~Points Programs 101~

So if you are like me you have a whole lot of cards in your wallet for points! You collect them and then wonder what you are going to do with them...sooo annoying!

So I will be going over how I have maximized my points so far! I look forward to hearing from others on their tricks and tips too! In todays' post I'll just cover the basics and delve into it further in later posts.

I'm sure you've all heard of some of the most popular points programs:

Airmiles, Aeroplan, Priority Points, Save-On, Shoppers Optimum Points, HBC, and many, many more. My favorite by far is Airmiles. I live in an area where I can get Airmiles from many retailers so it makes the most sense for me. You, of course, will need to evaluate your spending habits and what is available to make the best deal for yourself! In my area I can get Airmiles mostly from Shell and Safeway but I also use a Low Rate BMO Mastercard on which I earn Airmiles for my purchases.

The easiest way to rack up miles is to double dip whenever you can. For instance my Safeway has bonus airmiles specials weekly. They email them into my inbox after I signed up for it and received 100 bonus airmiles. Nice eh? Anyhow as I was saying, they email me deals. So I look them over to see if any are for items I need. If there are then I look for coupons for them to save money. I make my grocery list and estimate what it will cost me. I then go to Safeway and use my Mastercard to purhcase a Gift Card. I give my Safeway card and my Airmiles card and earn both rewards on the purchase of the gift card. Double airmiles though because I paid with my mastercard which earns me airmiles. I then do my shopping and then pay with the gift card and again give my airmiles card and Safeway card getting airmiles again. So on a $100 transaction you would normally receive 5 airmiles from Safeway. On my shopping trip I would easily earn 15 plus any of the bonus specials that I pick out.

One thing to think of course is redemption on the points. Airmiles has a relatively high redemption rate of $0.14 per airmile on average for items. I usually redeem my airmiles for various gift cards. I often redeem them for gift cards that I can trade for free product coupons for on Smart Canucks. There is no cost to me for them and I get the type of benefit that I'm looking for.

Of course you can also earn airmiles by shopping through airmilesshops.ca at many major retailers. It is all online shopping but if you implement some of my tips for online shopping you just might find a whopping deal.

I hope this whetted your appetite for more info on points programs. I want to spend some time putting out all the details that I know on the various programs that are offered. Look forward to more posts coming on this topic. Coming next on Save a Loonie: What is Futura Rewards?

~Coupon Tricks and Tips!!!~

You know how sometimes you watch American TV shows, newscasts etc and see how they use their coupons? You know, where they can triple them, match them, etc? I used to be so jealous of the ways that they can use them down there. (Well to be honest I still am) but now I've learned a few tricks that work in Canada too!

Stacking: Stacking coupons is when you use more then one coupon on a product. For example: I went to purchase diapers today for my son. I of course went when they were on sale for $27.99 at London Drugs. London Drugs allows you to stack. So for my diapers today I used 2 X $5 off coupons, 2 X $4 off coupons, 1 x$3.00 off, and 2 x $2.00 off. They were all different coupons with different bar codes but all valid on the product I was buying. I did not reduce the total to 0, which is another rule. I ended up paying $4.39. $2.99 for the Pampers and $1.40 for the tax. I live in Western Canada and London Drugs is the only one I know of that will allow stacking here. In Eastern Canada I have heard that you can stack coupons at: Pharmaplus, A&P, Petsmart and sometimes at Loblaws chains. I personally cannot verify this so if you have any experience drop me a comment and I'll update this post!

Price Matching: Simply put, price matching is exactly what is says. If you want to purchase something at a certain store then you take a competitor flyer to the store and go to the customer service with it and ask to price match. Some stores call the store with the sale to verify the product and if it is available at the location. It can take some time. There are various reasons for doing this. You may do it so you can coupon stack, so you don't have to drive to the particular store having the sale, to get points or rewards, or to participate in a rebate program.

