Buying Newspapers Saves You Money!

The way most of the people in the USA who use coupons acquire those coupons is through the Coupon Inserts in the Sunday Newspaper. While Internet Printed Coupons have taken hold & have wide usage now, some stores still do not accept those kind of coupons. Plus I KNOW this is hard to believe, but there are still people living in our day & age who don't have access to a computer.
The shock.....the horror!!
This means they can't print internet coupons. As a result, the Coupon Inserts are still the champ of the Couponing World.

Most people buy 1 Sunday newspaper. If you are a couponing newbie, & you want to save yourself more money, I am here to tell you that you NEED to buy multiple Sunday papers!

"But that costs more money", you say.
Ever heard the old saying, "It takes money to make money."?
It is so true when it comes to couponing.

Buying multiple Sunday papers to get multiple copies of coupons will cost you a bit upfront, but the savings you will realize is well worth the investment.
This is something I have been trying to get across to Hubby all year. He shakes his head at me every time I buy more than 1 copy of the Sunday paper. He can't see beyond that initial cost to how this outlay saves us so much money in the end.

Let's use the Sunday paper inserts from 2 weeks ago as an example.
My local Sunday paper is $1.50.
So you spend $1.50.
Great.
For that $1.50 you get to see the news, weather & a tv guide.

But, you also would have gotten these.....
Two Coupon Inserts filled with Manufacturer's Coupons.
Let's take a look at some highlights, shall we?
There's a dandy of a coupon, pictured on the left in the photo above, for Buy One/Get One Free StayFree Pads up to a value of $6.99.
Last week Rite-Aid had the small $3.99 reg. priced StayFree Pad Packs on sale for BOGO.
Using this coupon, you could have gotten TWO Packs of StayFree for ZERO MONEY.
I did......actually I got FOURTEEN Packs of StayFree that week at Rite-Aid.
ZERO.
MONEY.

This coupon saves you up to $6.99 on something Most women need to buy anyway.


Here's another coupon for $1 off of 1 box of Band-aids. Rite-Aid had certain boxes of Band-aids on sale Buy One/Get One last week. For the price of one box, $4.49, you got 2 boxes of Band-aids. If you had this coupon, you would have paid $3.49 for 2 boxes & if you had bought 2 newspapers you would have paid $2.29 for 2 boxes after using the Band-aid coupons from both papers. That's $1.25 per box. If you have young kids, you NEED adhesive bandages.
Savings so far for 1 newspaper....between $4.99 & $7.99.

Although not the healthiest of foods, most people eat Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. I hear some are addicted to it.lol
This Buy Three/Get One Free Kraft Mac&Cheese Coupon was also in these 2 coupon inserts.

Lots of stores are running specials on this item now and some have Catalina Promotional Deals where you get "money off your next order"($OYNO) for buying it.
Say a store is selling this item for .79¢ a box on special. You would pay $2.37 instead of $3.16 for 4 boxes. You would also get $1 OYNO Coupon for buying those 4 boxes, so you would save in this instance $1.79 by using this 1 coupon.

Savings so far....$5.78 to $7.78 Pair this coupon with a OYNO Deal and it jumps to between $6.78 to $8.78 of savings.


Here's another useful coupon from those inserts.
It's $1 off 1 tube of Colgate Toothpaste. If you have a CVS or Walgreen's Drugstore where you live, they are always running some kind of special where you can use this coupon to get the toothpaste for free or even for less than free. I have gone to these stores in the past and gotten free toothpaste using a coupon or by pairing a coupon with a Register Reward or Extra Care Bucks deal, have gotten the toothpaste free PLUS had the value of the coupon in Free money to spend on something else in the store.

Savings so far....$8.78 to $10.78(with a OYNO Deal for the Kraft).


This is my favorite coupon from the Sunday paper inserts that week. It's a regional coupon for my area, good for $10 off when I spend $50 at my local grocery store. Use this coupon and even if you use no other coupons, you will save 20% on your bill automatically!
If you are going to go buy groceries here anyway, who wouldn't spend $1.50 on a newspaper that would let you save $10 on something you need to buy?

And this $10/50 coupon is good for THREE WEEKS. If you buy multiple newspapers and get multiples of this coupon to use over the course of 3 weeks, that's even more you'll save!

I've used 2 of these $10 off $50 coupons so far. By pairing them with other coupons, store sales and Freebie coupons, I paid $29.40 on $114.63 worth of groceries last week. That's a savings of 75% on my food bill!

And I just got back from Weis a bit ago since I haven't been grocery shopping this week yet. I got 2 more loads of groceries, where I used 2 more of those $10 off $50 coupons. Check out my post on those 2 trips shortly.

So far, I have used the StayFree, Band-aid & Weis coupons from these inserts, for a total straight savings of $14.99. By pairing these coupons with sales, I bought $22.47 worth of items for $1.25.
2x StayFree @$3.99-BOGO Sale & BOGO Q=$0
1x Band-Aid @$4.49-BOGO Sale & $1/1 Q=$1.25
1x $10/50 Weis Coupon=$0

I spent $1.50 on 1 Sunday paper to save $14.99(or $22.47 with sales).

Do you see the savings buying more than 1 Sunday paper will give you?
And this was just using FIVE coupons from the inserts. There are plenty more coupons in there that have potential to save you a good amount of cash.

The next question becomes...."How many Sunday papers do I need to buy?".
That all depends on two things.... 1-the quality of the coupons in a particular week & 2-what do you buy/how many do you buy for?

I always get at least 1 Sunday paper, unless it's a rare week where there are NO Coupon Inserts. I go through the inserts from that 1 paper and decide whether I need more copies of the coupons or not. Some weeks we get few coupons that interest me and I don't buy any more papers. Other weeks, the coupons are high values and for items I regularly buy, so I'll get 10 copies of that paper. Heck, I've even been known to buy 20 Sunday papers when the coupons have been amazing!lolol But that doesn't happen very often....

If you want to build up a stockpile, I'd recommend buying as many Sunday papers as there are members of your household. A family of 3 should buy 3 papers, a family of 4 should buy 4 papers, etc. as a rule of thumb. This should give you a minimum amount of coupons to work with. Buy additional papers if the coupons are usable for you that week. My Newspaper average seems to be 6 per week.
If you keep a Budget, you might want to budget money from your Grocery allotment for buying Sunday papers. It's an expense that can truly save you substantial money.

Sluggy