I’m so excited that couponing is beginning to spread and blossom in Idaho! We even have some couponing classes cropping up, and from what I’ve heard, they are excellent classes indeed!

Last Wednesday, Mom24Boys taught a couponing class to twenty-three ladies in her home. (Bow and praise: we’re unworthy.) The night’s events included debunking popular couponing myths, a coupon version of The Price is Right, and a giveaway of 107 dollars worth of groceries. And that was just the fun stuff; the educational aspect of the night included a flyer on beginning couponing, a cost comparison chart between brand names with coupons and Wal-Mart generic brands, and an online session for getting to know PYP.

The night was a huge success, so much so that Mom24Boys is teaching another session next Wednesday. If you’d like to attend or you have a buddy who could use some couponing guidance during these tough economic times, here’s the info:

Place: Contact Mom24Boys for address
Phone: 523-4179
Time: Wed 1/28 at 7 pm

For questions or more information, contact Mom24Boys at the phone number above or via PM.

Do newspaper coupons scare you? Does the thought of all that clipping and filing seem like it’s just not for you?

There’s good news for folks who aren’t big fans of newspaper coupons: you can save lots of money without them. Here are three ways to start saving without using newspaper coupons.

1. Check out the Free After Rebate items at Walgreens and Rite-Aid. Each week, our website posts these stores’ specials, and many times there are items–including free items–that require no coupons at all. Just buy them, fill out the online rebate form, and you’ve already entered the world of grocery savings. You can also check out the free after rebate items by visiting the stores’ own websites to view their rebate offers.

2. Start comparison shopping for your produce and meat items. Even most couponers don’t use coupons on these items, so it’s quickly to get up to speed here. Start browsing PYP’s weekly shopping lists for stores in your state to spot great deals on various types of meat and produce. No coupons required. Just browse and shop.

3. Use printable coupons. Coupons are going digital, and many couponers no longer even get newspaper subscriptions. PYP’s shopping lists include hyperlinks to all the online coupons you’ll need for many of the items on our shopping list, and all you have to do is print, clip and save.

In the current economy, many people are interested in saving money on their groceries, but are intimidated by the expense of getting multiple Sunday papers and the sheer volume of paper that is actually involved. Never fear; these three methods involve no newspapers whatsoever, and will have you up and running toward the savings in no time.

With the explosion in popularity of printable coupons, you’ve no doubt seen the signs in the checkout lane and heard the conversations reminding folks that photocopied coupons are illegal. You may have wondered, however, how cashiers, consumers, and even coupon manufacturers can tell whether coupons are legitimate or photocopied. After all, don’t legitimately printed coupons and photocopied coupons look exactly alike? As a matter of fact, yes, they do. In fact, photocopied coupons look a little too much like legitimately printed coupons.

Here are two legitimately printed coupons. Both were printed on the same day, on the same computer, within seconds of each other. Notice, however, that each coupon has a different identification number (the one I circled in green) which not only identifies the coupon as being unique from other coupons, but also traces it back to the computer from which it was printed.

So this is how you spot legitimately printed coupons: they may all look the same, but each one will bear a unique identification number. If you see several coupons that all bear the same serial number, they were photocopied.

Currently Amazon.com has a bunch of different toy promotions running and many of them are stackable. Here is one sample order…

2 – Star Wars Clone Wars Force Action Lightsaber Anakin $19.99
1 – Monopoly Clone Wars $19.99
2 – Rubik’s Cube Brain Teaser Puzzle with Helpful Hints $5.99
1 – Playskool Magic Tambourine $9.99
1 – Martian Matter Alien Maker Playset – Spaceship $16.99
1 – Mr. Potato Head $5.99

Items: $104.92
Shipping & Handling: $0.00
$10 off -$10.00 *$10 off $50 qualifying toys promo*
Free Game -$19.99 *Buy 2, Get 1 Free select Hasbro games*
Free Toy – $9.99 *Spend $50 select free toy — Tambourine*
Free Toy – $16.99 *Spend $75 select free toy — Martian Matter*
Free Toy – $5.99 *Free Mr. Potato Head wyb select items*
Promotion Applied -$19.99 *Buy 1, Get 1 Free Lightsabers*

Total Before Tax: $21.99

– $15 Cookie Magazine Mail-in Rebate Amazon Toy Promotion

= $6.99 after rebate!

