I had a friend ask me yesterday how I find all my deals. While this seems like such a basic questions, it's a good one and I thought I'd tip you off to my secrets.
Here's why I want to spend a little time on this topic. At The Coupon Project, I want to be more than just a place you go to read up on the deals. I want to be a resource in helping you see the bigger picture. That's why I focus considerable time explaining the "nuts and bolts" of couponing, explore money-saving related topics, and sharing with you how to set and achieve your financial goals. So in addition to telling you about the deals I find, I aim to help you find them for yourself, too.
That being said, here are the five basic methods I use in finding my deals:
- Reading other couponing/money-saving blogs
- Frequenting my favorite couponing forum, Hotcouponworld
- Putting together my own store scenarios using ads and my coupon binders
- Getting on mailing lists (including email)
- Friends and family
Over the next few days, I will be explaining each of these a little more in hopes of helping you on your road to great savings.
Today I want to touch on couponing blogs. If you are an avid reader of this blog, thank you! I love having you here and will do my best to compile top deals, money-saving advice, and encouragement. But I think you'd be missing out if you weren't aware of some of the other fantastic blogs out there.
The top couponing blogs are updated daily, and many times, will add 5-10 posts per day or more! Because many of these deals are "of the moment," I generally recommend bookmarking a few of your favorites and going through them on a regular basis, if not daily.
What blogs do I personally enjoy and follow? Here are a few of my top picks:
Deal Seeking Mom
Money Saving Mom
Hip2Save
Common Sense with Money
Bargain Briana
An easy way to track these would be to use a service such as Google Reader, which aggregates blogs you select. This means you can get all the blog updates in one easy place and simply scroll through the post headers. Best of all, the service is completely free to use and takes just minutes to set up.
So what sort of posts can you expect to find on these blogs? In general, anything related to saving (and sometimes, making) money, including: coupon matchups to store ads, "hot" online deals, printable coupon alerts, freebies, giveaways, and promotions.
The next time you have a few minutes, pick a couple from my list above and explore them a bit. Check out their blogrolls, too and you might discover additional sites. Each blog has a slightly different flair or focus, so spend some time finding the ones that fit your lifestyle.
In the next few days, I'll work on explaining my other four deal-finding methods. so stay tuned!
