a coupon says $1 off 2 you can use that coupon with a BOGO sale. You are still purchasing 2 items. You may use 1 manufacture’s coupon per item. You may also use 1 store coupon per item. In a 10 for $10 sale you do not need to buy 10 of the item. You can buy one at $1.

19. Overage Every store differs on their policy on overage. If your store allows it, overage is a great way to cut cost on non-coupon items. Overage – the value of the coupon is greater than the price of the product. The extra money left over is called overage.

20. Manager Override You will have to call a manager to override the system if the following things happen. If you exceed $50 in coupons per transaction. If you have more coupons in hand than items in your transaction.

21. What Are The Steps To Shopping? Check the Matchup to see what you want to buy. Make a list Clip, pull, or order your coupons. Put your coupons in your envelope or carrier. Put all of you items in your cart. As you shop move the coupons you need to a separate section. This will make the checkout process easier. Hand your coupons to your cashier. Watch your total drop.

22. What If They Don’t Have What I Want? Rain check it! – If an item you need is not in stock go to your customer service desk and request a rain check. This means that you can come back on a different date and get the sales price for the item. You can only do rain checks on items in the weekly ad, green flier, or yellow flier.

23. Competitor Coupons This will differ by store. My store accepts Target, Save A Lot, Winn Dixie, and Register Rewards from Walgreens. These are treated like store coupons and in most stores can not be combined with a Publix coupon. You can use the $5 off $25 from stores like Save A Lot. The wonderful thing about these is that they come off your pre-coupon total. This is a huge help when you are buying a lot of free or almost free items.

24. The Drug Store Game! There are 2 drug stores that I have played the game with. I shop Walgreen’s and CVS. This is a bit more involved than grocery store shopping. Walgreen’s and CVS are a serious time commitment. I highly recommend picking 1 to start with.

25. Walgreen’s You can stack store coupons and manufacture’s coupons at Walgreen’s. Overage is not allowed at Walgreen’s. Walgreen’s does issue rain checks on sales items but does not rain check register reward deals.

26. What is a Register Reward? A coupon that prints at the end of your transaction that is good for a certain amount of your next purchase. These are not the same as a $5 off $20 coupon. These coupons are for the value off the purchase. For instance, if you have a $5 register reward and spend $5 you can use it and your purchase will be free. Your purchase total can not be less than the Register Reward or they will not accept it.

27. How Can Register Rewards Work For Me? You could use your register reward for non-coupon items and end up spending close to nothing. There is another option as well. This option is called Rolling a Register Reward. Basically put Rolling a Register Reward means using a Register Reward to buy an item that will prompt a new Register Reward.

28. Rules For Rolling I can see it now. A lot of you would walk in to the store and use the Register reward from an item to buy that item again and get it free endlessly. Sadly this won’t work. You can not use a Register Reward from an item to buy the same item in another transaction if you want to get a Register Reward and the end of your transaction. Every week I will update a link for you to look at the weekly ads and deal scenarios for rolling your rewards.

29. Using The Scenario I highly recommend starting out using someone else’s scenario. Putting together a RR scenario can be quite involved. You have to make sure you are spending the least out of pocket and walking out with a lot of product. You also have to make sure you are not using RR’s from a previous transaction on the same item. Wild For Wags does a wonderful job. She tells you what to buy in each transaction and how much of it to buy. You will walk in to the store knowing exactly what to pay and should not be surprised much at all.

30. Things To Remember Your Register Rewards are considered coupons. You must make sure that you don’t have more coupons than items. If this is a case you can buy yourself a 20 cent pencil or a pack of gum to use as a filler item. You must use your Register Reward before it expires. You can use coupons on an item that prompts a Register Reward.

31. Show Me a Scenario In this scenario you will pay 2.94 out of pocket and you will walk away with $2 in Register Rewards. If you consider the value of your $2 Register Reward you will only pay 94 cents for $27 worth of products. Tax was not included in this scenario because tax can vary drastically by region.

32. First Transaction 4) Reach Crystal Clear Toothbrushes $1.59 EACH(2) Right Guard Body Wash 13.5oz $4.49 EACH B1G1 FREETotal = $10.85USE(4) -$1/1 Reach Toothbrush or Floss PRINTor – 10-10-10 RP or 01-09-11 SS(1) -FREE Right Guard Bodywash or Deodorant (up to $4.49) wyb (1) Right Guard Product, any 3-13-11 RPTotal = $2.36, (Get Back $4 Register Reward Reach) In this transaction you are buying 4 toothbrushes and 2 body washes. After the coupons listed you will pay 2.36 and the cashier will hand you a Register Reward for $4. You could stop here and make 1.64 or you can roll it. We are going to roll it.