Mail in Rebates: Many manufacturers offer mail in rebates for their products. Often it's either a merchant Gift card, sometimes it is a cheque. Walmart partners with alot of companies to offer rebate offers. The trick with them is to use coupons to achieve the rebate. For example: Walmart had a rebate offer on Pampers Diapers and Wipes last fall. You had to purhcase a case of each and you would get a $15 Walmart Gift card back. So I used coupons on my purchase, the highest value ones I could find, and maximized my rebate. As long as you follow the terms outlined on the form. With these it is smart to copy your receipt and the form and keep them until you receive the rebate back. Make sure you read all the term of the offer and the processing time. Then sit back and wait till the cards come in! I like to plan out my purchases for the gift cards so they don't get wasted. I just got quite a few back from a couple of offers in the last few weeks and I used them to stock up on some new towels and a crock pot. They were items I didn't need right now but would be needing soon. They didn't fit in my budget so I got creative and waited till my gift cards came in.

Rainchecks: Many retailers will offer a raincheck on an item that they have advertised on sale if it is out of stock. Take advantage of these and ask for some if you know you can use it and/or have coupons coming in for the product. Alot of times they are only good for a limited time so make sure you read it carefully. I just go to the customer service desk for mine.

Buy One Get One Free Offers: Or Buy 2,3, or more offers. You can use more then one coupon on these no matter where you shop. So you use the B0G0 coupon plus another coupon for the other product and maximize your savings. I do this most often with frozen foods. Safeway often has a buy 3 for $8 deal on frozen items I buy. I have a coupon for save $4 when you buy any 3. Plus I have coupons for $0.50 off that product. So I end up paying $2.50 for my three products instead of $8.00, a savings of $5.50!!! This also works with points programs. If you have a coupon for a Buy one Get one and an item is on for bonus points at your favorite store if you buy two, use this coupon (plus another if you have one) and really maximize your savings.

I hope you found this info useful! I have lots more information headed your way. Just getting it drafted up right now and hopefully I will have a more steady stream coming your way! Up next: How to Online Shop and Save!!!

~Organize Your Coupons~

The biggest key to being efficient to using coupons is being organized. Simply put, if you have to fumble with them at the cash desk while there are three people in line and a cashier glaring at you, you won't want to do it. Some people use envelopes, some use accordian folders, I use a mini photo album. I spent $2.06 and bought this small photo album at Walmart:



I sorted the pages into categories that I liked and used a black jiffy marker to write them on the page:

Cereals, Snacks, Meat, Dairy, Fresh Foods, Canned goods, Soups, Baby Pampers & Wipes, Baby Foods, Baby Toiletries, Cleaning...etc

This is what mine looks like:



There were more pages then I had categories for so I thought I would take it a step forward and put in pages for individual stores. When I sit down for the week and plan out our meals I make a grocery list at the same time using the sale flyers. Then I pull out the coupons I'll be using for that store and put it in their page so that when I go shopping there I have them at my fingertips. Here is a picture of them:



Then because I'm an organizing freak, I put in pages for my grocery list and to do list. This way I can set my photo book open on top of my purse and see my grocery list without having to keep track of a piece of paper. This way, it stays in place and you don't have to search for it!



For my last page I have a page for coupons to be used today. I put my coupons there if I need them for any store other then the ones I have specified. So another words, if I'm going to Safeway I will put my coupons for that store in the page for Safeway but if I'm going to Giant Tiger or say McDonalds and have a coupon I'll be using I put them in the last page.



My book is bursting at the seams so I started another photo album where I keep just my FPCs (Free Product Coupons)or higher value coupons.

So this my method of organization and it works well for me. Let me know how you keep yours organized.

~Maximize Your Loonie!~

How do you stretch your loonie to it's fullest potential? Think of those areas in your life that are the easiest in which to over spend. For most of us, it's on food and entertainment. You can use simple strategies to maximize how much you get from your money. First thing I will tackle today is by using coupons.

As discussed in yesterdays' post you want to collect every coupon you can, stock up on the ones you will use and not use them just because you have them.

The simplest way to maximize your loonie is by using coupons in conjunciton with sales at your local stores. Every week I go through the flyers and make a list of where I can shop for the best price on items I need with the coupons I have. Once you do this for a while you will learn that stores go through a cycle with products of when they go on sale. Once you learn this cylce you stock up.

