What's with all this hype on the news about coupons?

There has been many news articles recently about coupons and how stores are starting to clamp down on us couponers. While there have been some changes to store policies, there have not been any substantial changes made. Publix recently changed how they view "competitors" and Target changed their view on BOGO sales. Target will no longer allow you to combine a BOGO coupon with a BOGO sale making both items free. Other than these two changes, there has not been any other major change in couponing. The Publix and Target change will actually help to eliminate those "shelf clearers" and help others to be able to get in on the good deals.

Many people, even the media, is contributing this to the show Extreme Couponing.  It seems the show has brought  couponing to the attention of some businesses and they are trying to crack down. While I do like watching the show, I do not agree with all of their antics. Stealing newspapers and purchasing 100 of the same items is a bit too much for me to handle. Unfortunately this has led to some stores limiting how many "like" coupons per transaction. However, this will also help to ensure that other customers get in on the deals as well.

There are some draw backs to the new changes, but lets be honest. How aggravating is it to get to your store and there be NO items left that were on sale? Some of the changes can be beneficial to us that are not trying to wipe a store clean.

So while the media is playing it up that couponing is getting harder to do, just sit back and laugh. The way I see it is, those that were planning on joining our wonderful couponing community and were in it for the wrong reason will now be deterred from doing so! And once this "couponing craze" has passed, so will the media hype and all the policy changes.

Get another email!

Signing up for all these great freebies can cause a whole bunch of unwanted emails. My suggestion is to sign up for a free email address through gmail or yahoo specifically for these deals. This will prevent you from getting spammed to death in your regular email. I check mine from time to time to see if I have gotten any good deals or coupons. Also, I have had a few that I signed up for that the coupon print limit went by your email, not your IP address. This will help you to print more coupons if you have multiple email addresses. Now, this doesn't happen all the time, but occasionally! Also, if you are getting emails that you do not want, you can always scroll down to the bottom of the email and "unsubscribe". By law, they have to give you this option, rather you signed up for it or not!

Per Item vs. Per Transaction

If a coupon states one coupon per purchase, what this means is you can only use one "like" coupon per item. For instance, if I am buying two (2) Frozen Pizza's and I have two (2) $1.00 off coupons, I can use them to purchase the Pizza's. Because it is ONE coupon per item.

If a coupon says only one (1) coupon per transaction, then you can only use one coupon per times through the register. Some people do multiple transactions in order to get around this, that is IF your store will allow you too. Most of the stores that may limit your transactions would be ones that have reward cards, they are better able to track your transactions through their card.