The Best Places to Get Coupons Online
This article shares tips from the newest episode of Dealista, our podcast that'll help you get more for less.
You could sit and wait every week for your Sunday paper to shower you with coupons for your next money-saving shopping trip…or, you could go out there and get them yourself. Online! We check out some of the best sites for getting both printable and traditional coupons via the web.
Coupons — Just plug in your zip code and see what offers are available to you! In addition to getting printable coupons for cents (and dollars) off cereal, coffee, diapers and more, you can see what restaurants are offering deals in your area. Another nifty feature? Skip the printing and just upload the coupons to your store chain savings card (like Kroger, for example). Take your card with you when you check out and let the cashier scan your card. No need to stuff coupons in your purse or wallet!
RedPlum — Owned by Valassis, the same people that put coupons in your Sunday paper, this site offers printable coupons, articles, freebies, and giveaways. Get even more savings by purchasing a Sunday paper and printing the maximum number of coupons from the website!
Target — This retailer lets you double-dip by taking typical manufacturer’s coupons and special Target store coupons that you can print right from their website! Available for items that wouldn’t normally give you printable coupons from your paper (like broccoli and store brand juice), these can be combined with manufacturer’s coupons and weekly sales or clearance discounts for the most savings.
Smart Source — Another major company that offers paper coupon inserts, Smart Source has taken its gig online! Print higher valued coupons (like $1.00 off or more) and special purchase coupons (savings on new release DVD’s, for example) before they run out.
Valpak — Remember when you used to get that little Valpak envelope in the mail? Another player in the online printable game, this company has become super savvy by giving you the best offers by your location. They still give you the chance to look for savings on plumbing, car washes, and maid service, but by clicking on the “grocery” tab, you can skip all the service offerings and get straight to the savings most likely to be on your shopping list.
Facebook — Now you can save money on milk while you secretly check out your ex-girlfriend’s new beau. Many companies are giving their Facebook fans exclusive savings and freebies just by joining. Check out your favorite freebies sites and Wise Bread’s Daily Deals to see how this social media site can score you free or low-cost coffee creamer, shampoo, and more!
In addition to these sites that give you savings for many brands, some major companies host coupons on their own sites. Two of the largest ones include:
EatBetterAmerica — This site is owned by General Mills, and will offer printable savings on brands like Nature’s Valley, Bisquick, and Yoplait.
PGEveryDaySolutions — A site of Proctor and Gamble (P&G), you’ll find coupons from Febreze, Tide, Crest, and more! (The coupons will be mailed to you!) Sign up for samples, as well.
Think you’re ready to go online and start couponing? There are a few tips you’ll want to keep in mind before you start:
Prep Your Printer — Once you click the “print” or “clip” button on the website, your printer will need to be ready to go. If you’re out of ink or paper, or the printer is offline (or you send it to the wrong one), you’ll miss out, since they rarely prompt you the way a normal document will. Since you only get one or two chances per coupon, be ready!
Know Your Limit — Many coupons can be printed once or twice per household or IP address. A few can be printed time and time again. Know how many you can print, and plan the best savings by taking advantage of multiple purchases.
Update Your Profile — For offers that will be mailed to you, be sure that your profile is updated with the correct address for mailing. If possible, check out your profile before you make your request, since changes might not be able to be made once you hit “submit.”
Printed coupons can be a huge benefit to the savvy shopper, but only if your store takes them. Call ahead to get their coupon policy before you waste money on paper and ink!
Dealista is a collaboration between Wise Bread and Quick and Dirty Tips, the producer of popular podcasts such as Grammar Girl, Money Girl, Winning Investor, and Mighty Mommy.
If you enjoyed these tips you can find more in our show's archive.
Tagged: Budgeting, Shopping, coupons, dealista, groceries, online, printable coupons, saving, shopping
Disclaimer: The links and mentions on this site may be affiliate links. But they do not affect the actual opinions and recommendations of the authors.
Wise Bread is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Don't forget www.groupon.com and www.yourcouponnetwork.com...
Groupon does some neat group-based deals. If enough people sign up for a deal, it happens, sort of like that group buy stuff that was popular a few years back.
Your Coupon Network is primarily in the south east (especially Florida) right now but they're expanding and have coupons from a lot of the sources listed above in addition to their own. There are some great deals if you happen to be in their coverage area.
Good list all in all...
The problem I have with coupons is that I don't tend to buy these foods or products. "They" just don't seem to provide coupons for fresh fruits and vegetables and bulk foods. Sigh.
This was great. Coupons make purchases so much better. Thanks!
John DeFlumeri Jr
I'll agree that it's rare to find coupons for fresh foods (with the exception of the Target ones, which often offer them on produce). My goal is to always use coupons to reduce the cost of items that I have to buy packaged (health/beauty, diapers, milk, etc) so that I have more to spend on fresh items. I've also found there to be a larger selection of packaged organic items in my store lately, and many of the brands do offer coupons!
Thanks for the comments!
Linsey Knerl
I use www.retailmenot.com for online coupons. It hasn't failed me yet.
Thank you very much for these links to great coupon sites. I find Buxr interesting, too. Check it out at http://www.buxr.com/ Maybe you can write a follow up post in a little while compiling an even longer list of coupon sites.