For more information on these promotions check out this thread on PinchingYourPennies.com.

The New Couponer: You’re just beginning to explore couponing, perhaps encouraged by the rising grocery prices and tough economic developments. You may have a friend or neighbor who always seems to be saving a ton of money at the grocery store, and she or he referred you to PYP. You might be feeling a little overwhelmed (don’t worry, we all did!), but you’re excited at the prospect of slashing your grocery bill.

Why You Love PYP: You love the clearly formatted shopping lists, which help you make sense of the many different store promotions that you may not even have known existed, and which may still seem a little confusing. You love the PYP community, which is full of people who are willing and eager to answer your “newbie” questions. You may also like the video tutorials on this blog. Because you may not have been collecting coupons very long, you might enjoy the trading forum where you can trade coupons you do have for those you don’t.

While you’re learning to save on your groceries, you also enjoy the Screaming Deals Online forum, which will also help you to save on categories like gifts, clothes, toys, and books.

Last but not least, enjoy the PYP community! The action, support, and advice here is endless.

What You Bring to PYP: Because PYP is such an active community, we discuss almost everything, so chances are that whatever you’re good at, someone on here would benefit from your experience. We also love your excitement. And of course, eveyone on PYP is always ready to make a new friend. Welcome!

The Organic/Raw Foods Couponer: Most of your family’s diet is comprised of raw foods, and you shop differently from many other couponers. Because you don’t buy a lot of canned or pre-packaged foods, it’s hard for you to stockpile. Instead, you save money by being familiar with several different sources for raw foods, fresh produce, grains, and meats and keeping an eye out for deals wherever and whenever you can find them. You shop by combining several different resources, including local growers, your own garden, farmers’ markets, co-ops, neighbors and family’s gardens, and, particularly during the winter, supermarkets that carry organic or high-quality foods. Although you don’t stockpile a lot of foods, you might still stockpile health and beauty aids and other toiletries.

Why You Love PYP: Because eating raw and organic foods may be more expensive than eating more heavily processed foods, you have to be extra vigilant about your price shopping. You appreciate the fact that PYP has separate price points for organic foods, and you keep an eye out for those bargains on the weekly shopping lists. Because you may be spending generously in the food department, you can really benefit from PYP’s deals on non-consumable grocery items like toiletries and health and beauty aids. You also benefit from PYP’s strong local community, which helps you become familiar with growers, co-ops, produce stands, and farmers’ markets in your area. You enjoy sharing whole foods recipes with others on PYP, and you might frequent the gardening forum, where PYPers share their most time and cost effective tips for growing their own whole foods. Additionally, because your grocery budget may be higher than that of other households, you appreciate PYP’s Screaming Deals Online forum, which allows you to save significantly in other areas of your household budget like clothing, gifts, books, and travel.

What You Bring to PYP: As you become more experienced in combining frugality with fresh foods, you’re able to offer advice and tips to other frugalites who want to incorporate more raw foods in their diets. You know where, how, and when to buy certain fresh foods, and other PYPers appreciate the chance to learn from your experience. You may also be quite knowledgeable in the area of green and organic living, and other PYPers benefit from your ability and willingness to help them learn more about this important area.

The Busy Couponer: You’re carefully trying to balance the value of your dollars with the value of your minutes, and you may not have time to get every single deal. You’re looking for the greatest maximum return on your effort and money, and you’re selective about which deals you’ll pursue and which stores you’ll shop at, based on how much time you’re willing to invest. Maybe you’re a working parent with three little kids, or a SAHP who’s chauffeuring your prodigies to a variety of events, practices, and after-school activities. Either way, your time is worth at least as much as your money, and you need to get the maximum bang out of both.

