Saving With Coupons.com
Coupons are the lifeblood of any good savings strategy. While power shopping sites may highlight coupons appearing in newspapers, magazines and mailers, there may be times the coupon deal you're interested in cannot be found through any of these sources.
Recently, my wife hooked me up with one of the popular power shopper sites and like any guy struggling to do the mom thing, I dutifully logged in and promptly became overwhelmed. Once I learned the system, it was fairly easy to plug the deals this power shopping site found for me and plan my shops to the various stores for which my wife had a subscription. Unfortunately, that's where convenience and ease of use came to an abrupt halt for me. All but one of the coupons required to turn a discount offer into a free offer were nowhere to be found in the weekly mailers the shopping site referenced. Nor were there very many in the back haul stash of coupons my wife had accumulated. While she could easily figure out a "Plan B", I just went to the store and bought what I needed at full price.
Using those power sites takes practice -- beyond learning their system and getting used to the navigation of the sites themselves. It was easy for my wife because she already knew a good value when it smacked her in the face. It doesn't take a brilliant shopper to know that "free" is usually going to be the best deal offered. It does take someone with patience, shopping experience and an instinct for sticking to the system. So what's dad to do? Cop out and go with a sure winner: an actual coupon site.
There are many out there. Among them, we found Coupons.com to be an effective tool. You may not get a lot of "free deals" that are the main attraction of power shopping sites, but you will usually find the product type you're searching for. To make coupon sites work for you, it's best to look for a "comparable" product -- the same kind of item, size and features rather than the exact brand.
Coupons.com is not without its fair share of minor annoyances. The most challenging for the search addicted soul is that the site currently has no search function. Instead of typing the brand or product type into a search box and having your coupons dished up, you need to click through the site's navigation by category until you drill down to the item you need. There is a side benefit to this feature -- sometimes you happen upon a better deal than you would by using a narrow search phrase in a traditional search box.
Once you're used to the site's "gold digging" approach to finding coupons, you'll find it a very valuable tool. We keyed in our zip code and found several coupons for local restaurants that resulted in an average savings of $25. Not bad for a dad looking for a cheap date night. Coupons.com also offers a savings card program, a member center and weekly newsletters.
