Do Your Own "Free" Shopping

Here's the secret (well, not so secret--I've known about it at least a decade, but have given over to a better system)--it's called Baseball Couponing.

Here's how you run the bases.

FIRST BASE: Just using coupons alone as you need the item. You save a little.

SECOND BASE: Combining coupons with store sales. You save about half.

THIRD BASE: Combining coupons, store sales, and rebates. You save 3/4 to all.

HOME RUN: Combining store sales, coupons, rebates, and some sort of cash-back program (whether it's the store's, your credit card's, or some third-party program). You DEFINITELY get money back.

However, there are always drawbacks to the game, such as mismatched coupon and store sale timing, short expiration dates on coupons, coupon and store sale buying restrictions, a non-existent rebate, or a non-existent cash-back program.

Now that everyone's going coupon-crazy lately, expect the store sales and coupons to be few, far between, and full of junk nobody wants. The coupon expiration dates will be shorter, and the coupon values will go down to the point of near-worthlessness. The retailers are going to use this to their advantage, and get their expiring goods out of the stores faster, jack up the prices right before a sale, and let manufacturers and cash-back programs take any losses from discounting.

In reality, when you brush aside all these games, there is a free lunch only to be found from food demonstrators in warehouse stores--nowhere else. The closest you can get is the lowest price per unit you can find for the largest quantity you can find, so you make fewer repeat purchases, until you figure out a way to stop purchasing altogether, and create your own stuff...or change how you live and eat so you don't need the products being hawked in the grocery stores and drugstores in the FIRST place!

It's not what you save (in discounts), it's what you don't spend to begin with. Couponers need that little slip of paper to justify their shopaholic-ness, and extreme couponers need therapy more than the rest--and not RETAIL therapy!