Why You Love PYP: PYP’s detailed shopping lists let you cherry-pick which one or two stores have the deals that will be most worth your time and effort each week. The star ratings let you know easily what sales are good deals. You also enjoy the PYP discussion forums so that you can find out how well a deal is working or how much stock the store has left before you use your valuable time driving out there. You may enjoy PYP’s trading forums because they let you get the coupons you need with the least amount of effort, and you also like the convenience of the coupon subscriptions PYP has arranged.

Because you’re looking for convenient savings in all areas of your life, you also love the Screaming Deals Online forum, which helps you buy clothing and presents cheaply and efficiently from your computer.

What You Bring to PYP: You typically have a clear couponing focus, and you’ve developed good techniques and methods that help you meet that focus. You often have ideas that help streamline the couponing process, and other couponers benefit from learning about them. You also tend to see the “larger couponing picture,” and you’re a good example of how couponing fits into a balanced life of efficiency and frugality.

No matter what your couponing style, there’s a place for you on PYP!

The Avid Couponer: You love getting amazing discounts at the grocery store, and may even buy a few extra items just for the pleasure of giving things that you got for free to people who need them. You enjoy hitting multiple stores to get the best sales on everything, and you may get a rush from looking at the savings at the bottom of your receipt. Maybe you’re new to couponing and you’ve just discovered the thrill of grabbing an incredible bargain, or maybe you’re running your household on a very tight budget and you need to catch each individual sale in order to stretch your grocery dollars. Either way, you’re willing and ready to hit as many stores as you need to in order to score the best deals. You mail in rebates, you track your gift cards, and you may even be paying for Christmas with your savings and rebate earnings. You are a couponing machine. People call you a coupon queen and honestly, they’re right. Others may even ask you for advice on their own grocery shopping when they see (or hear stories about) your savings and your stockpile.

Why You Love PYP: PYP’s numerous shopping lists allow you to see the best deals all over town, which is great because you’re going to hit most of them. Also, because PYP’s lists are often posted early, you’re able to clip, print, stack, sort, or trade for the many many coupons you’re going to use and be ready for the sale on the first day. You enjoy the PYP couponing grapevine because you love catching a good unadvertised sale, which can often be found only through word-of-mouth. You also use PYP as a reference when your friends come and ask you for advice.

What You Bring to PYP: Excitement! You are enthusiastic, open, and generous with your energy. Veteran couponers love hearing your enthusiasm, and new couponers are encouraged by your savings and your guidance. You are the pulse pumping the blood through PYP. We love you!

One of PYP’s newest and most rapidly growing features is the Financial Support Group forum, affectionately called the FSG. In the FSG, members share their money struggles, goals, ambitions, and successes. Here’s how to find the FSG forum:

1. From the front (or any) page in PYP, click on the “forums” link. You can see it below circled in red.

2. Once you’re in the forums page, scroll down to where you see the One Penny at a Time forum. Click the link, which is circled in red on the screen shot below.

3. From here, you have two options. If you’re new to PYP or you haven’t posted much, click the “new post” button to explain your situation, ask for advice, or tell your story. Please note that posts within this forum are publicly viewable, which means that they can be seen by anyone on the Internet. This is a wonderful place for people who are beginning to turn their finances around to start. You’ll be flooded with encouragement and great advice immediately.

4. Once you’ve made around twenty posts on PYP or in the One Penny at a Time forum, you can ask for the password by sending a private message to Dori. (This is just a small precaution to prevent trolls and spammers from reading details about our members’ financial lives.) After that, you can click on the Financial Support Group forum and enter the password. Voila! You’ve just entered the FSG family, a place where incredible things happen in our members’ financial lives!

I discovered a method that makes my coupon file even more user-friendly. The coupon file is all about fast, easy filing and fast, easy retrieval, but I hadn’t realized that there was a level on which I resisted getting coupons because I had to pull the folders out in order to read the dark letters that were scrawled on the dark files down in the middle of the folder. Often, my eyes had to work through several groups of scribbled-through numbers in order to identify the date.

This new method is much easier on the eyes and on the fingers, since all I have to do is flip lightly through the folders and note the dates that are printed in clearly-contrasting ink in a neat row on the binders.

