Printable Coupons: To Print or Not to Print!

There are so many coupons out there to print.  Some have a small number of prints available before the coupon disappears and some last a little longer. Manufacturers do this to limit the amount of money they are losing by giving out the coupons.

But, how in the world do you know which ones to print immediately and which ones to wait on??  Let me share with you what I do.

1- The higher the value of the coupon, the quicker I am to print it off. For example, if you know that Huggies usually sends out $1.50 coupons, seeing a $3.00 off or even a $3.50 off coupon is a “high-value” coupon for them.  Or likewise, Vlasic Pickles usually puts out $.55 off coupons.  So, if I saw anything that was higher than that, I would print it immediately.

If you are new to couponing, it may take you a few months to realize what coupons are considered “normal” vs “high-value”, but you will get there.  And, I will always let you know whether or not to hurry and print it out.

2- Other coupons you will want to print out immediately are the coupons we don’t normally see.  A good example of this would be toy coupons that pop up from Hasbro or Playskool.

3- With the wonderful world of Facebook, word travels fast- actually too fast sometimes.  So things go quicker than normal with everyone spreading the word.  If you ever see a coupon on facebook, manufacturers are usually giving out higher than normal coupons to entice you to “like” their page.  And, that doesn’t bother me one bit!  I’ll like you if you give me a killer coupon!  Sometimes they are even free!  But, like everything else, there is a limit to how many they give out.  So, you have to be quick on the draw.

Printable coupons can also reset whenever they please.  So, at the beginning of the month websites like Coupons.com will either reset and let you print additional copies of the coupon. Or, they will take the coupon away entirely.  That is why you will see me reminding you to print off any and all coupons that your family may be using at the end of the month- before that happens.

A few things to keep in mind:

I like to check Coupons.com, Smartsource.com and Redplum.com a couple times during the week since new coupons are being added all of the time.  Since we all have different products our families like and use, everyone should take a few seconds and do that at least once a week.

Ask yourself these questions when you see a coupon,

1-“Does our family use this product on a regular basis?” 

2-“Is this a high enough valued coupon to make this item free or extremely cheap- and if it is, would our family use it?” 

3- Think about your stockpile, “Will you use this product before it expires?”  “Do you already have enough in your stockpile to last you?”

If the answer is Yes to any of the questions, then print them off.  You may not end up using all of the coupons you print.  But nothing is worse than waiting to print a coupon and then realizing it reached its printing limit. Hopefully this helps some of you who get overwhelmed with the amount of printable coupons that get released every day and how to choose which ones to print and which ones to pass on!

**With all of the printing you are doing, make sure to change your printer settings to only print in black and white- NOT grayscale.  The barcode will not scan in grayscale. That way, you can save money on ink.  I personally cannot remember the last time I purchased any printer ink color other than black.  Stores will take black and white coupons, so don’t waste your ink trying to print it in color.