Great stuff, its just too bad that both of my local grocers do not accept internet generated coupons.
Great tip on Target though, i never knew that
Be cautious in your attempts to save paper. I learned the hard way that some coupon issuers will take a whole page to print one coupon. Now I reuse the paper I get from my daughter's school.
My family & I appreciate the great links! Good deals!
I've become discouraged trying to access Internet-generated coupons, particularly those that force you to (attempt to) download software just to print a coupon!
Most recently, I tried to print a coupon for Welch's grape juice, from the Welch's web site, and it probably never downloaded, and certainly never printed the coupon. I use a pop-up blocker, and work around it without a problem with almost everything else, as it would make me nervous to disable it.
Considering the coupons I get from the newspaper, e-mails, and often from the stores themselves during checkout, I can't be bothered with the more troublesome generated coupons.
I agree that it's no fun to download software just to print coupons. Most of the major sites, however, use just one application to print. If you download it just once (takes minutes) you can print at most every site from then on.
Thanks!
Linsey Knerl
While I mostly buy from farmers' markets, coupons are good for getting the non-food items I do buy--flour sometimes has coupons, and who doesn't use toilet paper, baking soda, and the like? Also, while I routinely buy the store version of most products (there are very rare times when I think the name brand is actually better quality), sometimes a coupon makes the name brand cheaper than the store brand. So it is good to know coupon sites.
However, the utility of coupon sites is severely limited if you are not using a Windows computer. Unless the site lets you load coupons directly onto a store card, beware--the generic coupon printer does not work under WINE, meaning that we Linux frugalistas and Mac users are SOL. I wish coupon manufacturers would address this issue!
For coupons on your store card, or for coupons from the Sunday paper (pick up old copies on Monday, or surf your neighbourhood recycler), Trent at The Simple Dollar has a good idea. Save coupons for about three weeks. Then they often line up with the on-sale items. Obviously, check prices, expiration dates, and other fine print to make sure your coupon will be valid in three or four weeks. Also, remember drug stores like CVS; savvy shoppers can sometimes get name brand items almost free by combining coupons and in-store credits.
I wouldn't download coupons from a site that requires a Coupon Printer. It probably isn't safe even though they swear it is.
Sites that require date of birth seem rather suspicious to me. Anybody have comments?
Note that Target has very recently changed their online coupon system and not all coupons you print are Target coupons. Some are manufacturer's coupons, which can't be stacked. Still nice to have, but not as good as before.
Thanks for the suggestions. I use www.moneysavercouponsonline.com for coupons here in South Florida- great stuff for food and dry cleaners.
Don't overlook getting coupons directly from the product manufacturers. Visit the company's website.
I have been using
http://www.onewayshopping.com/coupons/ to clip coupons from several merchants.
here’s a good location from a trusted site—just read the sellers feedback from previous buyers before you buy, and there are a few other sellers offering the same thing too—for a great gift card at Kohl’s….the url is kinda long but you can just cut and paste it in your browser.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330426368868
I got myself a few…
My husband has just recently been declared bankrupted. I thought it was the end of the world until a good friend of mine introduced me to the online coupon world that has save me and my family lives, at least we are eating properly while on low budget.
Thankyou for the great list of coupon sites! Now Im addicted in collecting these sites and recently I have found a new one : Myzerr. If you're interested, you can go and have a look, no harm trying right?
Do be aware that, on WinXP at least, you will need to be using an account with admin privileges to print coupons.
I tried escalating privilege to install the coupon printer and changing the user account back to limited and it didn't work.
So, you do sacrifice some security to use these sites.
I like using http://dingpow.com they have the most amount of local / printable coupons in my area than any other site out there.
All of these sites are great places to find coupons. After you finish clipping you may want to organize them in cute coupon organizer by Mulch. They offer whimiscal holders for coupons on Etsy. I love it!
www.mulch.etsy.com
The best places for me to get coupons online is to just go to the websites of the stores/brands I use and sign up for their email newsletters that often contain coupons I'd never find anywhere else. There are even coupons in the e-newsletters of restaurants and sometimes coupon deals on their Yelp listings. Preview before you print an online coupon so you only print the page you need and don't waste paper.
I'll definitely have to look at these. I use coupons here and there. I try to just set a limit on the amount I spend on food.
If you only want to buy a specific brand of a grocery item, go directly to the manufacturer's website and see if the site offer a coupon for it. If there is no coupon contact the company and ask if they have it. You never know until you ask - nicely.
You can also order Coupon inserts from http://newenglandcouponsaver.com/shop/
Check slickhuB.com
Always used http://discountengine.co.uk/ and it's the best
Another great place for Online Coupons is MoneysaverMag.com they have hundreds of local coupons for dining, home, service and more.
They also have Grocery Coupons which I like better then using just coupons-dot-com coupns
i like mommysavesbig.com
My top places to get coupons are fatwallet, retailmenot and slickdeals but I think I should consider the list above.
One thing I just noticed and the disadvantage when using deal sites is, people often purchased items that they don't need its just because it is on sale.
So be sure to have the list of items you need to purchase first before purchasing anything online.
I make purchases using coupons! And it has saved me tons of money! Lately I came across this coupon code for bluetooth speakers and I am happy that I used it to buy a gift for my son..