I’m not suggesting that you go out and buy a labeler just so that you can more easily organize your coupons, but this is a good idea if you already have one or if you’ve been thinking about getting one for other household uses. If you’re looking for a bargain on one, here are three suggestions:

1. Keep your eye on the Screaming Deals Online forum. Great deals on various label makers have been popping up fairly frequenly these days.
2. Go to the ShopLocal and see if label makers are on sale at any stores near you.
3. Go to PriceGrabber.com and search for label makers to find some of the cheapest prices on the Internet. Then come back to PYP’s front page and see if you can find an additional coupon code from the drop-down menu.

Couponing is all about streamlining the process as much as possible. I’ve been surprised at how much this little change has improved my coupon storage and retrieval, and I bet it’ll do the same for you.

Do your friends ever question the amount of time and effort you put into saving money, couponing, bargain hunting, and frugal living? While it is important to be moderate, it helps to remember that the money you save is worth far more than the money you earn. Check it out; you may be surprised at how much per hour you’re really making.

If you can’t view this video in the blog, you can watch it directly on YouTube.

New PYP members often want to jump right into the nitty-gritty of how to use the forums to find the best deals online. This video shows you how to do just that. If you want to view it in higher quality, you can download it here.

If you have trouble viewing the YouTube video in the blog, you can watch it directly on YouTube.

Always use a coupon on the item its intended for. You’ll know what it’s intended for by reading it. Just because a coupon “works” on an item it wasn’t intended for, doesn’t make it valid or ethical to use on that item. If you get a reputation as a dishonest couponer, it will stick with you forever. Also, FYI…Coupon fraud is a felony, not a misdemeanor.

Always honor the guidelines and policies set by your grocery store. Trying to get around set guidelines or limits will hurt you in the long run.

If a coupon says “One per customer” or “one per transaction” then you may only use ONE at a time. Most coupons say “one per purchase” which means you can use one coupon for each item you buy. If you have 5 coupons for Ragu spaghetti sauce, you can purchase 5.

Many people agree it’s ok to remove a peel-off (peelie) coupon from an item and use it on another ELIGIBLE item. Others think its not OK. It’s a personal choice….But most of us agree that it’s rude to remove more than a couple peelies. It can be frustrating to see a whole shelf of items that someone removed the peelies from.

Be reasonable in your expectations of a store. Remember stores don’t get reimbursed for honoring other stores coupons. So one at a time is a good guideline. Don’t expect them to hand over hundreds of dollars in merchandise that they won’t be reimbursed for.

NEVER be rude to a cashier. Always be polite, even if the cashier is clearly wrong, rude to you and/or dumb as a post. This way you can go over his/her head and get the matter resolved, and they will take you seriously because you kept your cool and were polite.

It’s VERY common for newbies to get overzealous and want to get anything and everything they can for free. PLEASE remember that there will be more deals, and you don’t have to get everything on the shelf right now. We’ve all been newbies. Spare yourself the embarrassment you’ll feel later for your “overzealousness.” The worst thing that can happen is for cashiers to start recognizing you for your excessive couponing adventures and talking about you in the break room. These store managers and cashiers can be your best friends or your worst enemies. Make sure they are your friends.

Update: To view this video in high quality, you can download it here. In order to make the screen shots extremely clear, the file size is quite large and may take a whie to download. We’re looking for a more efficient option, but in the mean time, if you start the download and then go eat dinner, you should be able to come back and watch the video.

Do you have a friend (or maybe it’s you) who’s not sure how to navigate Pinching Your Pennies? This series of videos is meant to give you an in-depth look at how to navigate all the different areas of PYP. This video starts by looking at the basic areas that can be accessed through the navigation bar at the top of every page. Future videos will look at how the forums are organized, the types of shopping lists that are available and how to easily print them, and how to use the communications features of PYP, including the chat room and the private message system.

As usual, if you have questions about using PYP, or suggestions for videos on a particular topic, comment here and I’ll put it on my “posts to write for PYP” list.