Coupon Class Week 3 (2/1/10)

Welcome! We’re now in week 3 of the ten week couponing course. Go here to learn more about the free couponing course. Also, make sure to brush up on the week 2 assignment.

This week we’re going to get over $64 in items at Walgreens for less than $5 using the premise of coupon match-ups. We’ve talked about this before, but let’s refresh:

What are Coupon Match Ups?

Week 3 is all about starting the more complex process of matching up coupons or “coupon match-ups”. Coupon match-ups are when you pair up different types of coupons and use them together.

There are two main types of coupons:

• manufacturer’s coupons
• store coupons

Manufacturer’s coupons are the coupons that come in the Sunday newspapers, or perhaps in a magazine you are reading, or inside the box of a product you buy. They are made by the manufacturer of the product and say so on the coupon.

Store coupons are coupons that a particular store puts out. Walgreens and CVS have weekly fliers with weekly deals and coupons you can use for that week.

One of the keys to saving big money and getting hundreds in free toiletries and household items every month is in matching up manufacturer’s coupons with store deals. When you learn how to do this, you can start getting amazing amounts of freebies each week! This is what we will be doing this week – doing coupon match ups at CVS to get free items and even make money on items!

At this point in the coupon course we are still not cutting any coupons, so these are all easy to print off the internet coupons for this week. However, I want you to start saving the Sunday papers you received every week and put them in a box or drawer as I explained in the Introduction. We will start using them next week!

Walgreens uses a system called Register Rewards, which are similar to ECBs at CVS. Register Rewards print out when you make your purchases and the cashier gives them to you when you get your receipt. You can use them on your next transaction as if they were cash. However, if you use a register reward to buy something, you do NOT get change back.

The biggest difference between a register reward and an ECB is that a register reward cannot be used for the same product – or the same brand. So, let’s say you do a deal where get $2 in Register Rewards for buying Nivea lotion. You cannot then use that same Register Reward to buy more Nivea. Instead, you’d have to use it to buy another product. It can be confusing, but we’ll start simple this week.

Also make sure to stock up on printable coupons below!

At Walgreens this week you can get the following things FREE (and a couple for only $1 dollar!):

Week 3 Assignment

That’s it!

After making your purchases, makes sure to ail in any necessary mail-in rebates based on which items you purchased and wait to receive those checks back! Congratulations!  If you want to see more deals this week to try your hand at some other combinations, make sure to check out the full list that Budget Saving Mom compiled at Saving Money Plan.