How I do this efficiently is I have a pantry list of items that I keep in my purse notebook. These are items that either I am running low on or we use frequently enough that I could purchase extra if it were a good deal. I hardly ever run out of anything using this method because I always buy when it is on a good sale. Once I have enough of it I remove it from my list. One thing I stock up on is Tide. I use Tide to wash my clothes. Expensive some might argue, why not use no name brand. I could but I like Tide. So I maximize my loonie by waiting until Tide goes on sale and collecting coupons to use and then stocking up. By doing this I haven't paid over $2.99 for a 32 load jug of Tide in 6 months. I do the same with Bounce, and Downy.

Many people use a price book to track the prices at different stores during different seasons. I do this to a lesser extent, tracking the sale prices and location for key items I buy. After some time you will know the prices. A simple search on the internet will find you resources of information in regards to times of the year when items are on sale.

My next post will cover the organization of coupons. Check back for those details in a few days!

~Coupons - Love em or Hate em!~

I have long held a love/hate relationship with coupons. In my early years out of college I would clip the occasional coupon and it would languish in the bottom of my purse until one day I would go surfing for a piece of paper to write something on and it would come out in a crumpled mess. They never got used. Back then, they cost ME money. You see, if you spend TIME clipping coupons but never use them it costs you. It's simple, your time is valuable.

Now that I'm a mother and a wife and living in a slow, scary economic time I've learned to LOVE the coupon. I've learned ways in which to efficiently and effectively use them.

Here in Canada we don't have the benefit of all the coupon websites and offers that they have in the United States, but they are getting better. Manufacturers' use coupons to gain the consumer. They start out with an aggressive coupon to get you to buy their product. Once that coupon expires the company will often offer another one, but for less off. Sometimes it's half, sometimes less. I assume it depends on how well the product is doing on the market. Sometimes a company uses coupons to improve their image. For example: Maple Leaf foods this year had a recall on thousands of food items; they now have a fairly aggressive coupon strategy out to recapture the average consumer confidence.

Now that you understand why we have coupons let's get down to the dos and don't of coupons!

Do...stock up on as many of a coupon that you can use before their expiry. For example, there is a specific type of cream that I like for my coffee. They have a coupon that expires March 31. So when I first discovered this coupon I collected enough of them to last me until expiry. To do this I figured out how many of the item I would be using in say a week, in this case it was 1 per week. Then I figured out how many weeks were left before the expiry. I got enough of them to cover each week up to the date of expiry plus a couple of extra. My cream, you see, has a couple of week expiry date on it so I can buy a few towards the end of March and they will still be good for a few weeks.

Don't...buy something just because you have a coupon. If you don't use it or if it isn't something you NEED, don't buy it. Just because you have a coupon and it will cost you less is not a good reason to buy it. The only time I veto this rule is if it makes the item FREE. In which case you can either keep it for yourself or donate it to a shelter or food bank.

Do...keep yourself organized Set up a specific day of the week to organize, clip and sort your coupons. Also create a method for organizing them. I personally use mini photo albums that I purchased from Walmart for $2 for mine. I have 2 that I use. I will cover exactly how I organize mine in a later post. Keep all your items necessary in the same area. Some people like to highlight the expiry date on their coupons. I sort my coupons right then and there into what I'll use and what I can get rid of.

Do pick up every coupon you see in the store, whether you will use it or not. Why you might ask? Especially when I said, don't use a coupon just because you have it?!? Well you will need to have extra coupons to use in trades and trains. I will cover these in another post as well! Just keep em, and organize them!

Do...buy on sale with coupons. In order to effectively coupon you need to be a smart shopper. Combining sales and club card discounts with your coupons is the way to go. I will have another post going over this in the future.

Do...take your coupons EVERYWHERE you go. Yes, everywhere. You will never know when you need one. You don't have to use them every time but if you are somewhere and you see something that is on a great sale and you have a coupon for it, it makes sense to have them with you.

Don't be embarrassed or ashamed to use coupons. Every dollar you save counts. I use a simple excel spreadsheet to keep track of my savings. When I see the total add up I know why I do it. If you have a cashier being rude or otherwise making you feel uncomfortable for using coupons just tell them like it is. It is your money and your time. They are being paid for their time to be there serving you and the company will be reimbursed from the manufacturer. Just remember YOUR personal reasons for using that coupon. It's no one else's business. Nope, not even that guy in line behind you rolling his eyes!

So that is the basics of coupons. There is lots more to cover! In tomorrows post I will discuss how to use a coupon to it's maximum potential!