by JQ Adams

Created on: January 23, 2009

Coupons are supposed to save you money. The idea is a company puts out special coupons offering a discounted price on their product in an effort to entice you to make the purchase.

It used to be a weekly ritual after reading the Sunday paper to quickly grab a pair of scissors and start clipping out the savings. It seems like nowadays it is harder and harder to actually find any savings. Is it even worth it to clip out the coupons anymore? Do I really want to buy 10 cans of pork-n-beans to save a quarter? It seems to be the trend now. The amount of coupon discounts has decreased while the minimum purchase requirement has increased. It seems somewhat to defeat the purpose of saving money. With the new fangled coupons, you actually need to spend more money to save less.

Take a look at most coupons in the recent paper. Instead of saving $1.00 on a bottle of laundry detergent, you now can save $.50 but you must buy two bottles of detergent. Most other product coupons follow suit. It may help if the local stores offer a double coupon day, where all coupons amounts are reduced by twice the amount of the coupon but you may also notice many coupons now have "Do Not Double" printed on them.

Increasing in popularity are the ingenious websites that do the coupon searching for you. The sites provide information on what coupons are available and when to use them. It may save you time and energy to seek out only the coupons that would actually be useful to you instead of sifting through the stacks of you've cut out on your own. Keeping track of where the deals are and when is a good way to save yourself some money. Coupons can be printed right from your home computer. Another alternative to consider is special offers from websites. Often you will find a website or blog that will endorse a product or another website. Sometimes a deal is made between owners to offer a special code or discount for any visitors that are referred over to the site.

For example, Blog A does a special review of Website B's product and provides a direct link to the site with a note to mention code 123XYZ to receive 20% off all merchandise on the site. It really pays to keep your eyes out for such offers and take advantage of any that are relevant for you.

There are still a few good coupons that come along and it is worth it to put them to use before they expire. The most important thing to remember about coupons that will save you the most money you have to remember to bring them to the store with you.

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