Freebie Tips and Advice

So, my sharin’ tips with Cher tip for today is to NEVER pay full price for greeting cards! I always buy my greeting cards at the Dollar store where they are 2/$1! Each time I go, I simply stock up and grab 5 of each event (birthday, wedding, etc). It’s so  nice to always have them on hand and never have to pay $4 for a card! Please share the ways you save on greeting cards so we can learn even more ways to save!

Hey gang!  So I’m going to start these weekly videos where I share a suggestion or tip I have learned in the 4 years while running our site and becoming a freebie lover and finder!  The first tip I wanna share is price matching oil changes at Walmart!

Here’s what the Walmart’s price matching policy states:
We gladly accept the following types of coupons*
“Competitors’ coupons”
-A specific item for a specified price, for example, $2.99
-Buy one, get one free (BOGO) coupons for items with a specified price
-Have a valid expiration date
-Are acceptable in black and white

Right now, we have an awesome coupon on our site that states they’ll give you an oil change for $9.99 Exp. 6/14/2011!! (Crazy good price!) Here’s how you price match it OR an oil coupon you might have already…

1. Make sure your coupon is for a specified price (ex. the $9.99 coupon found here Exp. 6/14/2011)
2. Call the Walmart you planned to get your oil changed at and tell them this:
“I LOVE shopping and getting my oil changed at Walmart. (Butter ‘em up!) I found a coupon online for XXXXX store that states for $X.XX, they will give me the following oil change. (List of what is stated on your coupon.)  I’m wondering if would be willing to price match it because it’s so nice to get my oil changed while I wander around and get all my groceries at Walmart! (Hint that you’ll spend even more money and time at Walmart if they’ll let you price match the coupon.)
3. Make sure to tell Walmart where the store is located for the coupon you’d like to price match. They might not want to honor it if it’s really far away from your Walmart store. We want to always be as honest as possible when price matching! Your integrity is NOT worth dollars off an oil change.

Let me know how things go for you! Also, if you liked this tip and video and want me to cover anything specific in my next video!

It can take a lot of the precious resource called “TIME” to clip coupons, fill out forms, and get free stuff for your family! So what drives you to do it? I know the obvious (and incredibly awesome answer) is that you plain just like saving money! Lol  But the #1 reason I LOVE saving money is because I feel like with each coupon I’m clipping, I’m telling my amazing hubby, “The more I can save, the LESS you need to feel pressured to make more money! I choose YOU being home  MORE than I choose money!” Like most husbands, he would love make a HUGE salary to provide and give us everything we wanted with the mansion on the hill, the nice cars, the nice, well, everything!  But let’s face it, life is real. My hubby is an INCREDIBLY hard worker (as I’m sure most of you feel your spouses are as well).  He’s always working long, hard hours to provide for our family.

We went on a walk tonight around our neighborhood discussing how if he had to make less money but found a job that allowed him to spend more time at home, we would both love it!  So, my way of SUPPORTING HIM, is by clipping coupons, searching deals, and sharing my “freebie” excitement with him! He may not realize it (and that might be my fault) but I would do anything for him and well, I guess, this is just a little way I can prove it to him! (Yes, I’m literally getting choked up as I write this, ha ha!)  So, now while I’m grabbing my tissue box, please comment below and share the REAL reasons why YOU SAVE!!  (I’m totally cool with your reason being the simple fact of “YOU JUST LIKE SAVING MONEY!”)

A good friend of  mine, who is the coupon guru of our neighborhood, put together this explanation of the sales cycles of food items. It’s divided up by months. Look over it and see if it can help you at all in your grocery planning! Thanks Brittany!

Download the Sales Cycle Sheet Now!

Have you ever wandered why some people find or post about a certain coupon on coupons.com, but when you go to print the coupon, it’s not there?  Well here’s a little coupons.com 101 information on why it’s not there.

1. Print Limit on COUPONS.COM:
Coupons.com might be told by General Mills that they can only let 250,000 coupons for General Mills cereal be printed at a time. So on hot items like $1 off 1lb of cheese, the coupon disappears quickly because it has a very low print limit set by coupons.com.  Make sense?

2. Print Limit on YOUR COMPUTER:
When printing coupons online, the rule is you get 2 prints of that coupon per computer. This is your PERSONAL print limit. So if a coupon won’t let you print it, it’s usually because you have already printed it the number of times allowed for your computer. If you have multiple computers in your home and love a certain coupon, try printing it twice from the different computers each.

3. Zip Codes:
Coupons.com (and other online coupon sites) will post different coupons under different zip codes. So larger areas tend to have more coupons listed under them.  90210 and 33031 are ones I’ve found the most coupons under recently. If you have a good zip code, please share!

