PennySaverUSA.com Blog – The Best Resource for Online Classifieds, Coupons, and Online Contests!

One of the biggest challenges faced by novice and experienced couponers alike is the tendency to buy something you don’t need, simply because the discount is so tremendous.

Take it from us, not Nike: Just Don’t Do It

This week in Save Money Monday, PennySaverUSA provides three guidelines for how to avoid that common pitfall.

Before we continue, however, we wanted to direct all of our budding grocery store couponers to visit The Realistic Couponer’s site. They have an outstanding seven-step system to help you stick to your budget when using coupons at the grocery store.

While similar in concept to the grocery store system, our coupon guidelines are a bit more general and cover all coupon use.

Organizing your coupons when you are too calm or relaxed is one of the easiest ways to fall into the trap of buying something you don’t need. Your guard will probably be down at these particular times and you are more likely to be attracted by a coupon that offers a great discount for an unnecessary item or service.

If you do your couponing right after paying the bills or setting the budget, you will be less prone to clipping coupons for items and services you don’t need.

Another key pointer is to remain focused at all times on what type of coupon you are seeking. For instance, if you are searching for an oil change, smog check or car care coupon, don’t allow yourself to wander to coupons for cosmetics or furniture.

Our final tip for tuning out the siren song of the unnecessary coupon is to create a strict budget for all of your shopping trips. That way, even if you did fall to the temptation of including irrelevant coupons in your binder, you won’t use them, because you won’t have enough money set aside to buy the item – even with the coupon.

Have any more tips? Please let us know in the comments.

PennySaverUSA’s Save Money Monday coupon blog is back on the scene and we are devoting today’s entry to detailing the differences between a coupon, a daily deal voucher and a sale.

On the surface, a coupon, a daily deal voucher and a sale might appear to be the same. In fact, the distinctions between the three are very important.

A coupon provides a discount for a particular item or service. There are printed coupons, online coupons and mobile coupons. Coupons can range from 25 cents off a box of cereal to $250 off a $1,000 couch.

Printed coupons can be found in publications like the PennySaver and must be brought to a store in order to get the stated discount off the stated product or service.

This is an example of a printable online coupon.

Online coupons come in two forms. Printable online coupons can be found in PennySaverUSA.com and function the same way as printed coupons. E-commerce online coupons, on the other hand, provide a promo code that you can then use when making an online purchase. When you submit the promo code, the stated discount will get subtracted from the price of your online purchase.

Mobile coupons are redeemable from your cell phone and are rapidly growing in popularity. They function the same way as printable coupons, but instead of presenting a printed coupon to the store, you just show them the coupon on the screen of your cell phone. PennySaverUSA has launched the app Cha-Ching (available for both iPhone and Android phones) to provide you a way to use mobile coupons.

While a coupon requires no upfront purchase, a daily deal voucher must be bought. You pay a stated price upfront for the voucher and in return you get whatever the value of the voucher. For example, you pay $5 for a $15 men’s haircut voucher to the local barber shop. You then take that voucher to the local barber and you don’t have to pay for a haircut (aside from the initial $5 outlay to buy the voucher). PennySaverUSA.com now has daily deals available from SaverTime.

A sale is very different from a coupon and a daily deal voucher, because it requires no action. A sale is a discount offered by a merchant on a particular item or service to everyone. A coupon (printed or online) or daily deal voucher is not necessary to obtain the discount. Check out PennySaverUSA.com’s PowerSites directory to find local sales in your area.

Please leave in the comments if you have any further questions about the difference between a coupon, a daily deal voucher and a sale.

Who doesn’t love a good coupon? And these days, who doesn’t love Facebook? Are you thinking what we’re thinking? A combination is in order, like peanut butter and chocolate, Milo and Otis, Harry and Potter… okay, that last one didn’t make sense. Now you can check in on Facebook for a special coupon every day just for being a part of our Facebook family!

Here at PennySaverUSA.com, we are building our community more and more every day, and we thought we should start giving something back to our pals in Facebook-land. Every day of the week, we will be giving out one coupon from across the web to our friends, and we think that you just can’t miss this opportunity! We are also putting up our custom videos and having a lot of fun, so give it a try!

We have a variety of deals and coupons that we want to share with our Facebooks pals; some will be local savings, some will be national, but you have 7 Days a Week to check into Facebook and see what we’re offering up for that day.

So, come over and click LIKE on our Facebook page and you won’t be sorry! www.facebook.com/PennySaverUSA

Also, check on PennysaverUSA’s coupon page to check in on local deals to save you a few bucks.

Here’s a coupon for all the fashionistas. Find the perfect Coach Handbag or Accessory for the summer!

Coach Factory Stores is offering an extra 20% savings on everything at any Coach Factory Stores through Sunday, May 16th.

Printable Coupon | Store Locator