33. Transaction 2 (2) Irish Spring AP/Deodorant 2/$6(1) Royal Gelatin Reg. or Sugar Free 5/$1 (w/in ad Q)Total = $6.20USE(2) - $1/1 Irish Spring Deodorant PRINT or PRINT 3-13-11 SS x4/2(1) – In ad Q for Royal Gelatin(1) – $4 RR ReachTotal = $0.20, (Get Back $4 Register Reward Irish Spring – Colgate/Palmolive) In this transaction you are buying 2 deodorants and 1 gelatin. Your gelatin is a filler. After your coupons you will hand the register reward to your cashier. Your remainder will be 20 cents. Your final out of pocket will be 20 cents for 2 deodorants and a gelatin. You will also walk away with another $4 register reward.

34. Transaction 3 (1) Dial Nutriskin Lotion $4.99(1) Royal Gelatin Reg. or Sugar Free 5/$1 (w/in ad Q)Total = $5.19USE(1) -$1/1 Dial Nutriskin Lotion PRINT(Thanks Frugalbengal!) or 03-13-11 RP x4/30(1) – In ad Q for Royal Gelatin(1) – $4 RR Irish SpringTotal = $.19, (Get Back $3 Register Reward Dial) In this transaction you will buy 1 lotion and 1 gelatin. After coupons you will hand the cashier your register reward and pay the difference of 19 cents. You paid 19 cents for lotion and gelatin and the cashier will hand you a RR for $3.

35. Transaction 4 (1) Purex $4.99(1) Royal Gelatin Reg. or Sugar Free 5/$1 (w/in ad Q)Total = $5.19USE(1) -$2/1 Purex any Complete Crystals Softener 03-13-11 RPx4/30(1) – In ad Q for Royal Gelatin(1) – $3 RR Dial Total = $.19, (Get Back $2 Register Reward Purex) In this transaction you will buy a Purex and a Gelatin. After you coupons you will hand your cashier your RR and pay the remaining balance of 19 cents. You have just paid 19 cents for laundry soap and gelatin and walked away with another $2 Register Reward.

36. I Can Hear The Questions Now What if I don’t need it? – Considering you have paid nothing or very close to it why not use these items as a donation. Lighthouse ministries accepts any of these items for the homeless and rehab programs they run.

37. CVS You can use a Bogo coupon on a Bogo sale to get 2 free. You can stack store coupons and manufacture’s coupons at CVS. Overage is not allowed at CVS. CVS does issue rain checks on sales items but does not rain check ECB deals.

38. What Is An ECB? A coupon that prints at the end of your transaction that is good for a certain amount of your next purchase. These are not the same as a $5 off $20 coupon. These coupons are for the value off the purchase. For instance, if you have a $5 ECB and spend $5 you can use it and your purchase will be free. Your purchase total can not be less than the ECB or they will not accept it.

39. How Can ECB’s Work For Me? You could use your ECB for non-coupon items and end up spending close to nothing. There is another option as well. This option is called Rolling an ECB. Basically put Rolling an ECB means using an ECB to buy an item that will prompt a new ECB.

40. Rules For Rolling I can see it now. A lot of you would walk in to the store and use the ECB from an item to buy that item again and get it free endlessly. Sadly this won’t work. You can not use an ECB from an item to buy the same item in another transaction if you want it to print a new ECB. Every week I will update a link for you to look at the weekly ads and deal scenarios for rolling your ECB’s.

41. Things To Remember Your ECB’s are considered coupons. You must make sure that you don’t have more coupons than items. If this is a case you can buy yourself a 20 cent pencil or a pack of gum to use as a filler item. You must use your ECB before it expires. You can use coupons on an item that prompts a ECB. CVS limits most ECB deals. Because you are required to have a CVS card you can not exceed this limit in different transactions.

42. Wrapping Up I know there is a great deal more to cover. Couponing can be an amazing and challenging venture. All of this information will be on my website : www.publixcouponqueen.com. You can also friend Publix Coupon Queen on Facebook and I am glad to answer questions as you learn. Get a coupon buddy. It will help you in the long run. Pick a few blogs that cover your stores and follow them faithfully. Start with 2 stores, a grocery store and a drug store so you don’t get overwhelmed!