If you’re like me and you’re filling out at least 5-10 forms a day online, I suggest you download the google toolbar with the Auto Fill application. It’s super easy to do! Just follow these steps!

• First, you’ll want to download Google Toolbar. It’s a free download, and great for all sorts of things other than filling out forms: instant Google search, bookmark availability, sharing your searches, and much more. This is a SAFE download bar, I would NOT recommend it if it wasn’t.
• Once you have Google Toolbar installed, navigate to the AutoFill Button (looks like a tan note pad and pencil)
• Choose Add/Edit Profiles.
• Click Add New next to the profile name box.
• Here’s where you’ll put in the information that you would like Google Toolbar to fill in automatically for you when you hit an online form. You do NOT have to fill in all of the blank fields here; only the ones that you specifically would like Google Toolbar to insert automatically for you (for instance, I put in my name and address, but not my phone number).
• Hit Save.
• Now click on the yellow highlighter next to the AutoFill button. This tells Google Toolbar that you’re giving it the green light to auto-fill forms with the information you just gave it.
• Next time you come to a form online, click the Autofill button on your Google Toolbar and the form will be filled out automatically for you. Super neat!

Remember when the saying used to be a penny saved is a penny earned?  Well one reader, MeagerMom, bumped this saying up to the 21st century in her post about saving $5 bills instead of just change!  You could also try doing this with $1 bills and watch the money pile up!

“Do you often pay with cash?  If so, this is a great tip for you!  Save your $5′s.  That’s right, I didn’t say pennies, I said fives!  Every time you hand someone a 20 dollar bill and they give you a $5 back as part of your change, take it home and put it in a jar.  (This was actually my husband’s idea, so I’ll give him props)  This may seem difficult in the beginning, but I guarantee you will love the results!    You’ll be amazed how quickly $5′s can add up.  My husband and I have used our 5 dollar savings to buy our computer, a new dining room table, and some of our appliances.  The longer you save, the larger the item you get to buy!  Isn’t saving exciting?!!! “

I wanted to share this post from MojoSavings because I have also been getting a few questions about using coupons with BOGO sales.  Enjoy!

“I have been getting this question asked a lot these last few days and thought I would go ahead and post the answer for anyone else who may be wondering. This concept took me a while to grasp when I first started out in the couponing world, so don’t feel bad if it has you perplexed.

When a store runs a BOGO Free sale on product (A) and you have a coupon for a BOGO Free product (A), you will get 2 product (A’s) for Free.

Now, if it is a BOGO 50% off sale and you have a BOGO Free coupon, you would only pay for the 50% off item. Now, again, this is going to highly depend on your store manager and cashiers.”

Do you have other questions you would like to see answered? If so, leave them in the comment field and we will try to get to them all!

It is now more specific and helpful, breaking down what exactly they will price match. Some new additions include:

1. We do not require customers to have the ad with them to honor a competitor’s ad. (THIS IS HUGE!! Many readers have complained to me that their Walmart required them to have the ad, not anymore!)
2. Fresh produce and meat items when the price is offered in the same unit type (lb. for lb.; each for each)

I STRONGLY suggest printing this updated version directly from Walmart.com and keeping it with you in your binder!  Don’t forget to print off the other store coupon policies that are online and put them in your coupon binders. You can find those here…

This site is full of awesome tips for Frugal Living! Packed with money-saving tips and financial how-tos to enrich your life. I just poked around on the site for a minute and found lots of good articles and tips for saving money while on a vacation!

SIGN UP FOR FREE HERE!

As I’m starting to get into couponing, I’m learning more and more about fraudulent coupons.  I have read on a few blogs about the latest one being the $2.00/2 Johnson & Johnson counterfeit coupon. It made wonder, “How can I tell if a coupon is real or not so I won’t be embarrassed at the store?!” Check out the two links below. One is an updated list of fraudulent coupons and the other is a site where you can enter the bar code number to check if the coupon is for real.

-Fraudulent Coupon List with Pictures
-Check Your Coupons

Walmart is now “ready to roll up its sleeves to win the lowest-price battle with its rivals.” One of the changes Walmart is promising to make is to provide lower prices and a better ad-matching policy. You can read the full article here. I couldn’t find any where where Walmart had this in writing on their site, but here is the news article about it.

“From now on, if customers find a lower advertised price, Wal-Mart promises to match that price at the register in all stores without requiring shoppers to bring in a competitor’s ad as proof.”

Knowing how Walmart cashiers tend to have a lack of training and understanding of the corporate Walmart policies regarding price-matching and coupons, I don’t have great faith that all stores are going to readily allow you to price-matching without a competitor’s ad, but I’m happy to hear they are at least trying to simplify the ad-matching policy!

Read More Here!