Introduction

This is one in a series of money-saving tips. For more information, please visit my home page.

Buying Online

This money-saving tip is courtesy of Roger, my nephew. Have you ever bought something online? If so, when you went to the checkout was there a place to enter a coupon or discount code? Didn't you wonder where you could get that code so you too could get a discount? Well, try going to naughtycodes.com. They may have what you're looking for. If not, you can also try currentcodes.com or retailmenot.com.

Store Coupons

I'm sure all of you use coupons that you clip out of the newspaper or that arrive in the mail. But there are lots of coupons available online as well. I decided to do a little reasearch into the world of online coupons and here is what I found.


If you do a search on "coupons" you will find tons of sites that offer them. But, in many cases I found that the site was just an affiliate of a larger site. In some cases the site was an affiliate of an affiliate! Affiliates, in simple terms, are sites that earn money by referring people to other sites. Here is some information on three of the coupon sites I researched.


coupons.com - This site allows you to print your own coupons once you have downloaded and installed their coupon-printing software. Key in your ZIP code and available coupons will be described. You simply check the ones you want on each page and then tell it to print them. You can also, optionally, sign up for email alerts. This site was very easy to use.


coupons.smartsource.com - This site also allows you to print your own coupons. It too requires coupon-printing software. But the installation is easy as it just installs the printing module in your web browser. As with the other site you simply check the ones you want on each page and then tell it to print them. You can also, optionally, sign up for email alerts. This site was also very easy to use.


thecouponclippers.com - This site allows you to order coupons from their inventory for a small charge. $1.00 coupons typically have a "handling fee" of $.10 to $.15 each. They clip out coupons from a variety of sources and mail them to you. In addition to the handling fee there is also an "administrative fee" of $.50 per order and a minimum order of $3.00. Payment can be made using a credit or debit card or Paypal. Some of the coupons have a minimum order quantity of five while "hot" coupons have no minimum requirements. In spite of the charges involved it is possible to save a lot of money because of their large inventory.